Business

By Gonzalo López Martí @LopezMartiMiami

• Last week my column dealt with a quite controversial fact in our line of business: getting paid properly is becoming increasingly difficult.
• I pointed out how some traits of our Latin Catholic culture can make it even harder.
• This week, I’ll address other issues hindering the full development of Latinos in the business world: nepotism and its cousin paternalism.
• Latin business people tend to treat their employees and clients with a “daddy knows best” attitude.

It’s no secret that digital media is a fast-paced, constantly evolving marketplace, which for salespeople can even be a daunting roadblock when it comes time to close a deal. That’s why, in my opinion, education is one of the single most important tools that a salesperson should have in his or her toolkit.

Univision Enterprises, Televisa and Scholastic announced a licensing agreement to manufacture, distribute and market bilingual children’s books inspired by “El Chavo Del Ocho,” the highly popular comedy series that airs in the U.S. and in Spanish-speaking countries worldwide.

For the second consecutive year Mexican beer brand Corona is the most valuable brand in Latin America, according to the BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Latin American Brands 2014 ranking.

Combined Insurance and an ACE Group company, announced tthe launch of its Hispanic market initiative. The initiative will initially focus on both recruiting new bilingual agents and sales in three key markets – Texas, California, and Florida.

Steadily improving economic fundamentals should moderately boost holiday sales in the stores and online this year, according to Deloitte’s annual holiday sales forecast.

We are a society that measures everything we do, and size truly does matter.

The rapid development of digital advertising technology will help the global advertising market grow 5.3% in 2014, up from 3.9% in 2013. Growth will remain strong over the next two years, staying at 5.3% in 2015 and rising to 5.9% in 2016.

By Gonzalo López Martí @LopezMartiMiami

• Anyone who’s read a business magazine in America in the last 15 years has seen it.
• He’s been running direct response ads for decades now.
• Gary Karrass, the art of negotiation.
• Or something like it.
• You’ve bumped into his his neatly combed over coif & his smirky mug looking at you from the page.
• Dude is a lecturer or some such.
• He sells courses on-line and on tape about the aforementioned art.
• His headline slash call2action slash clincher is simply great:
• “In business as in life you don’t get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.”

Total advertising expenditures increased 0.7 percent in the second quarter of 2014 to $35.6 billion, according to data released today by Kantar Media, the leading provider of strategic advertising and marketing information. During the first six months of 2014 ad spending grew 3.1 percent.

The Industrial Internet of Things represents a tremendous opportunity for innovative companies looking to unlock new revenue sources by packaging their products with new digital services, says Accenture in its new report, “Driving Unconventional Growth through the Industrial Internet of Things.”

CEOs cite interacting and connecting more with customers as their top priority; Concerns that products and services will quickly lose relevancy.
In a recent study by KPMG LLP, the U.S. audit, tax and advisory firm, chief executives indicated their companies will be significantly more customer-focused over the next three years to more effectively deliver value and advance their brands.

By Gonzalo López Martí@LopezMartiMiami

• Apple launched the Apple Watch with big fanfare last week.
• In the meantime it is still wiping off the egg on its face after some media outlet recently reported about its dismal diversity track record.
• It just so happens that the kingdom of the late Steve Jobs rarely hired individuals who are not male and white for its managerial ranks.
• Apparently a few Asian males had managed to percolate into the upper middle echelons of its payroll but that’s about it.
• Tim Cook, CEO of the Cupertino giant, had to apologize publicly for his employer’s human resources inclinations.
• Ipso facto, the company put its HR & PR machinery in overdrive and announced a string of multicultural, gender unbiased recruitments.

Clear Channel announced that it has become iHeartMedia, reflecting the company’s success in becoming a one-of-a-kind multi-platform media company with unparalleled reach and impact.

This is historical on so many levels for Latin American and US-based Hispanic agencies alike.  It reaffirms the benefit of being a little fish in a big pond, driving global depth through cultural empathy.    By Gabriela Alcantara-Diaz, Founder, President of G ADMarketing Communication, Inc.

The project is a move to transform La Opinión into a multimedia brand that will serve the Hispanic community of California through all platforms – from print to mobile – with new and revamped content offerings, an improved look and a greatly enhanced reader experience for this iconic brand.

Warc has revealed the top brands and advertisers – brand owners – from the Warc 100 database, which tracks performance in effectiveness and strategy competitions.

In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase “the medium is the message” to suggest that the medium in which a message or communication is delivered many times influences or overshadows the message itself. Thus, the fact that a politician’s speech is broadcast on television has a bigger impact on how an audience receives it than the message of the speech itself.

Carat published its updated forecasts for worldwide advertising expenditure in 2014 and 2015, with market optimism demonstrated through strong global and regional forecasts.

Is America truly ready for total marketing? Or is the formula just too simple, resting on a flawed narrative that a racial divide no longer exists?  By David Morse, CEO, New American Dimensions LLC