Agency

I have two young daughters at home who love to play with blocks. My four-year-old has learned the art of the pyramid. She knows that if she builds a strong foundation, she can add blocks to her tower and make it taller and taller. My one-year-old has not yet learned this lesson. She’ll try and stack block after block onto each other without any sort of stable beginning. She tries and she tries, but her towers continually fall down.

Credit One Bank announced the appointment of Augusto Esclusa as vice president of multi-cultural marketing. In his current role, Esclusa will be responsible for creating and implementing marketing communication programs for the U.S. Hispanic market, as well as overseeing other ethnic marketing initiatives within the company. He will report directly to Sam Dommer, Executive Vice-President.

Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS) announced that Renán Almendáres Coello, a charismatic host on Los Angeles’ KLAX 97.9 La Raza, is packing his bags, preparing his agenda and bringing his “Tropa Loca” to Washington D.C. on June 18th to lead the caravan for “Dreams Across America”.

The National Association of Hispanic Publications Inc., (NAHP, Inc.) announced the selection of Association Management Group as the trusted firm to take over the daily management of their organization. NAHP, Inc. will transition management effective immediately with a contract start date of July 2007. Moving from a stand-alone association to an association management company model enables NAHP, Inc. to turn over day-to-day operational activities to AMG association experts, allowing the volunteer leadership to focus on the important issues of members and the growth of the association.

Consumers have been “unwitting recipients” to what is a growing number of publicly announced food-related issues of safety and health. Headlines of food recalls, from spinach to chicken to peanut butter to green onions to pet food, have unfortunately become more routine and anticipated. In fact, eight in ten adults (79%) are aware of the occurrence of food recalls in the United States.

Moreover, consumers are concerned about the incidence of recalls among manufacturers and suppliers of food and pet food products. More than four in five (86%) mentioned at least some concern with three in ten (29%) indicating that these recalls are a serious concern for them.

Either way, success or failure for new products is tied directly to Insight. An effective new product effort always begins and ends with the consumer.

Marketers and advertisers who are looking for product placement to become a substitute for traditional advertising need to be selective in how they use placements since not all product placements are equal, according to a just-released analysis of BIGresearch’s Simultaneous Media Survey. Over 15,000 consumers participated in the latest bi-annual survey.

I decided to write this as a result of a conversation I had with a client of mine who, like many others I’ve talked to, was growing desperate and impatient with a colleague of hers in Latin America. As most multinational corporations do, her company has offices in just about every Latin American country and dealings between U.S. workers and local, in-country workers is something that happens frequently. These dealings are usually far from smooth. Americans complain that Latin Americans just go around in circles when asked a direct question- “I just get spin from them, no answers” my client said. Conversely, Latin Americans complain that Americans are too succinct, too impersonal, and too impatient.

Chase has introduced Rapid Cash, an easy new way to send money to Mexico for free.

Kellogg Company announced that it is undertaking two major initiatives that further strengthen its commitment to meeting consumers’ health and nutrition needs by adjusting what and how the company markets to children and through new front-of-pack nutrition labeling.

Radio personality Eddie “Piolin” Sotelo will hand deliver over one million letters signed by U.S. citizens and/or legal residents in support of the passage of a fair and just immigration reform bill this year to bi-partisan members of Congress. Piolin’s “Por la Reforma Migratoria con Piolin” campaign marks the first time that a letter writing campaign has generated such a large number of letters in support of immigration reform.

Miami-based Del Cueto Media Group (DMG) has been assigned all strategic media planning and buying responsibilities for all of New York-based Reynardus & Moya Advertising accounts: Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Schering-Plough, Wyeth, ITT Technical Schools, The Hispanic Federation and Prestaciones Universales.

DMG will work closely with Zenith Media on the strategic media planning efforts for Schering-Plough’s Hispanic targeted accounts assigned to Reynardus & Moya.

Sprint Nextel will debut its first TV commercial with celebrated driver Juan Pablo Montoya on June 18. As the premier sponsor of the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series, Sprint Nextel brings the sport of NASCAR closer to Hispanic consumers and uses the sport’s intensity to demonstrate the speed of Nextel’s products.