Agency

Increased reliance on credit cards as a way to build a credit history exposes Latino consumers to financial predators and accumulation of debt, according to the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), which released a transcript of a roundtable session from the 2006 NCLR Annual Conference, A Conversation on Latino Credit Card Use. The discussion shed light on the growing number of Latino consumers who rely on credit cards as a way to supplement their income and to build credit.

According to Ad Age, the review is back on. FCB Draft has been fired after winning the account in the review and not allowed back into the new review.

How does this affect the US Hispanic market and Puerto Rico review? Well, we just do not know yet.

Crown Imports LLC announced that it has named Casanova Pendrill Integrated Hispanic Communications of Costa Mesa, Calif., as its Hispanic agency of record for the company’s three principal brands: Corona Extra, Corona Light, and Modelo Especial. The Agency will handle integrated duties including strategic planning, creative development, production, media buying, promotions and public relations. Billings are not being disclosed.

One of the media Industry’s most colorful and influential client-side marketing executives, Wal-Mart’s Julie Roehm, is out after less than a year on the job. Roehm, who previously shook up the media world proposing the creation of a “Nasdaq” like trading system for buying media while a DaimlerChrysler executive, leaves Wal-Mart just two months after leading Wal-Mart’s advertising account review.

Amid continued growth in portable MP3 player ownership and steady sales of PC-based individual song downloads, recently launched mobile music services offered by many of the major wireless carriers have given American music consumers yet another acquisition option to consider. Recent research released by global market research organization Ipsos in the quarterly digital music tracking program TEMPO reveal that while the mobile music category is still in its infancy, Americans are experimenting with this method of music acquisition in increasing numbers.

Total advertising expenditures in the first nine months of 2006 increased 4.0 percent to $108.4 billion as compared to the prior year period, according to data released today by TNS Media Intelligence, the leading provider of strategic advertising and marketing information. Total ad spending during the third quarter of 2006 was up by 3.8 percent versus 2005.

U.S. Hispanic ad agencies kept up their double-digit growth in 2006 as they lured first-time Hispanic advertisers into the market, expanded their offerings in areas such as digital, and continued to go beyond Spanish-dominant Hispanics to target English speakers and even vie for some general-market assignments. by Laurel Wentz / Advertising Age.

In what is expected to be a relatively moderate year of overall ad spending growth, online advertising budgets will surge at roughly seven times the rate of the general media marketplace, one of the world’s leading ad industry forecasters predicts in its most recent outlook.