Business

Campbell Soup Company has appointed Monica Diaz Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• You know what they say: in Hollywood nobody knows anything.
• The line alludes to the inability of even the most experienced moviemakers to know in advance whether a movie will be a box office hit.
• The history of Tinseltown is littered with flops with the best talent and the fattest budgets, the highest screening scores and even the best reviews.
• The art & craft of making movies, not unlike that of making ads, is an obscure art for odd people.

The ANA Alliance for Inclusive & Multicultural Marketing (AIMM) today announced a set of key priorities for the coming year that are specifically designed to help marketers increase their focus on multicultural marketing to help drive overall corporate growth.

The pace of change in today’s corporate world is astonishing. A quick glance at the most highly valued companies of 2017 compared to those in 1990 will make obvious how rapidly things have changed on Wall Street and board rooms across the nation. In 1990, the most highly valued companies in the U.S. included mostly petroleum, automotive and prior generation electronics whereas today, companies like Apple, Comcast, Tesla, Facebook, Google and Amazon have quickly taken prominent positions as employers, innovators and highly sought-after blue chip stocks. 

By César M Melgoza, Founder & CEO of Geoscape

At the start of 2017, the new administration and Congress set tax reform as one of their highest priorities. As work on that began in earnest, it became clear that the reduction in the full deductibility of advertising was once again in play.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• We shop to fill the void of our existential tedium.
• We live to shop and we shop to live.
• We shop, therefore we are.
• Shop, return, repeat.

A new fiscal year is in sight and you still have no measurable Hispanic or multicultural budget. You’ve shown the C-suite the purchasing power numbers, the demographic trends, and the generational trends to no avail. Well, you’re not alone; 49% of respondents in a recent CMO Council study admitted they do not have a multicultural marketing initiative in place.

Marketing in Spanish in the U.S. may not seem like an innovation from our purview in 2017, but when the first recognized full service Hispanic advertising agency in the United States opened up in 1962 it was a paradigm-shifting marketing event. It was one of the first times national brands and companies marketed their goods and services in the U.S. using a language other than English. Again, upon retrospect this doesn’t seem like a significant innovation when we look at the immigration patterns and changing demographics at the time but for the courageous few that had the foresight and business savvy at the time to look at this shifting tide and create the business case, it was an innovation that birthed a multibillion dollar industry, Hispanic Advertising.  by Mario Carrasco

2016 may very well be remembered as the year that America’s racial divide became undone. The ubiquity of shootings of unarmed black men.  The ascent of Black Lives Matter, not to mention Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter.  The candidacy of Donald J. Trump and its nativist, prejudiced rhetoric.  Pick any random evening, turn on the nightly news, and you are sure to see evidence that, especially in racial terms, the country seems to be coming apart at the seams.  By David Morse – New America Dimensions

Massive cybersecurity breaches have become almost commonplace, regularly grabbing headlines that alarm consumers and leaders. But for all of the attention such incidents have attracted in recent years, many organizations worldwide still struggle to comprehend and manage emerging cyber risks in an increasingly complex digital society. As our reliance on data and interconnectivity swells, developing resilience to withstand cyber shocks—that is, large-scale events with cascading disruptive consequences—has never been more important.

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc / LMMiami.com

• The way we package, ship and display goods will be disrupted dramatically in the coming years.
• If your job depends on the good old tried & true ways of selling CPGs to the masses, well, get ready for some upheaval.
• Some more upheaval, that is.
• The good news: shopping is not going anywhere.
• Shopping is freedom.
• Shopping is therapy.
• Shopping is our God-given right.

Brighter spirits may fuel a diverse mix of spending on experiences, self-gifting and gifts for others this holiday shopping season, according to Deloitte’s 32nd Annual Holiday Survey of consumer spending intentions and trends.

Bain & Company is forecasting 3.5% to 3.9% growth in US retail sales this holiday season, slightly above last year’s 3.5% growth and well above the 10-year average of 2.6%. Our optimism stems from positive macroeconomic indicators across the board, including rising wages, increasing employment and a strong stock market. We also see above-average growth in housing-related expenditures.  By Aaron Cheris, Darrell Rigby and Suzanne Tager

Over the last few months I’ve had the opportunity to speak with close to 50  marketers, friends, clients and former colleagues. I didn’t have an agenda or a pitch, just a conversation about their career paths and how they decided on their professions.  The conversation eventually made its way into a discussion of relationships they had with various consultants, advisors, and agencies.  Just for kicks, I built a word cloud from my notes and saw five themes emerge from what they wanted from a vendor.

Emilio Azcárraga Jean is leaving Grupo Televisa after being at the helm of the media company for 20 years.

While scientists have argued over the question of whether or not race is a real or artificial concept, complicating the issue, and perhaps lending credence to the idea that race is a societal construct, is that the federal government, in the form of the U.S. Census, has continually changed its system of racial categorization.  By David Morse – New America Dimensions

Technology-driven structural change is afoot: driverless cars,  robots at work, AI fueled investing, learning, decision-making.  Millennials are taking charge as the largest generation in the workforce. These phenomena are no longer far out on the horizon but are here today.

Univision Communications Inc. (UCI) announced the promotions of Ronald Estrada to Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility & Community Empowerment and Stephen Keppel to Vice President, Social Impact & General Manager of Rise Up, effective immediately.

A few years ago, we made fun of the intended marriage of Publicis and Omnicom, which eventually fell through because neither Paris nor New York was prepared to compromise about where the new headquarters was going to be and who was going to lead the newly formed company. We laughed at “Publicom” or “Omnicis.” Silly guys, for falling out over such petty challenges.  by Maarten Albarda

With statistics showing a continual increase in the Hispanic population, the media industry needs to take the next step and build on the data to better reflect the findings within its employment ranks, Lisa Torres, president of multicultural for Publicis Media, said at the Hispanic TV Summit Thursday (Oct. 19).  By: R. Thomas Umstead / Courtesy of MultiChannel News and Broadcasting & Cable