Business

It seems that the recent hoopla with the end of “Sabado Gigante” has sent ripples across the grid with many alluding that this, in fact, is “the beginning of the end for Univision,” and while I agree that in a way it does symbolize the end of an era/format that is no longer reflective of today’s USH audience, I still don’t hear the fat lady singing. In fact, this is a day they knew would eventually arrive.  Univision Will Be Just Fine Says Alma’s Media Director, Jorge Mercado.

The La Costeña and Jumex brands have partnered with Captura Group to launch  Mexicorico.com, a new bilingual digital platform showcasing recipes and tips focused on the true essence of Mexican cuisine and food products.

There’s a war going on, but you may not have noticed it.  It’s a subtle war that’s about to heat up substantially over the next few years: the war for talent!

Strategic and organizational factors are what separate successful big-company innovators from the rest of the field.  It’s no secret: innovation is difficult for well-established companies. By and large, they are better executors than innovators, and most succeed less through game-changing creativity than by optimizing their existing businesses.

NBCUniversal’s Hispanic Enterprises and Content announced the appointment of Ana Salas Siegel to General Counsel. 

Pulpo announced that it has promoted Oscar Padilla to Senior Vice President of Marketing, Digital Media & Insights. Padilla was previously the Vice President of Strategy for Entravision’s Luminar Insights, a “big data” analytics and modeling provider uniquely focused on delivering insights on U.S. Latino consumers. Padilla succeeds María Lopez-Knowles, who was recently promoted to Chief Marketing Officer of Entravision.

By Gonzalo López Martí  –  LMMIAMI.COM

• Another year, another award season.
• Last week we saw a cool display of fresh thinking at the USH Idea Awards hosted by Círculo Creativo & AHAA.
• The bar is getting visibly higher.
• Biased as it may sound, it was refreshing too to see how the Hispanic Account Planning Excelencia Awards  (HAPE) and the Hispanic Media Planning Excelencia Awards (HMPE) are steadily gaining traction, attention and mileage (as you might know, HAPE & HMPE are an initiative of this publication).
• A tip of the hat to the Zubi gang for their copious HAPE & HMPE harvest.
• Let’s not forget that Zubi is one of the last staunchly independent full-service agencies left in this ever-consolidating wasteland of an industry.
• It is too a healthy reminder of the fact that this business exceeds the siren songs, smoke & mirrors emanating from the creative department.
• In any case, creative award shows are a necessary & useful professional lab to broaden the psychological and factual horizons of our output as a self-proclaimed pop culture-shaping line of business.

The business of media has changed so much over the past few years that the notion of media agencies being “agents” of advertisers may no longer apply. That’s the message that Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of WPP’s Group M and arguably the dean of the global media industry, delivered to a room full of advertising executives at the ANA’s Financial Management Conference in Phoenix this week.

AT&T has completed its acquisition of companies operating under the name Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings, Inc., including spectrum licenses, network assets, retail stores and subscribers in Mexico, for $1.875 billion, less approximately $427 million of net debt and other adjustments.

Call it a mobile majority. At the start of 2015, 39 of the top 50 digital news websites have more traffic to their sites and associated applications coming from mobile devices than from desktop computers, according to Pew Research Center’s analysis of comScore data.

The top 500 U.S. marketers are allocating about 8.4 percent of their overall ad spend to Hispanic dedicated efforts, this is up from 5.5 percent in 2010, according to a new report from AHAA: the voice of Hispanic marketing. Over the past five years, the top 500 advertisers boosted their spending in Hispanic targeted media by 63 percent or $2.7 billion from $4.3 billion in 2010 to $7.1 billion. The top 500 advertisers boosted their average spending from $9 million in Hispanic targeted media in 2010 to $14 million now.

Imagine a grocery store where you can receive personal recommendations and offers the moment you step in the store, where checkout takes seconds and you can pay for groceries without ever taking out your wallet. Sound far-fetched? It’s closer than you think.

Sprint announced the appointment of Roger Solé in a dual role: senior vice president for the Hispanic market and senior vice president of Innovation.

By Gonzalo López Martí  –  LMMIAMI.COM

• If you don’t like bawdy analogies & explicit turns of phrase or if you have a distaste for all things Kardashian-ralated , you might want to stop reading here.
• Unfortunately, I could not find a sanitized way to describe some of the thinking below.
• Let’s see.
• Foreseeing the social media scenario coming our way a few years ago, Jon Bond, founder & partner of legendary 90s agency Kirshenbaum & Bond coined this phrase: “In the future, marketing will be like sex: only losers will have to pay for it.”

Digital advertising revenues in the U.S. rose to an all-time high of $49.5 billion in 2014, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report for the full-year, released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and prepared by PwC US. This figure represents a 16 percent increase over 2013’s record-setting total of $42.8 billion – and marks the fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth for the industry. The report additionally shows that 2014’s fourth quarter numbers reached $14.2 billion, a 17 percent uptick from $12.1 billion in the final quarter of 2014.

There’s no stopping the music industry’s digital transformation, based on recent research. According to data from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), digital music revenues worldwide rose nearly 7% last year to hit $6.85 billion, tying physical sales in share for the first time, at 46% each. The remaining 8% was from performance rights and synchronization.

First it was 8-track tapes, then cassettes, then compact discs and now, it’s digital. And for a long time, it looked like digital auditory advancements would ultimately kill off vinyl–perhaps the most potent, transcendent and game-changing form of music content discovery to date.

For those of you who may have been buried under a rock the last week or so, the Internet saw the premieres of “Daredevil” on Netflix, the “Game Of Thrones”’ season opener and trailers for “Batman vs. Superman,” “Fantastic Four,” “Ant-Man” and the most amazing, awe-inspiring trailer of them all: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”  I have never watched so much online video and then read about what I’d just watched in forums and blogs as I did last week!

By Gonzalo López Martí   –  LMMIAMI.COM

• According to The Brookings Institution, Cuba is clearly trying to lure foreign investment.
• It might be yet another political maneuver by the Communist Party to buy time.
• However, this time it’s different.
• The party is over.
• The octogenarians will go soon.
• Duh.
• The conference “Oportunidades en Cuba” held recently in New York City and organized, among others, by the Wharton Business School attracted the presence of 240 business people.

The U.S. Hispanic population is growing exponentially compared to non-Hispanics, and the group’s overall restaurant visits outpaced population growth, reports The NPD Group. Last year Hispanics’ per capita visits to restaurants and other foodservice outlets increased by 4 percent compared to a 1 percent decline in visits by non-Hispanics, according to NPD’s CREST Hispanic foodservice market research.