Creative Brown People Solavei Ad Campaign

Client:  Candace Vargas W.  www.Solavei.com/candacevargasw

Creative Brown People (official logo)

Creative Brown People Marketing & Promotional Agency (official logo)

With the negative ads flying in this year’s political campaigns, many voters may be struggling to separate fact from fiction. But some Hispanic Americans would rather hear a few tall tales than, some critics say, be taken for granted. Both Democrats and Republicans say they’ve made the Hispanic vote a priority. But less than 5 percent of all political TV ad money goes to Spanish-language media, according to a study released Monday by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. It’s a matter of respect for some Hispanic leaders, who see the lack of funding as a dismissal of the fastest-growing voting bloc, and one that is expected to play a critical role in November. The campaigns are excluding millions of voters from the political conversation, said Javier Palomarez, president of the Hispanic chamber.

“Like all Americans, Hispanics are perfectly capable of judging negative advertising for what it is,” Palomarez said. “What matters is that campaigns prioritize Hispanic voters in a manner that is equivalent to their ever increasing electoral significance.”

Many Latinos are watching English-language broadcasts and the campaigns should take that into account, but they also should not ignore Spanish-language media, said Arturo Vargas, executive director of National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Voters who watch Spanish-language channels are more likely to be naturalized citizens. And naturalized citizens tend to vote in higher percentages than native-born Latinos, who are more likely to take the right to vote for granted, Vargas said.

Some 12 million Hispanics are expected to vote in this year’s election. Their vote is seen as critical in swing states with large Hispanic populations, such as Nevada, Florida and Colorado. Voter turnout is at the forefront of both President Obama’s and GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s efforts to mobilize the Hispanic community.

Just $16 million of the approximately $360 million spent on all campaign television advertising since April has been used in Spanish-language markets through Sept. 25, according to the chamber study, which has been tracking TV ad spending. The study tracked advertising spending in 10 states: Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Nevada, Arizona, California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and Texas.

In Florida, Hispanics make up about 16 percent of registered voters, yet Spanish-language ads accounted for just 7 percent of the $107 million spent on all political advertising in the state. Miami, one of the nation’s largest Hispanic markets, does better. Candidates and supporters spend about 31 percent of their ad dollars on Spanish-language media trying to woo the largely Cuban, Puerto Rican and Colombian electorate.

Democrats spent nearly twice as much, or more, than Republicans on Spanish-language ads in Florida, Colorado and Texas. Of the 10 states studied, Republicans outspent Democrats only in New York and spent the same amount, which was nothing, in Illinois and Virginia. The advertising markets studied in Virginia did not include the Washington metro area.

Getty Images

The gap in political spending is particularly stark in California, where less than 3 percent of spending is on Spanish-language ads despite Latinos making up nearly 20 percent of registered voters, and in Texas, where less than 6 percent of spending is on Spanish-language ads despite Latinos making up 23 percent of registered voters. Neither state is considered competitive in the presidential contest.

“Television advertising is reality,” said Ken Goldstein, president of Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which conducted the study. “Campaigns can say they have a bunch of money, but if they’re not advertising then they don’t have a bunch of money. Campaigns can say a state is competitive, but if they’re not advertising there, the state is not competitive. Campaigns can say they want to talk about a particular message, but if they’re not doing it in their paid advertising, they’re not serious.”

In the presidential race, $10 million was spent on Spanish-language TV ads and $158 million spent on English-language ads. Democrats spent more than twice as much as Republicans on Spanish-language ads. The numbers include spending both by parties and so-called “Super” PACs.

Romney released his latest Spanish-language ad, titled “Nuestra Comunidad,” last week featuring the former Massachusetts governor clasping hands with Hispanic supporters and posing for photos with Hispanic children. Republican Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno, who narrates the video, pledges that Romney can “revive the American dream” for Latino families. The Romney campaign plans to “spend more on Spanish-language advertising” than either John McCain or George W. Bush did in their 2008 and 2000 and 2004 presidential races, according to Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

The Obama campaign said its Hispanic outreach efforts are more about substance than spending and boasted the campaign has been running Spanish-language radio and TV ads since April. The campaign uses many forms of digital communication.

President Obama heps organize a group of kids for a photo outside the Lechonera El Barrio cafe in the Azalea Park neighborhood of Orlando, Fla. The president had stopped to pick up lunch and paused for photos with the children. (David Nakamura/The Washington Post)

“Throughout the campaign, we have used all the tools at our disposal, from innovative advertising to grassroots organizing in the Latino community to promote the president’s record,” said Obama spokeswoman Gabriela Domenzain. Some observers question whether the lack of advertising in Spanish-language markets is because of trends that show more Hispanics tuning in to English-language TV.

Univision and ABC announced this spring that they would partner to build the nation’s first English-language news and information channel for U.S. Hispanics. Based in Miami, the 24-hour channel is expected to begin airing next year.

But Palomarez called it a “gross miscalculation” by any campaign to spend 96 percent of its advertising on English-language markets. He noted that top shows on Univision often rivals the viewership on major English-language networks.“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said.

Hispanics like to bring their families on business trips.

Travel Market Report recently interviewed Kelly McDonald, author of How to Market to People Not Like You on catering to the Hispanic traveler.

Although originally addressed to travel agents, Kelly’s recommendations are good advice for any travel and tourism marketer.

To understand why you should market to Hispanics, just look at the numbers

• According to the 2010 census, Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the U.S.
• There are 50 million Hispanics living in the U.S. and 1 in 4 of Americans under 18 are Hispanic.
• The Hispanic population grew by 43% from 2000-2010, and accounted for 56% of the population growth in the U.S.

Here are 5 recommendations from Kelly on how travel and tourism marketers can help attract Hispanic travelers:

1. Make it operationally easy for Spanish-speaking guests to deal with your brand

• Present a Spanish-language option for your website, even if it’s just FAQs.
• Do the same for your phone answering system.
• Many Hispanics are in service industries so they work late hours. Consider extending your hours to 8 pm on weekdays and opening on weekends.

3.  Develop expertise in what the Hispanic market wants and needs

• Hispanics often bring family members on business trips, so cater to spouses and kid of the Hispanic business traveler.
• Other trends in Hispanic travel include extended family and multigenerational travel and a love of shopping. Understand them and cater to them.
• You can also cater your menu and service offerings to Hispanics. The Westin Hotel in San Antonio serves Mexican cookies in its afternoon tea time because American cookies are too sweet for their Mexican guests.

4. Market through social media

• If your marketing budgets are limited, social media is an efficient way to reach Hispanics.
• Hispanics spend a larger portion of their time on social sites than other ethnic groups.
• They also trust what their friends say on social sites more than other groups.

5. Understand that Hispanics make decisions differently

• Hispanics usually want to involve the whole family in the decision-making process. So your reservations and customer service reps need to be more patient and consultative.

Thanks to Nick Verrastro and the crew at Travel Market Report for this excellent advice.

How about you?  What are you doing to make your travel and tourism marketing more Hispanic-friendly?

Click Link Below to View my Powerpoint Presentation:

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Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez Guest Speaking at Virginia Intermont College

Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez Guest Speaking at Virginia Intermont College

Valentina Escobar-Gonzalez Guest Speaking at Virginia Intermont College

Young Latinos making their mark in online media

Adriana Maestas (Co-Founder & Editor of Daily Grito)

• Adriana is the godmother of Latino political blogging
• launched LatinoPoliticsBlog
• teamed up with Latina political strategist Alicia Menendez to launch Daily Grito

Fernando Diaz (Managing Editor of Hoy Chicago)

• he worked early-on at the Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, New York
• Fernando studied journalism at Chicago’s Columbia College before reporting for the now-defunct Chi-Town Daily News and the Chicago Reporter
• now managing editor of Hoy Chicago – the Tribune Company’s Spanish-language newspaper — and a Board Member for the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ)

Kety Esquivel (Vice President for Digital Influence for Ogilvy)

•  Kety’s unassailable media credentials as both a public relations consultant and a speaker are apparent in her Huffington Post bio.
• Her tireless efforts built an Ambassador Program of bloggers to help with the Mexico Today initiative

Maria Abad (Associate at Qorvis)

• Launched her own blog, Maria On Point, which she quickly translated into English, Spanish, andGerman

Marie Dejesus (Staff Photographer at the Democrat & Chronicle)

• She photographs for the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York where earlier this year the Associated Press recognized a photograph she took of U.S. Women’s Soccer star Abby Wambach.
• Marie’s photo and video sage has been apparent throughout career, but she recently made the move into wordsmithing with a personal narrative about her return to Puerto Rico, which ran in the Democrat and Chronicle’s Sunday magazine

Nathan Olivares-Giles (Staff Writer at Los Angeles Times)

•  Nate’s official title at LATimes is Staff Writer and his daily contributions to the publication’s Technology blog are consistently excellent.
• Nate shoots and edits video for LATimes Sports and video-blogs reviews of the latest Apple OS updates.  On Twitter and Facebook, Nate is a machine, promoting both his tremendous content output
•  made his debut as a technology commentator on network TV in Los Angeles,

Steve Alfaro (Director at Voto Latino)

•  Steve is Voto Latino’s graphic designer maven
• His work for Voto Latino includes everything from designing buttons encouraging participation in the 2010 Census, to producing TV spots featuring celebrities like Rosario Dawson and Wilmer Valderrama.
• He has designed posters for progressive movements that that appear all over the web. From solidarity campaigns with Wisconsin workers, to movements against Arizona’s anti-Latino legislation, to more-recent #OccupyWallStreet demonstrations

The following was a condensed overview from the original post from Huffington Post Latino Voices.

To find out how Bilingual Resources Group can support your interpretation, translation and bilingual staffing needs, please call 504-253-0364 or visit www.bilingualcare.com.

Whether they are Spanish translation errors or subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) cultural misinterpretations, these marketing mishaps are a waste of advertising dollars, often requiring additional investment to “clean up the mess” and start fresh with a whole new campaign to reach this market segment.

Some classic gaffes from the past:

■When “translated” into Spanish, the Dairy Association’s astoundingly successful “Got Milk?” advertising campaign asked Latino consumers “Are you Lactating?”

■During the Pope’s visit to Miami, a local T-shirt company printed shirts that read, “I saw the Potato” because in Spanish the article “the” can be either masculine (el papa) or feminine (la papa); on the T-shirt they used the feminine, which describes the tuber rather than the head of the Catholic Church!

■In the late 1970’s Braniff Airlines tried to promote their all-leather interiors by translating the English slogan “Fly in leather.” Unfortunately, the literal translation invited Spanish-speaking passengers to “Fly Naked.”

Blunders from more recent years:

1.Cincinnati Radio Station WLW – “The Big Juan” Billboard
In early May 2007, Cincinnati’s WLW-AM launched a billboard campaign throughout the city featuring a man with a dark mustache dressed in a traditional Mexican outfit, complete with a Mexican flag and a donkey. The headline read “The Big Juan,” which was intended as a humorous play on the station’s branding as “The Big One.” Someone inside Clear Channel Communications (WLW’s owner) should have been sensitive to the fact that this campaign could offend the growing Hispanic population in town (which it did).

2.Tecate’s “Cold Latina” Billboard
Back in 2004, Labbat USA, the U.S. Distributor or Tecate Beer, came up with what they called a tongue-in-cheek billboard for Tecate, meant to publicize the fact that the beer was now sold in bottles, rather than only in cans. It showed a chilled, ready to drink, Tecate bottle along with the phrase, “Finally, A Cold Latina.”

This example illustrates the importance of truly understanding Hispanic culture before advertising to reach this demographic. Critics felt “the ad propagates negative stereotypes of Hispanic women as being loose and overly sexual,” but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Family is extremely important to Latinos and any offense to a family member is certainly not appreciated. As a son, husband, brother and father of Latino women I found it offensive that a company would imply that all Hispanic women are “hot.”

Most Latinos understand that situations like this usually arise from a lack of knowledge, understanding and sensitivity, rather than an attempt to offend. Therefore, in general, we tend to cut these companies some slack. No, I won’t stop drinking Tecate beer because of this particular advertisement (I actually love a cold Tecate with salt and lime!), but I would not hesitate to try another brand if their advertising utilized sound research and insight in the development of their message… Hey, I could like it better than Tecate!

3.Hershey’s “Hispanic Milk Candy”
In 2004, Hispanic pop star Thalia Sodi (Mrs. Tommy Mottola for those of you who have no idea who she is) proudly branded a new Hershey’s line of “Hispanic Inspired” candy with her name. The new line included a candy bar naively called “Cajeta Elegancita.”

There wouldn’t be an issue if the product was being marketed in Thalia’s native Mexico, where the word “cajeta” has the G-rated meaning of milk candy (loosely translated). Unfortunately for Hershey’s, in parts of Latin America “cajeta” is also a derogatory slang term for a part of the female anatomy. So if an Argentinean residing in the United States ran into this product at the grocery store, best case scenario he would have a good laugh. Even if “cajeta” is the real and true name for the Mexican confection, it would have made better business sense to go with the still-in-the-ballpark name of “Dulce de Leche” milk candy, as other companies have opted when marketing this product in the United States.

The lesson businesses should take away from all these examples is clear: when looking for employees whose job responsibilities include serving the Hispanic community, make sure you find individuals who are truly bilingual and bicultural. The same goes for outsourcing your marketing and advertising efforts. It is not only knowledge of the language, it’s understanding the differences in meaning that are specific to a particular country or region.

Even more critical is a deep understanding of the culture: knowing what to take into consideration prior to developing a piece of communication, being aware of what could be offensive or otherwise misinterpreted, and having the cultural awareness to find alternative solutions.

Even if this represents a higher investment in personnel for your company, believe me, it will be more than worth it.

The Big Four accounting/consulting firms all have a retention problem, especially for the coveted demographics of Blacks, Latinos, Asians and women, and particularly in the key area of client services and relations. What happens? As people hone their skills and abilities, the clients recognize their value and start hiring them. Thus, the pool of talent on the long road to make partner or principal—especially from traditionally underrepresented groups—gets increasingly narrow.

“Our talent is in high demand,” says John Zamora, chief diversity officer for Deloitte, No. 25 in The 2010 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®. “Our client-service personnel start being recruited around year two and it often goes through year 10. Their value to the market goes up every year. We have to be very aggressive with our high-performing talent.”

Consider these statistics for the Big Four: Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG (the latter three are Nos. 5, 6 and 15 in the DiversityInc Top 50, respectively). This information is obtained from aggregate industry data submitted by these companies for the 2010 DiversityInc Top 50 survey, which was based on calendar year 2009.

White managers are retained at an 84 percent rate—but Black managers are retained at only a 75 percent rate, and Latino, Asian and women managers are retained at significantly lesser rates than whites. By contrast, the DiversityInc Top 50 average close to a 90 percent retention rate, which is virtually equal across all racial/ethnic and gender groups.

Zamora notes that it takes between eight and 15 years to make partner, depending on an individual’s skill set and experience level. In his industry experience, he estimates only about 10 percent of those who join professional-services firms in entry-level management jobs make it all the way.

For companies like Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG—and consultancies such as IBM and Accenture, Nos. 10 and 22 in the DiversityInc Top 50—people are the main assets. For consumer-facing companies, the talent is critical to reaching an increasingly multicultural marketplace and devising innovative solutions to competitive and often global concerns.

“When you look at the business community, the landscape is changing. In order to compete, we have to be like our clients—even outpace the demographics of our clients,” says Zamora.

Making It WORK

So how do they—and other companies—create talent-development programs that encourage people to stay, reach their full potential and contribute innovative solutions? Most talent-development programs, like mentoring programs and employee-resource groups, are inclusive and open to everyone, including straight, white, able-bodied men. For example, WellPoint, No. 50 in the DiversityInc Top 50, includes diversity representation in its overall corporate talent-development efforts “so that we can achieve maximum interaction and exposure across all racial segments,” Chief Diversity Officer Linda Jimenez says. That includes the company’s 18-month accelerated leadership-development program, Executive Excellence, which includes team learning, personal introspection and on-the-job learning.

But since dominant cultures already have a significant workplace advantage in understanding the signals, receiving informal mentoring and speaking the same language as most of the bosses, people from traditionally underrepresented groups need more support. And some programs are, therefore, aimed specifically at them.

Kerrie Peraino, chief diversity officer at American Express, No. 12 in the DiversityInc Top 50, explains it this way in discussing the variety of talent-development programs her company has that benefit people from traditionally underrepresented groups: “Each program is created specifically for a particular group of people with certain attributes … We clearly see a correlation between development and retention. Diverse talent is in high demand, and we understand that we must actively invest in developing our talent. We see the results of our investments in our annual performance-management process via high ratings and high performance evaluations from leaders.”

There are two types of talent-development programs— external and internal—and some combine elements of both. External programs, such as the Ascent Leadership Mastering Management Program, run by Dr. Ella Bell in conjunction with Dartmouth University’s Tuck School of Business and the UCLA Anderson School of Management, is a leadership education program for Black, Asian and American Indian women and Latinas who have, on average, three to five years of management experience, preferably with a master’s degree or significant experience, who are considered “high potential.” American Express has participated in this program, as has DiversityInc.

Another external program American Express utilizes is the Center for Hispanic Leadership, which helps Latino employees grow through culturally tailored curriculum. American Express partnered with Aetna, No. 30 in the DiversityInc Top 50, and Credit Suisse to create a customized learning and development experience for the top Latino talent at the midmanagement level. Peraino says that “2010 was our first year of the program, and the feedback from participants has been very positive.”

Grow Your Own TALENT

How do companies use their own resources to identify and nurture their own talent?

Deloitte has a host of programs that benefit women and Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians. Zamora is particularly proud of the Emerging Leaders Development Program (ELDP), now in its sixth year, which identifies high-performing/ high-potential Black, Latino, Asian and American Indian managers and senior managers to help them get to the next stage of their careers. Last year, the program had 120 participants (almost half were women), and for the first time, they were given sponsors within the company as their advocates, as well as external coaches (the coaching relationships last eight months to a year). Most of the sponsors were cross-cultural and most were white.

“A sponsor should be someone NOT like you. We have a larger number of nonminorities who are senior partners and they are the pool for sponsors,” Zamora says, emphasizing that the sponsors offer a good window into the existing seniorlevel corporate culture.

One of the participants in the program is Kwasi Owusu-Aduomi, 32, a senior manager in Deloitte’s Audit Practice in New York. Born in Ghana, Owusu-Aduomi grew up in South Africa, but as the child of educated, middle-class Black parents, he had a relatively protected existence. He attended Rhodes University and the University of Natal in South Africa, graduating with honors and a degree in accounting. He joined Deloitte in November 2001, starting as an assistant in the Audit Practice. In January 2005, he was transferred to New York and worked his way up to his current position.

Senior managers are the pool from which partners eventually are drawn, and Owusu-Aduomi has high ambitions. But he realized he had certain attributes— both personal and cultural—that could hold him back, so he, therefore, was eager to be part of the ELDP program.

“My coach helps me see the unwritten rules, and I get feedback of how people view me as an individual, people who work for men and people I report to,” he says.

One of the greatest lessons he’s learned is that he has to be more visible and more proactive about seeking relationships with senior leaders, even those from different lines of business within the firm.

“Where I’m from, people might consider me proactive, but compared to a New Yorker, I’m not. It’s a different culture around here,” he says. The ELDP program includes having partner groups at lunch panels and leadership dinners.In the past, Owusu-Aduomi would have met senior people and hoped to see them again. Now, with coaching about being more proactive, he’s following up and keeping the connections going much more assertively.

He admits that like much of the top talent Zamora cited earlier, he’s been wooed by clients wanting him to leave Deloitte to work for them. But programs such as ELDP keep him at Deloitte, with a goal of making partner. “What I’m learning here, I can’t learn at most of the companies that give me job offers,” he says.

Using Your EMPLOYEE-RESOURCE GROUPS

Ninety-four percent use their employee resource groups to develop talent, up from 48 percent five years ago—especially talent that might not be obvious. Increasingly common practices include putting ERG leaders in highpotential talent-development programs and exposing them to senior leadership frequently.

At AT&T, No. 3 in the DiversityInc Top 50, ERGs have been brought together for two years in a row with the leadership team for a national meeting built around identifying and developing talent and leadership. More than 80 AT&T officers attended the most recent meeting, including Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson. The senior executives met with members of the ERGs and specifically discussed leadership development. In addition, this year AT&T is launching the ERG Academy, a special program for ERG officers, regardless of their level in the company, to participate in multiday sessions at AT&T University that are the same alignment and development programs aimed at senior leaders.

At WellPoint, associate-resource groups (ARGs) are a key source of talent. Jimenez notes: “WellPoint views ARGs as an important talent development venue. We recognize that through ARGs our organization has the opportunity to identify and groom talent that may not have been identified through formal succession planning.”

Jimenez says a key aspect of every ARG’s business plan is a focus on providing opportunities to all members for personal and professional growth through networking, mentoring, educational sessions and other development opportunities/assignments. “Leaders of associate-resource groups are in a unique position to showcase and further develop their personal leadership skills and gain exposure to executive management with the potential of gaining sponsorship,” she says. All the ARGs meet at least once a year with Chair, President and CEO Angela Braly, and the ARG leaders meet on a regular basis with their respective executive sponsors to discuss strategic direction and team-development opportunities.

WellPoint ARGs have worked collaboratively in the design and implementation of programs that are specifically geared toward leadership skills and competency development. For example:

→ ARG Learning Circle is a development program that focuses on mentoring and coaching. It provides ARG members the opportunity to be paired with a more experienced WellPoint associate who serves in the role of a mentor. Mentors guide their protégés and help them establish goals around areas of development and career aspirations, and they develop action plans to accomplish them.

→ Building Your Leadership Profile is a teleseminar series sponsored by WellPoint’s ARGs. ARGs collaborate to select topics, secure speakers and implement monthly teleseminars and webinars focused on a variety of personal- and professional-development topics. These virtual sessions include both internal and external panelists and speakers.

THE NEXT LEVEL

The talent development shouldn’t stop just because a person reaches a high level. Take Roger Yang, an assurance partner in the Los Angeles office of Ernst & Young. Yang, 41, made partner in 1995 and now is a partner in the Real Estate, Hospitality and Construction Practice. A certified public accountant with a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from the University of California, he hasn’t yet reached the zenith of his career.

He heard about E&Y’s Inclusive Leadership Program, which started in 2009 and combines separate executive programs for women, Blacks, Latinos, Asians and American Indians. It’s also aimed at LGBT employees and employees with disabilities. The program creates mentoring relationships by pairing the high-potential partner (such as Yang) or principal with an Americas Executive Board member as well as an external coach. It includes a customized development plan based on 360-degree feedback. It also includes annual learning programs, co-mentoring groups and networking opportunities.

For Yang, the program has been eye-opening. “I needed to find out how I keep challenging myself and how I become a real leader,” he says. He’s in his first year of the three-year program and he found that he needed to be self-promoting, a frequent cultural issue for Asians.

“I learned I have to go to people and tell them I am interested in taking on a new role and ask them what they think about that. You have to force yourself to have that conversation— if you aren’t doing it, others are. I thought that if I focused on the here and now and did a good job, then good things will come. But if you aren’t proactive, if you don’t step out of that comfort zone, you can’t find out what else you can do,” he says.

My experience started with a banking executive that confronted me and introduced himself.  This gentleman was busy making the rounds and speaking to many people.  We almost bumped into each other and he quickly introduced himself and was way more prepared than I.  He scanned my name quickly and introduced himself by name, not title (although he could have).

We exchanged pleasantries and he alerted me to the fact that he was looking forward to meeting me.  He had been forwarded my bio information from one of his VP’s.  Then the light bulb turned on for me but as is my nature, I just continued to exchange with him.

Now that in of it self was great but not why I decided to write.  What struck me as special was that this Banker did not make the fatal mistake that I have experienced in the past.  Although I am evidently a Latino he did not feel the need to usher me to one of his Latino colleagues, nor state my favorite,

“We really value the Latino community so much that we translated all of our collateral materials.”

 Nor did he feel the need to talk about multi-cultural markets.  He also did not use that time to explain his corporate giving strategies or any other self-promoting talk.  In fact, he never made mention of what he was doing at all.  Instead he looked at me right in the eyes and talked about how much still needs to be done in New England and beyond.  He was more interested in what I was doing, where I was from and where I was going.  What a novel idea.  He was a listener.  He closed the conversation by doing the unthinkable; he gave me his card and asked me to contact him so that we could continue conversation.  Now I have met many CEO’s and Exec’s in my time and they don’t normally do that.  Some may, but not as a rule.  And consequently, I do not usually offer mine.  I am just a little weird that way.  I am a fan of relationships, and the best ones happen organically.

It was the first time that I chatted with a bank president and didn’t feel like community engagement was a dirty word.  So after a couple of minutes he was gone and I was feeling like there is some hope.  Then I met a nice gentleman from Texas with a great smile and attitude that believed that he was making a difference in the world through business.  Than I met a young woman who was also happy to not only be there after her 10-hour day but also felt like she was part of a winning team.  Well, that went on and on for the remainder of the evening and (yes I can be slow) but the light bulb went off again.  These people were all in banking.  That alone was not remarkable, what was remarkable was that they all worked for the same bank.  That CEO that I mentioned earlier was their leader.  The spirit and anointing come from the top and trickles down.

There is something strange going on at 265 Franklin Street.  They are running a bank that is based on great people delivering services to great people.  If you are in banking, stay far away from that place.  I have heard that they care about the same things that most of us do.  Even worse, they truly value the communities they serve.

Please run!  Run as fast as you can.  I heard the condition is contagious and has no cure.  What will your Board say if you start marrying your fiscal goals with the community needs and show measurable impact?  I have to go now and withdraw my money and close my account with my bank.

Peace.

Read Article Here

Team CaliEnte, winners of the PR Newswire at Hispanicize Engagement Scavenger Hunt with their prizes, Sprint Hotspots and Flip Videos.

If the need to drive Social Media programs from a PR perspective wasn’t evident before, the Hispanic PR & Marketing community surely brought it center stage at the Hispanicize conference last week in Hollywood, CA. Engagement from creating new Hispanic communities via digital platforms including Twitter and Facebook to how broadcast network portals connect with their audiences from TV screen to online screen, were hot topics.

CNN en Español Planning Producer, Felipe Estefan, was awaiting live audience feedback on his Twitter account – while presenting at the Hispanic Media Trends panel – to illustrate how he is using social media to better produce segments that connect with the network’s viewers. Marcella Sarmiento, Partnerships Planning Manager for AOL Latino, discussed how the portal is specifically engaging Latina women through their specialized content area- “Tu Voz en Tu Vida” (website name translates to “your voice in your life”) which aims to enable Hispanic women to connect and help each other locally for positive change.

The engagement theme continued with strong conference focus on the rapidly expanding trend of Latino bloggers as potential “brand ambassadors.” Our PR Newswire Multicultural Markets team tested the Latino marketers’ content engagement interests by creating a Scavenger Hunt during the conference. Participating teams had to search for attendees, speakers and sponsors, take photos or videos and post content to a specially created Facebook fan page. We partnered with Sprint and Casa Cristina to ensure participants had fun prizes as a reward for their engagement. Here is the page link to view all the new content including postings of the Team photos on Reuters’ Times Square sign in New York: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/prnewswireathispanicize2011

The conference also provided us an opportunity to introduce our own Hispanic market engagement platform, ARC Latino. Here’s a peek at our latest client service – we’re pretty excited about it!

Click the image for a demo of ARC Latino

Latinos are online in stronger numbers than ever and driving digital attention. From a practical communications standpoint experts agree that organizational PR strategies will continue needing off and online programs in order to reach the broadest number among your targeted audiences. But the point has now clearly been presented that an actual strategy is needed for Hispanic online communications in Spanish, English, Spanglish or any cross between.

Cristy Clavijo-Kish is Senior Vice President of Multicultural Markets for PR Newswire. Follow her on Twitter via @latinomarketing, connect with her on LinkedIn or send an email to multicultural@prnewswire.com.

L’Oreal is the latest company to get publicity regarding marketing to the US Hispanic/Latino community. As of the 2010 Census, Hispanics compromise approximately 16% of the US population. This is up from about 12.5% in the 2000 Census. I have long stressed the importance of marketing to Hispanics/Latinos. I have written in the past about how certain brands have performed with their Hispanic marketing initiatives. The brands that can effectively resonate with this community are best positioned to succeed in the 2010s decade.

L’Oreal is smart to recognize the importance of this segment of the market and also benefits from of the type of products that they market. L’Oreal is a cosmetics/beauty/personal care brand that offer products in a variety of personal care product categories. With the Hispanic market, there is a proclivity towards to personal care products. Many Hispanics perceive looking good as important. While the previous link covered trends in the Hispanic male market, it is also relevant to a degree with Hispanic females.

With L’Oreal, they have utilized an integrated product promotion strategy. L’Oreal has advertised on Telemundo network telenovelas and been heavily involved in a telenovela based web community. L’Oreal brands like Maybelline and Garnier have also been known for advertising in magazines that appeal to Hispanics. L’Oreal has made it clear that they want to be where Hispanics are.

That’s the major takeaway for brands in all product categories. There should be a focus on making a presence felt in the Hispanic community. But presence alone is not enough. Another critical component in marketing to Hispanics is understanding the cultural differences within Hispanic subgroups. One size does not fit all. Someone with Cuban ancestry is fundamentally different than a person of Mexican or Puerto Rican ancestry. Brand marketers have had a tendency to not understand this idea.

The Hispanic market in the US will continue to grow in the next decade. The brands that take the time to understand the nuances of the market and effectively align their marketing mix will be the ones best positioned for success.

It’s not so much that we have poor memories. Rather, it’s that most of us simply don’t listen well. To compound matters, the diversity of today’s workforce only makes listening more difficult.

Read the entire article at the Harvard Business Review.

To my topic, I recently had to do some research on the Latino Marketing industry and began to wonder if i would have more success by using my Latino surname rather than my married Italian name? I don’t speak with an accent but I am fluent in Spanish and i am of  Mexican decent. I know i look like a Latina because everytime i go to the mexican market everyone speaks to me in Spanish.

So when I call a Latin owned business and ask to discuss their marketing plans I know I am immediately being “profiled”.  The potential client is wondering “what does she know” about Latinos? Or is it me? I’d really like to pose the question to anybody who may come across this posting. Frankly, I’m not sure if a Latino names really means you can handle the business or if it just makes things easier? Help any opinions and thoughts on this subject?

Going back to Jesse Garcia’s struggle to obtain a role where he not classified as a sterotyped Latino; Eva Longoria said it best that the only way is to control the source. Slowly marketers are starting to understand the diversity needed to keep up with the changes that capture multi-ethnic, multicultural America today.

“Technology is allowing marketers to reach a finer and finer segmentation of consumers,” said Howard Buford, president and CEO at multicultural agency Prime Access, New York. “In multicultural marketing there’s more demand for culturally specific messaging and more demand for authenticity in speaking to these audiences.” The buying power of the U.S. Hispanic, African American and Asian populations is projected to climb to $3 trillion by 2011, per the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Athens, GA.” - GD USA

Agencies that handle multicultural research are finding that their needed more and more. People in the spot light like Eva Longoria are becoming producers to enable talented Latino’s like Jesse to be able to fill in roles that the American Latino stand for in the US. And Soledad O’Brien is making it known that we’re are all different and the same. So marketers, start digging into what makes a Latino because there are so many niches out there that marketing to 1 kind of Latino will get you nowhere.

• Latino Youths More Likely than Older Latinos to Communicate Through Mobile and Internet Technologies
• Hispanic Females Use Traditional Mediums for Communication More than Hispanic Males
• Spanish-Dominant Young Latinos Least Likely to Use Mobile or Internet Technologies
• The Native Born Use Mobile Technologies More than the Foreign Born

and much more.  The report seems to have come from a study conducted via phone interviews during a three 6 week period in 2009.  I have not found to many studies on this topic, so the jury is still out for me.  I would like to see some data gathered via face-to-face interviews.  Stay tuned as Solutions Inspired is working on just that.

For the full report please click here: Full Report

Join us on May 19 as, Nannette Rodriguez, Director of Hispanic Marketing, Business Development at Innova Ideas And Services will guide us through connecting with a new generation of Latino consumers during her presentation entitled: Hispanic Social Networks: Welcome to Web 3.5

Here are the program details:

Topic: Connecting with the New Latino Consumer - Hispanic Social Networks: Welcome to Web 3.5
Speaker: Nannette Rodriguez, Innova Ideas And Services
Date: 5/19/2010
Time: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM
Location: Hilton Garden Inn, 8600 Northpark Dr., Johnston
Cost: Pre–registration: AMA Members – $20 | Non-Members – $30| Students – $15 *Walk–ins add $10 to regular meeting fee.

Pre-registration is appreciated (and saves you money!)

No way, you say?

You may be doing so without even realizing it.

In which case, you’re on par with about half the Fortune 1000 companies

Marketers miss out on the Hispanic community

Orci, a Los Angeles-based agency, recently conducted a survey of marketing and advertising executives at Fortune 1000 businesses. The survey indicates 51% of respondents do not specifically market to Hispanics or Latinos — the fastest growing ethnic population in the U.S.

Meanwhile, most of these same execs agree that Latinos will impact U.S. companies’ product and service offerings in the next five years, particularly in food tastes, fashion and technology.

Hmm… sure looks like an opening for savvy marketers to seize on.

Time to focus on the opportunity

Orci’s survey is timed to tie into the 2010 census, which is projected to show 50 million Hispanics live in the U.S.

CEO Hector Orci commented on his agency’s research in an article titled Latinos are a Driver of Business: Which Companies Will Take the Ride?, where he laments, “We feel like we’re in a time warp.”

Still, he reckons, “Rather than shake my head at the findings and talk about how I wished American businesses had changed over the last 20-30 years, I suggest we focus on the bigger story: the opportunity.”

Orci goes on to dispel certain notions about Hispanic habits: “What does it say to us when El Paso is the texting capital of the U.S.? Time to dispel myths about Latinos and the so-called digital divide. When Hispanics are the heaviest users of wireless through mobile phones and laptops, there is no divide.”

Guidelines to consider when marketing to Hispanics

Now maybe you’re a local business in an locale where few Latinos reside. Or perhaps you’re a niche business where this type of segmentation isn’t relevant.

Fair enough. Still, for many businesses there’s an untapped market here. And don’t forget social media — Orci claims nearly 80% of Latinos “engage in some kind of online socializing.”

Of course, you’ll want to do planning and strategizing. Here are a few points to consider:

• Be aware one size does not fill all. Preferences for Latinos hailing from Mexico may differ from Latinos native to South America. You’ll want to determine who makes your market and create campaigns specific to those populations.

• Hire an agency or consultant that understands and speaks the language of the specific target segment(s) you aim to reach. That way you stay aware of cultural nuances and can avoid creating campaigns that may be perceived as culturally offensive.

• Meet your market via its preferred media. Target the publications, TV/radio stations, websites and social media favored by your Hispanic communities.

I’ll close with another quote from Hector Orci. It offers as good a reason as any to pay attention to this demographic: “At a time when American businesses are fighting to regain market share, the opportunity to effectively engage the Hispanic market as a growth strategy is just too compelling to ignore.”

- Deni Kasrel

What do YOU think of the survey cited here? Does your business take advantage of the Hispanic market? Please share your thoughts.