IAB Announces Winners Of The ‘2005 Los Pioneros’ Award.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), together with the IAB Hispanic Committee today announced a group of ten Hispanic advertising leaders as the winners of the 2005 “Los Pioneros” Award (English translation: “The Pioneers”).

The objective of the “Los Pioneros” campaign is to honor those forward-thinking marketers who have paved the way for Hispanic Advertising in the Online medium and who have successfully incorporated Interactive in their advertising and marketing plans.

Over the summer, the IAB Hispanic Committee launched an interactive campaign encouraging agencies, marketers, and media organizations to nominate peers as Los Pioneros, considering each nominee’s impact and insight on the future of the Hispanic market. The IAB’s Hispanic Committee reviewed nominations, and winners were selected based on specific criteria that included innovation, creativity, and risk-taking. Winners of the “Los Pioneros” Award are:

• Eugenio Bryan, HispanicAd.com and AdNotas.com
• Alberto Ferrer, The Vidal Partnership
• Anne Howard, La Agencia de Orci
• Jorge Mercado, accentmarketing
• Gilbert Monge, Century 21
• Debra Nason, Bromley Internlik
• John Santiago, Media 8
• Marla Skiko, Tapestry
• Paul Suskey, Media 8
• Lee Vann, Captura Group

“The Los Pioneros Award is an excellent indicator of how the Hispanic advertising industry has embraced online as an essential component of their marketing mix,” said Greg Stuart, CEO and President of the IAB. “We are confident that we will see the emergence of new Hispanic Interactive pioneers for many years to come.” The winners will be part of a testimonial campaign that is set to launch in 2006 by the IAB’s agencies of record – Lápiz, Starcom IP, and Tapestry. The objective of the campaign is to demonstrate how Hispanic marketers effectively use Online and help drive additional advertisers and their agencies to increase the use of interactive in their marketing plans.

“Los Pioneros illustrate just how innovative and advanced Hispanic advertising has become,” mentioned Peter Blacker, Chair of the IAB’s Hispanic Committee and Senior Vice President of Digital Media at Telemundo. “We look forward to the next phase of this campaign when we will showcase their success stories.”

“We are very pleased to see such a distinguished group of individuals finally receive the accolades they so deserve,” said Liz Sarachek Blacker, Chair for the Los Pioneros marketing sub-committee and Senior Vice President for Media at the nonprofit organization, One Economy. “They have each worked tirelessly to promote, brand, and build the Hispanic online market which was, until very recently, the road less traveled.”

Members of the IAB Hispanic Committee are:

• Peter Blacker, Telemundo (Chair)
• Tom Arrix, Univision
• Michele Azan, Terra Networks
• Liz Sarachek Blacker, One Economy
• Elicia Brand, Advertising.com
• Sarah Carberry, Google
• Adam Chandler, Yahoo!
• Jorge Consuegra, Yahoo!
• Jack Flanagan, comScore
• Jose Rivera Font, Yahoo!
• Natasha Funk, Terra Networks
• Tania Garcia, MSN
• Irma Gonzalez-Clark, Millward Brown
• Michael Iantosca, MSN
• Mark Lopez, AOL
• Jed Meyer, Nielsen/NetRatings
• Manny Miravete, AOL
• Dan Murphy, Univision
• Juan Jose Nunez, Star Media
• Borja Perez, AOL
• Alejandro Rodriguez, Star Media
• Megan Rome, InsightExpress
• Ann Sestero, MSN
• Ceril Shagrin, Univision
• Brian Terr, Edmunds.com
• Lauren Weinberg, Advertising.com
• Dave Williams, 360i

Profiles of Los Pioneros can be found on the IAB website at

http://www.iab.net/pioneros