AIM grows and Newman-Carrasco joins team.

Last month, Alternative & Innovative Marketing (aka “AIM”) celebrated its 11th year in business. During that time, founders Jeff Symon and Annette Monagas have successfully expanded the brand and realized their vision of creating an exciting “new breed” industry position. “In the multicultural marketing space, there is not really a company that provides business strategy with integrated marketing solutions,” says Symon. “We are solving business problems and offering creative solutions by putting the best minds in all aspects of business strategy, marketing and communications at the table at the same time.”

Taking the “new breed” vision from dream to reality is already producing positive results. AIM has won two out of two of the last Request for Proposals (RFP) in which they participated, winning Campbell’s and AAA of Northern California, Nevada and Utah. In fact, as an agency to Sony and Johnson & Johnson, AIM is working with three of the five top power brands as defined by the AlixPartners Brand Power Index.

The second aspect of AIM’s success is a commitment to attract and retain senior level talent who, in addition to having specific expertise in a variety of disciplines, all share a passion for and professional experience with integrated marketing. In the role of vice president, business strategy & client service, AIM clients work directly with former P&G and Coca-Cola executive Kathryn Martinez Taylor who, along with Symon, leads the AIM business strategy focus and client service team. Tim Blazer, a former Accenture consultant, is key to the results-oriented process in his role as Director of Research and Analytics.

The two newest members of the AIM team complement Symon’s strategic expansion of the AIM integrated marketing leadership team, with a focus on creative excellence. Pursuing an idea that began at an ANA Multicultural meeting several years prior, AIM reached out to respected Hispanic advertising agency industry veteran Rochelle Newman-Carrasco. “There is a creative environment and an energy at AIM that I wanted to be a part of,” said Newman-Carrasco when asked about having her sixteen year old U.S. Hispanic advertising agency, Enlace Communications, become an integral part of AIM’s vibrant solutions-oriented vision. Newman-Carrasco and the Enlace team will become part of AIM and anchor AIM’s Los Angeles presence.

“I was raised on integrated marketing in the U.S. Hispanic market. You couldn’t just advertise and forget about what was going on in sales, distribution or product development. It is all interconnected,” asserts Newman-Carrasco who has joined AIM as Chief Branding & Insights Strategist. “I spoke to AIM clients and they all said very similar things about the power and importance of AIM’s business strategy approach. They are producing tangible and measurable results. I saw an opportunity to deepen AIM’s ability to connect the business cases and highly analytical work with meaningful creative approaches rooted in a respect for branding and insights.”

Symon says that Newman-Carrasco “Has earned a reputation of respect because of the number of ‘firsts’ she has achieved as a U.S. Hispanic marketing pioneer, sought after speaker and educator.” Ms. Newman-Carrasco has led award winning creative teams during her tenure as President of Grey Advertising’s L.A. based Hispanic division, as well as, in her role as CEO of Enlace Communications, Inc. which was incubated in and served as the Hispanic advertising agency arm of Chiat/Day. As part of AIM’s brand reinvention, she worked with Symon to conduct a search for a dynamic Executive Creative Director. This led them to award winning creative, Rafael Ramírez, whose background includes prominent roles at McCann Erickson, Leo Burnett and Publicis.

A vital voice in the integrated marketing process, vice president, media services Sonia Gutierrez-Carstensen is focused on growing an already solid media discipline within the organization. She is charged not only with keeping up with new and traditional media advances, but with anticipating the media changes that are part of the dynamic of a New America. Sonia’s background, which started over 24 years ago in Hispanic media buying, is an impressive blend of client and agency side media and multicultural marketing experience.

Rounding out AIM’s ability to fully integrate and execute “below, above and beyond the line” solutions, are Robert Gonzalez, AIM’s vice president, retail & internal operations and Kristi Capurso, vice president, experiential marketing & promotions. Mr. Gonzalez was the former director of retail marketing for Omnicom’s promotional giant USM&P. Ms. Capurso comes to AIM from the Anthony Robbins Co. where she pioneered new distribution channels for Tony Robbins’ peak performance events. Prior to that, she held the vice president, operations post at integrated event marketing and promotions agency, Marketration, working on clients that included Wal-Mart, P&G, Unilever, PepsiCo and others.