Agency

Among increasing consumer interest in personal financial management, new research from Ipsos Insight shows that less than one-fifth of Americans know about leading financial brands, such as Bank of America, Fidelity, Allstate, Merrill Lynch, Metlife, Prudential Financial, and New York Life. Further, women lag behind their male counterparts: an average of only one in six American women is familiar with major financial services brands, even though women have improved financial independency.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, (AHF) the nation’s largest AIDS group and a direct provider of HIV/AIDS medical care to thousands of AIDS patients in the US, Africa, Central America and Asia, criticized Pfizer, Inc., the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, for contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases, by promoting unsafe sex in recent print advertisements for their erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra.

The U.S. Census Bureau projected the Jan. 1, 2006, population will be 297,821,175 up 2,713,518 or 0.9 percent from New Year’s Day 2005.

This blog is a different take on an article I co-authored and published in 2003 in the California Management Review, called “Developing Productive Customer in Emerging Markets”. The theme here is one of identifying ad hoc cultural bridge practices that produce economic value and at the same time bridge a value that customers feel are in conflict.

A careful look at how companies are spending to target Hispanics through Spanish language media (SLM) reveals some pretty interesting things.

The Conference Board Help-Wanted Advertising Index – a key measure of job offerings in major newspapers across America – edged up one point in November. The Index now stands at 39, up from 38 last month. It was 36 one year ago.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, which had rebounded in November, improved further in December. The Index now stands at 103.6 (1985=100), up from 98.3 in November. The Present Situation Index surged to 121.5 from 113.2. The Expectations Index increased to 91.6 from 88.4 last month.

Teens will spend $159 billion this year according to The TRU Study, the nation’s premier teen marketing and lifestyle survey published by Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU).

An inside look at current and future trends in cross-border retailing, including the impacts of peso swings and increased border security, is the focus of a January conference in San Antonio.

Masterfoods USA has assigned the Hispanic AOR responsibilities to Dallas based Cultura.

Have you ever had the feeling you were being watched?

We all watch movies. We come to idolize the characters we watch; we admire their style or attitude, and want to relate to their struggles and success. Fortunately for marketers, Hispanics love movies more than any other ethnic group. Hispanics account for an estimated 20% of movie-ticket sales; some say that it’s as high as 50% for an opening weekend in Los Angeles. Although Hispanics have the population numbers and the movie attendance numbers in their favor, their presence on celluloid and selection of film content are not even considerably close.

This interagency report explores trends in the material well-being of the nation’s population from 1981 to 2002. The measures used are intended as indicators of a household’s standard of living, such as computers, microwave ovens and videocassette recorders.

Light trucks and utility vehicles and gasoline, are typically the most valuable shipments detailed in this survey. It includes other data for manufactured products ranging from airplanes to zippers for the years 2003 and 2004.

Will manufacturers’ capital expenditures reverse a three-year slide? Is the manufacturing workforce diminishing? This survey detailing manufacturing activity includes employment and payroll, number of production workers and wages, cost of materials, value added by manufacturers, value of shipments, total capital expenditures and other measures of manufacturing.