Ad Agency

For an entire period within digital, there has been a serious move to organize around and get smart on multicultural marketing. On the agency side and internally within brand organizations — we organized for it, designated directors of it — and certainly started to buy and sell media with multicultural audiences in mind. New businesses emerged: media ad and publisher networks, creative production enterprises, niche agencies. Larger agencies feeling the gap acquired boutique specialists and deemed them multicultural divisions. Thought leadership and programming reflected the focus on understanding diverse markets — panels, roundtables, workshops and speakers everywhere took on the topic of “multicultural marketing.

We don’t need the headlines to tell us that ad spending is down. Most of us are uncertain about how the economic downturn will affect our client relationships and, of course, our revenue.

One thing is certain: The call for accountability on all ad spending is clear. Measurability and proof of ROI are no longer expected just of online advertising. Agencies that specialize in traditional TV, radio and print also must prove that what they’re doing is working to keep the ad dollars flowing.

Where there used to be a wall between ads that build brand and those that drive response, today there is an edict to prove return on investment for every ad dollar spent. While perhaps precipitated by a troubled economy, this shift to an ROI-positive advertising approach is exactly what the ad industry needs.

Tracy Decker Executive VP Media Director for Global Hue will depart the agency early next week.Industry insider speculate that Ms. Decker will be joining Siboney USA in New York as VP Media Director to replace outgoing Media Director Marcelo Salup that joined the agency last year. Ms. Decker’s departure comes on the heels of the highly publicized departure of Global Hue Latino President Linda de Jesus-Cutler.

d expósito & Partners, LLC and Novartis Consumer Health, Inc. (formerly a client of CMS Partners, a company that was acquired by d expósito & Partners, LLC) have parted ways.

VPE Public Relations launched commUNITY, its Latino Social Media specialty area to broaden clients’ online Hispanic marketing platforms.

Omnicom just added procurement officers to their media buying division. We looked for some notes on the web and found the following in the HP Communities blog below. Interesting.

Does Media Strategy and Buying Belong in Procurement?

By Scott Berg – Procurement Media Strategy HP Hewlett Packard Media Planning (2007)

Nobox Marketing Group has captured the Internet industry’s most prestigious global award – a Webby.

Halim Trujillo has departed his post as the Managing Director of Multicultural efforts at Mindshare in Chicago. He joined Mindshare at the beginning of 2007.

Industry insiders speculate he will be looking to continue his career in the US Hispanic and Multicultural marketplace.

PACO Communications was retained by AeroMexico to create and execute integrated campaigns including strategy development, creative, media, and interactive initiatives targeted to general market and Hispanic audiences.