Agency

Reflecting broad changes in their social and economic status, women around the world have been migrating more in recent decades and have thus constituted an increasing share of migrant populations almost everywhere. But the U.S. has defied this global trend, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of data from the U.S, Census Bureau and the United Nations. Women have made up ever larger shares of legal immigrants to the United States in recent years, as they have elsewhere.

Miller Brewing Company announced the selection of three new agencies to work on Hispanic creative and promotional marketing initiatives, reaffirming the company’s commitment and investment in the Hispanic market. The agencies, Miami-based Creative On Demand and La Comunidad, as well as Chicago-based Frankel, join MarketVision of San Antonio as agencies charged with producing impactful Hispanic programming for Miller Brewing Company and its brands. Previously, the Bravo Group handle account duties.

Online banking is holding steady as a mainstream Internet activity, growing along with Internet use generally, though not accelerating as have some other forms of online activities. Fully 43% of Internet users, or about 63 million American adults, bank online.

Prudential Financial, Inc. has introduced two thought-provoking multi-cultural ads. Referred to as “This Much” and “Happy Birthday,” the television commercials capture family activities that take place in households across America and show how life has little ways of reminding families of the importance of having life insurance protection.

A day after Universal McCann guru Robert Coen lowered his projections for 2006 U.S. ad spending, Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch joined him in a reduction–becoming the third influential forecaster to do so at mid-year.

Merrill Lynch decreased its projections to 5.1 percent growth after forecasting that U.S. ad spending would increase at a 5.3 percent rate. Coen downgraded his estimates from an initial 5.8 percent to 5.6 percent ($286.4 billion), partly due to softness in cable television–also a factor in Merrill Lynch’s revised forecast.

A few weeks ago, at the 2006 Innovative Marketing Conference–produced by Corante and Columbia Business School–I attended a panel discussion on the “changing face of advertising,” led by consultant Joseph Jaffe. Considering the conference theme was innovation, I had to ask a question of the illustrious panel reflecting my own experience working in the cutting edge of marketing and media: Why the heck are advertising and marketing agencies so often so late to invest in or experiment with new technologies and emerging media, while the marketers and clients demonstrate increasing interest and tendency to pursue them directly?