Business

When asked last month to serve as Chair of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City, I thought, “Hell no, that is not what I do. I work to build and empower!” As the words went from brain to mouth, I was reminded of the importance of this institution and what it represents for millions of Puerto Ricans and our Diaspora.   by Lorraine Cortés Vázquez

Over the years, I’ve been asked by numerous entertainment clients to provide “advertising value equivalencies” (AVEs) for my agency’s PR results. AVEs are what your editorial coverage would have cost if it were advertising space or time—basically, they’re a way to put a rough (very rough) dollar figure on the value of PR, which can sometimes seem intangible to clients used to looking exclusively at the bottom line.

Johnson & Johnson has named Ernesto Quinteros, recently of Belkin International, as its chief design officer.  He will join the company May 5, 2014, and report to Sandi Peterson, group worldwide chairman.

The study, entitled “Stepping up to the challenge: How CMOs can start to close the aspirational gap,” is based on findings from face-to-face conversations with more than 500 CMOs from 56 countries and 19 industries worldwide. Conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value (IBV), the study reveals that 94 percent of CMOs believe advanced analytics will play a significant role in helping them reach their goals. However, an increased number of CMOs say their organizations are underprepared to capitalize on the data explosion – 82 percent compared to 71 percent three years before.

With less than 4 four weeks left, President Obama, in a Latino Town Hall address, led an “all-out” campaign targeted to Hispanics and addressing their specific issues and barriers that have kept them from enrolling in ACA. The communications push brought together celebrities, national & local leaders, community groups, and “real” people, on the three largest Spanish-language media outlets, Univision, Telemundo and impreMedia, live webcast and social media. The question remains whether this late campaign adjustment comes with enough time to incite Hispanics to action.  By Santiago Solutions Group

The Voice of Hispanic Marketing announced that Dominican-American singer-songwriter Prince Royce will join a distinguished roster of newsmakers at AHAA’s 2014 “Thinking Under the Influence” Conference, taking place at the Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel in Miami from April 28-30. Hosted by Ruben Leyva, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Latin Region, Spain & Portugal at Sony Music, this insightful interview explores the creative process with this fascinating young artist. 

A former media buyer recently quoted in a previous column said that 95% of ad sellers aren’t trusted. As someone who has been on every side of advertising, I’m forced to disagree: that 95% seems low.

The highly connected and global 21st-century workforce is here and, according to the Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2014 report, organizations are not prepared to respond to the challenges it represents.

Veo, a new app for the U.S. Hispanic audience, provides a direct channel for major brands to engage with thousands of consumers.

Entravision Communications Corporation announced that Jeffery A. Liberman, Chief Operating Officer at Entravision was honored with the 2014 Medallas de Cortez Award for Broadcaster of the Year.  

Austin Specialty Foods is leading the mission to bring authentic “real Mexican beer,” defined as brewed and owned by Mexicans rather than multi-national European beer, back to the U.S. market starting with the launch of the Company’s premium authentic brewed-in-Mexico beer brands, Mexicali Cerveza and Day of the Dead Craft Beer, in Austin.

This past October, eight executives from companies that are leaders in data analytics got together to share perspectives on their biggest challenges. All were the most senior executives with data-analytics responsibility in their companies, which included AIG, American Express, Samsung Mobile, Siemens Healthcare, TD Bank, and Wal-Mart Stores. Their backgrounds varied, with chief information officers, a chief data officer, a chief marketing officer, a chief risk officer, and a chief science officer all represented. We had seeded the discussion by asking each of them in advance about the burning issues they were facing.

Zimmerman Advertising announced that it has been selected by Dunkin’ Donuts for its national local store marketing (LSM) business. The agency will support more than 7,000 Dunkin’ Donuts locations by working with the brand’s powerful LSMNow platform to create a variety of materials to help drive franchisee profitability from coast-to-coast, including Dunkin’ Donuts’ future locations in California.

Congressman Dave Camp (R-MI), chair of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, released draft tax reform legislation which includes a provision that will, if enacted, severely impact the economy and lead to significant job loss. This provision, which would be phased-in for tax years beginning before 2018, would allow advertisers to deduct only 50 percent of all advertising expenses in the first year and amortize the remaining 50 percent over the next 10 years. Since the inception of the Tax Code in 1913, advertising has been treated as a fully tax deductible ordinary and necessary business expense.

The video landscape is in a time of major flux, with digital viewing on the rise, advertisers seeking integrated campaigns and yet TV networks still holding most of the cards. But with the emergence of new technologies—and new measurement capabilities—video advertising is poised for change. Last year, Nielsen and Simulmedia brought together a core group of researchers, marketers and C-suite executives from all sides of the media industry to discuss the future of video advertising.

Getting consistency right also requires the attention of top leadership. That’s because by using a variety of channels and triggering more and more interactions with companies as they seek to meet discrete needs, customers create clusters of interactions that make their individual interactions less important than their cumulative experience. This customer journey can span all elements of a company and include everything from buying a product to actually using it, having issues with a product that require resolution, or simply making the decision to use a service or product for the first time.

Everybody’s Phone Company, Inc. announced that its 2014 advertising and pre-paid home phone service packages will target the Hispanic market, which is Texas’ fastest growing demographic.

The overall verdict: The internet has been a plus for society and an especially good thing for individual users

The advertising industry is in a state of existential crisis, thanks to technology; analytics; migrating, fickle and/or distracted eyeballs; Netflix and other on-demand services; piracy; privacy; attribution; the decline of print as a medium; stagnating television audience numbers; and the fact that we can finally start to understand which 50% of our ad spend is wasted.

As a headline in today’s Wall Street Journaldeclares,“For Some Retailers, Success in Simply Staying Alive.” The lede does it even better: “For some of the country’s weakest retailers, less red is the new black.”