Marketing

With “the big game” coming up, it’s certainly no secret that big events are often tentpole strategies for major consumer marketing companies. From music and fashion to sports and food, large-scale events give marketers the chance to connect with consumers across various touchpoints and align with their most acute passions.  Smart marketers know that communicating with Hispanic consumers through their passions and culture will lead to brand success, and events are an ideal platform for deep engagement.  By Roberto Ruiz / Univision Insights

No, I did not watch the Super Bowl. I have actually never, ever watched the Super Bowl. To help you understand why the Super Bowl is just a cultural challenge too far for me as a Johnny Foreigner, I refer to John Oliver’s brilliant explanation on David Letterman’s show last week.

Brands have long stood for consistency……a dependable consumer experience driven by a business model that draws efficiency from repetition, streamlining and mass production.

Native Advertising spending is set to substantially increase as marketers rapidly enable the strategy. Sixty-three percent of marketers are planning to spend more on native advertising over the next year according to the ANA’s (Association of National Advertisers) 2015 survey report “Advertising Is Going Native.”

A few years back I along with some colleagues were contracted by the Coca Cola Retailing Research Council of North America to help the council tackle what had become a critical issue among U.S. food retailers: how to successfully market and merchandise to ethnic consumers. The result was the actionable “Grow With America Best Practices in Ethnic Marketing and Merchandising.”  By Terry Soto, Author and CEO, About Marketing Solutions, Inc.

Today’s consumer packaged goods firms need the agility to redirect investment into growth-driving initiatives if they are to remain competitive amid volatile market conditions.

Now that we’ve settled back into our routines and our own personal New Year’s resolutions have fallen by the wayside, we’d like to suggest a new resolution to adopt: Get more nuanced about marketing to Millennials.

U.S. companies are struggling to keep pace with their customers’ “always on” nature and greater use of digital channels, according to new research from Accenture. As a result, the “Switching Economy” – the potential revenue up for grabs in the U.S. market due to changes in consumer spending patterns and switching rates – has swelled to $1.6 trillion, a 29 percent increase since 2010.

A global study sponsored by Teradata Corp., the big data analytics and marketing applications company, revealed an apparent disconnect between how chief executive officers (CEOs) see the current status and benefits of data initiatives and how lower-level managers see them. This and other disparities impede success and imperil the competitive advantage companies hope to realize.  

Every business leader knows that it is easier to grow sales by engaging existing customers than acquiring new ones. And yet, as apparel brands currently focus on driving Back-to-School and Fall Season sales in a highly competitive landscape, they keep missing opportunities to build deeper relationships with Hispanics, a large and growing fashion-focused segment.

Think back to your own teen years. Maybe it was not long ago. Maybe it was decades ago. What did you love when you were young? Cars? Video games? Movies? Dancing? Sports? Some of you probably liked some of those things but there is one thing pretty much every teen loves and that’s music. Music holds a special place in everyone’s heart and memory. A song from a long ago summer can bring back memories in a way few other things can match. Listening to and loving music is part and parcel of being a teen.

Amid their interest in millennials, marketers look to the 19 million-plus US college students as an audience worth courting. After all, it is a mostly millennial subset that already deploys considerable spending power and (with degree in hand) will be poised to outearn and outspend noncollege millennials for decades to come, according to a new eMarketer report, “US College Students 101: Updating Fundamental Facts About This Diverse, Digital Cohort.”

Titled “Marketing Data Technology: Cutting Through the Complexity,” the paper features insights from more than 50 executive-level thought leaders, representing all segments of the advertising, marketing, media, and technology industries. These stakeholders agree that the rapid rise of programmatic advertising has created additional pressure on marketers to make audience data actionable – compelling them to leverage numerous marketing automation solutions while they search for the ideal mix.

One of the weird dichotomies in today’s media world is that marketers spend a lot of time on the category whose actual impact on business results is not proven or at best questionable, while spending a lot less time on the area taking up the largest chunk of their advertising spend, with a far better track record of actually reaching consumers.

2014 was the year Total Market took the multicultural marketing world by storm. Agencies changed their mission statements to include this relatively new term, events capitalized on the buzz through rebranding of events to a more Total Market feel, and many weighed in on the meaning of Total Market and whether it will be a lasting trend or not.  By Mario Xavier Carrasco – Online Research Director/Managing Partner – ThinkNow Research

Welcome to the first episode of, #TotalMarketTalk, a new Digital Series created by NGLC and NGL Media exclusively for HispanicAd.com.  Hosted by industry thought leader, David Chitel, the show is intended to shine a light on the hottest topics impacting Latino media, marketing and entertainment in today’s world.  Conducted via Google+ Video Hangout, monthly episodes will feature one or more guests ranging from marketing and agency executives to celebrities, entrepreneurs and beyond.

I recently found my copy of the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I remembered it being an insightful, easy read and ended up bring it along to re-read it over the holidays while on vacation. Little did I know that in doing so now, over 15 years since I first read it, I would find great applications for strategy and marketing—especially in the Multicultural space.  By Bessie Ramirez, Managing Partner, About Marketing Solutions, Inc.

However, despite native advertising’s ascent, there is unequal penetration in the marketplace.

Now it’s brand marketers’ turn to go all in on native, as advertisers large and small are rushing to launch true native ad campaigns.  As they do, they know that to effectively succeed, their own content needs to take center stage.  Content creation coupled with content distribution is what publishers do best. As brands embrace native, they must (and some already do) think like publishers.

This time of year everyone comes out with lists of the biggest trends of the past year or bold predictions for the upcoming one. However, you can often forego bold predictions by paying close attention and adapting to big changes taking place right before our eyes. Using this lens, here are eight seismic changes to the Hispanic market that occurred in 2014, with huge implications for how to engage Hispanics in 2015 and beyond.  By Jose Villa / Sensis