Integration & Collaboration Inspires AHAA’s Annual Conference.

Agencies are being challenged to innovate in response to market pressures and brand demands: retooling, re-energizing, and re-inventing their business enterprise. No longer is it business as usual in the advertising and marketing profession, and as a result, the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) has taken action by moving to one annual conference, which will be held October 6-8, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency in Miami. Agency principals, as well as specialists in media, research, account planning and management, and creative will join together to discuss the pressing issues and opportunities facing marketing professionals who specialize in the Hispanic market.

AHAA is inviting advertisers to participate in the industry’s forum this year. Sessions featuring the best-in-class chief marketing officers at Fortune 500 companies General Mills and Best Buy will detail their experiences in launching and driving the cultural evolution of their brands. Additionally, conference sessions will feature the latest Hispanic market trends presented by consumer strategists and discussions of the impact of Census 2010.

“No other industry conference or event addresses the unique challenges facing Hispanic-specialized agencies and marketers from every aspect of the business – from cultural insights and account planning, media trends, creative execution, business management, metrics, research trends, and most importantly educating corporate America about the value a Hispanic specialized agency brings to the table,” says Gisela Girard, AHAA chairman and president/CEO of Creative Civilization in San Antonio. “The new AHAA annual conference format offers something for every agency discipline and for every level of expertise, whether you are a marketing professional or an advertiser. Our decision to combine our conferences was in part due to being fiscally responsible to our member agencies, associate members and our loyal sponsors. We wanted to offer important professional development opportunities unique to our industry and I am confident we’ve accomplished that with one dynamic conference.”

AHAA conference organizers Jessica Pantanini, COO of San Antonio-based Bromley Communications, and Roberto Orci, president of Los Angeles- based Acento Marketing, have planned interactive panels, presentations, discussions and content designed specifically with each discipline in mind. The new, high-energy format features top-drawer speakers and surprise entertainers that Pantanini believes will kindle a new flame among Hispanic marketing professionals.

“We want to unite agency disciplines and advertisers around issues that are critically important to marketers,” Pantanini says. “Our agencies don’t operate in silos but are instead delivering integrated ideas and campaigns integral to the success of our clients. It only makes sense that we would bring all of the disciplines together at one conference to interact, and share thoughts and perspectives that will build stronger Hispanic agencies and deliver better results for advertisers.”

Registration is now open for the AHAA annual conference themed Natural Selection. By definition, Natural Selection is the process by which certain heritable traits — those that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce — become more common in a population over successive generations. “The theme could not be more descriptive of what is occurring in the Hispanic market and our industry today,” Pantanini says. “Hispanics are a bigger part of the overall U.S. population: more influential in our society today than ever before. Likewise Hispanic-specialized marketing has grown and evolved to become a key driver for advertiser profit. We are the Natural Selection.”

The agenda is now available online at www.ahaa.org. The registration fee includes entry to the Ad Age Hispanic Creative Advertising Awards Gala which closes out the conference on Friday evening. The premier industry awards program honors the most creative Hispanic-targeted advertising across all mediums.

“Every other conference available covers the same old thing over and over again,” Pantanini says. “We needed to be different. The AHAA Annual Conference is not about Hispanic marketers talking to each other but takes the content to the next level. For the first time, we are producing a conference with content that will stimulate and challenge marketers and agency professionals alike.”

For more information, visit http://www.ahaa.org>

The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) is the national organization of firms that specialize in marketing to the nation’s more than 46 million Hispanic consumers: the most rapidly growing segment of the American population with an estimated buying power of nearly $1 trillion. AHAA agencies offer a unique blend of cultural understanding, market intelligence, proven experience and professionalism that deliver Hispanic market success for advertisers. AHAA agencies help organizations gain market share, increase revenue and grow profits. AHAA is the voice of the Hispanic marketing and advertising industry. Visit www.ahaa.org for more information.