Culture

By Jose Villa / Sensis We hear the term “multicultural” a lot. Marketers, academics, and industry leaders love to talk about multicultural groups and the growth of America’s multicultural population — the various minority groups, including Hispanic, African-American, Asian, and “other” (Middle Eastern, European, South Asian, etc.) that are rapidly expanding in size and influence.

By Joe Castro – Zubi Advertising I never sleep better than during the holidays that now seem a faded distant memory. The new year has brought with it the reality of potentially great political change on the horizon, and with all the political rhetoric a reawakening to the disturbing truth of how Hispanics are viewed by many other Americans in this country.

By Joe Zubizarreta / Zubi Advertising – Zubination Having just watched the pilot for Rob Schneider’s new show, Rob, I am totally disgusted by the way CBS has portrayed a Mexican-American family in an attempt to lure Latinos to general market television. The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to use every stereotype in the book to generate non-Hispanic viewership.

As many of you have seen in the movie 2012 and have heard from scholars based on their interpretation of Mayan culture and the Mayan calendar, the world will end December 2012. Doomsday is upon us in 355 days on December 21, 2012.

On December 14, organizers of one of the nation’s premier live music events, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, revealed the lineup for its 2012 extravaganza. Presented by Shell, “Jazz Fest” has become a two-weekend celebration of the best in American music. It has far outgrown its own name, and over the years has welcomed headline rock acts to the big stages.

It’s Ho! Ho! Ho! time, party time and looking to next year.  So with that said, here are my Top 10 pet peeves for 2012. 1- Professionals in our Industry need to understand the need to return calls and e-mails.  It is just proper business etiquette, even if there is not an opportunity to do business.  People need communication and have to deliver communication back to their people.  Two-way street.  Return your own calls, don’t have you assistant do it.  Nobody, and I mean nobody is that important or that busy.

‘m still not sure why Ad Age felt compelled to give a voice to hate. I mean, how else do you explain their decision to invite a bona fide prophet of hate to their upcoming “Media Evolved” conference?  Glenn Beck may be doing something interesting in media (according to Ad Age) but he’s still a racist.

TV can do a lot of great things for brands but it can also make you impotent–and I can assure you that I did not intend to spell “important.”  And that is what one is led to conclude after reading some of the reports coming out of last week’s beer distributors’ convention in Las Vegas.