Culture

By Enrique Turegano / Al Punto I saw an ad on Univision for an SUV…nice ad. But the VO caught me off guard. It was the poem by Antonio Machado and famous song by Juan Manuel Serrat, “Caminante No Hay Camino”. Great song, great poem…but I wonder how much it connects with US Hispanics….mostly US Mexicans. Do they even know it? Is it important to them? Does it connect emotionally like it does for Spaniards and some South Americans? Probably NOT. Here’s my guess:

1) The creative in charge is from Spain.
2) The creative in charge is a JM Serrat fan.

Thoughts?

I just attended a panel discussion between Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, SVP of Multicultural Markets at AARP, and Nancy Tellet, SVP at Viacom, Scott Willoth —S VP Methods & Analytics, Scarborough Research and moderated by Leo Olper, who sits on the AHAA board member and is a partner at d exposito & Partners, LLC.  The panel discussed key findings of a study recently conducted by AHAA, which bucks much of the conventional wisdom that is commonplace in Hispanic marketing.  For that reason, I was compelled to cover key highlights in this post.

This past week, we spent considerable time at the Hispanicize event in Miami Beach. The Hispanicize team needs to be commended for their ability to bring together Hispanic female bloggers from their owned and operated blogger network Latina Mom Bloggers.  The ladies were flown in and put up for a couple of days in fabulous Miami Beach for an all expenses paid soiree to create and demonstrate critical mass to entice advertisers.

Manuel Delgado – CEO of AGUA Simply put, the American Dream is the only reason why Hispanics are here. The pilgrims came to America as religious refugees, looking for a better place to make their lives. Hispanic immigrants come here as economic refugees, looking for a better place to make a living. We’re here because we can work here. There are as many journeys to the US as there are Hispanics.

by Jose Villa / Sensis Whenever someone first gets involved in Hispanic marketing, they inevitably come across a series of universally accepted “truths” about Hispanic consumers and how to market to them. While some of these truths have faded as the market has evolved over the last 50 years, some continue unchallenged. But as anyone who is deeply involved in marketing to Hispanics today will tell you the market has evolved as quickly as it’s grown. Today’s modern Hispanic marketer understands everything we think we know about Hispanics has to be questioned

Sofia Vergara is probably the most recognizable Hispanic actress working in English-language television. She is one of the stars of “Modern Family,” among the highest-rated scripted shows on network television, and she has parlayed her celebrity into commercials for brands like Pepsi and Cover Girl.

The question is not whether Ethnic Consumers that are lumped for diversity purposes into the MULTICULTURAL BUCKET offer opportunities for marketers.  We all know the answer to that question. The question is whether there is a need or a purpose for having one agency that implements all aspects of a campaign that can then be called a MULTICULTURAL approach.

As I read the news regrading how the Department of Education in New York City is banning 50 words from the standardized performance tests for students in the city, I could not stop thinking why this should not apply to our advertising Industry.

Last month I attended one of the best parties in L.A.  No, I’m not talking about the Oscars.  I’m talking about the Brisk Bodega-Star Wars Cantina party, presented by Brisk Tea. Now ostensibly the party was intended to present and offer party-goers samples of Brisk Tea.  But by partnering up with LucasFilm, Brisk was able to offer another element of intrigue at its party: an exhibition of art conceived by emerging, young artists, and based on the iconic characters from the “Star Wars” film.
 

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.