NAHP Boast Success @ NY Summit 2004.

The New York Hispanic Advertising Summit on Jan.7, organized by the National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP Inc.) had an over-flow of participants from different organizations who came to learn the specifics about the increasingly respected Hispanic publishing and advertising mediums.

Attendees learned that the Hispanic media is a profitable and reliable market. Hispanic market expert Kirk Whisler, president of the Latino Print Network, one of two agencies for advertising placement among NAHP’s member publications, said the Hispanic market is changing for the best. Latinos count 13 percent of the total population, according to the 2000 census, and, as the population grows so it grows the market to Hispanics and those in the field who don’t evolve with this will be dinosaurs, said Whisler.

Western Union, a long-standing client of American Multicultural Marketing (AMM), went on the record for Hispanic publications that produce results. German Cardenas of AMM has performed extensive market research in the Latino population for Western Union, which led the company to expand its goals among Hispanics. Other companies such as Shaw’s Supermarkets and General Motors also used NAHP members’ publications and both companies achieved exceptional results.

Shaw’s Supermarkets realized they would lose on sales if they didn’t attend to the needs of the large Hispanic community nearby their stores in New England, a region that traditionally hasn’t been associated with Hispanics. Also going on the record was the Valassis Group with the case study on GM’s Hispanic ad campaign that received an Addy Award, an American Advertising Federation prize.

But the under buy in the Hispanic market is still an issue NAHP identifies and seeks to solve. During the Fair Play Breakfast at the Summit, Horacio Gavilan, executive director of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, addressed the lack of paid communications investment from corporations and governments into the Latino community through Hispanic radio, television and print. Despite the 13 percent of Latinos in the country less than three percent of communications funds goes to the Hispanic media, said Gavilan.

Hernan Guaracao, president of NAHP Inc., went to say, “This is important for newspapers because we continue to work to finally get their share in the budgets of national advertisers.”

The high volume of increasingly sophisticated ad campaigns led NAHP to launch its first Hispanic ad campaign award. Hispanic publishers and marketers nominated the campaigns in several categories. At the Summit reception, NAHP announced the winners, “Viva Ecuador,” by Health Plus for the best non-profit outreach category; “O en Espanol” by Cablevision, for best product promotion and “Mothers’ Day” by Refrescos de Mexico for most insightful and creative campaign.

NAHP’s Publishing Awards will be announced at the Los Angeles National Convention, which will be held from March 17 to 20, 2004.

For more information at http://www.nahponline.org