Agency

The Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA), the leading non-profit organization founded to advance the careers of Hispanics in the field of communications, celebrated an evening of excellence at its 26th Annual PRemio Awards and Scholarships Gala held Thursday, October 7, 2010 in Los Angeles, CA. The organization honored Hispanic industry leaders, the best in Hispanic public relations campaigns and awarded scholarships to student entering the communications field.

Available at HispanicPRpro.com

Hispanic children are tomorrow’s workers and taxpayers. Investing in their education and well-being is investing in America’s future. The Census’s most recent data, however, reveal that of all racial and ethnic groups, Latinos experienced the largest one-year increase in poverty in 2009. The number of Hispanic families with children in poverty has been exacerbated by the current recession and disproportionately high unemployment among Latino workers who are concentrated in the hard-hit industries, such as construction.

Global ad spend increased 12.8 percent* in the first six months of 2010 when compared with the same period in 2009 and totaled 238 billion USD—driven by booming emerging markets and a return to double-digit ad spending in automotive, durables, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), financial services, and telecommunications.

Lapiz took top honors at Ad Age’s 12th Annual Hispanic Creative Advertising Awards winning Best of Show for the radio spot “Batalla” promoting Procter & Gamble’s Bounty brand. LatinWorks joined Lapiz as the most awarded agencies with LatinWorks picking up seven awards in four categories for its Cine Las Americas work alone. The winners were announced at an awards gala held Friday night, October 8th in Miami, at the end of the AHAA Annual Conference.

Lopez Negrete Communications, Inc. was honored by the Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA) with a PRemio Award on behalf of long-held client MASECA. The 2010 MASECA Bilingual Spelling Bee won the 2010 PRemio Award for the Best Campaign of the Year in the Public Education category.

Available at HispanicPRpro.com

The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) had its 11th annual conference this week. Its theme was “Natural Selection,” which is meant to emphasize how Hispanic agencies need to evolve. Pitbull may have showed how.

The equity investment and extension of the Programming License Agreement (“PLA”) by Televisa in and for Univision reflects a number of major market, strategic and credit opportunities for both companies, as well as its stockholders, creditors and financial sponsors.

Goya Foods, an institution among Latin Americans, is poised to launch several initiatives to commemorate its 75th Anniversary throughout 2011. Founded by Spanish immigrants in 1936 as a modest storefront in lower Manhattan, Goya has earned the distinction of being the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the U.S. To date, the company has expanded operations to 15 facilities throughout the country, the Caribbean and Europe, employs nearly 3,500 and distributes over 1,600 authentic Latin American food products.

During some downtime Wednesday at the AHAA conference, volunteers from both AHAA and Arbitron traveled to Morningside elementary school in Miami and read books to children in English and Spanish, and gave away free books and school supplies. This program is an extension of the Arbitron Children’s Reading Corner.

According to industry insiders, Guitar Center has named San Antonio based Creative Civilization as their Hispanic AOR.