11966: Domino’s Delivers Stereotypes.

A MultiCultClassics visitor pointed out the Domino’s commercial from LatinWorks—replete with stereotypes including spear-wielding Blacks. Oh, and it’s for chicken pizza. At least Annie the Chicken Queen didn’t make a cameo appearance.

11688: LatinWorks Says, “Adios, Chevy.”

Advertising Age reported Chevy moved its Latino business from LatinWorks to McCann’s Casanova Pendrill. Looks like another Omnicom shop was dumped by the auto brand. Spike DDB remains on the Chevy roster, but probably only until Commonwealth identifies some Black ad people to pick up the crumbs.

Chevy Moves Hispanic to McCann’s Casanova from LatinWorks

Shift Represents Further Consolidation at Dedicated Chevy Agency Commonwealth

By Laurel Wentz

General Motors’ Chevrolet is moving all its U.S. Hispanic advertising to Casanova Pendrill, McCann Worldgroup’s Hispanic agency, from Omnicom-backed LatinWorks. The shift is essentially a consolidation with Commonwealth, McCann’s dedicated agency for General Motors’ Chevrolet account.

“Connecting with Hispanic audiences in a meaningful way is critical to Chevrolet,” said Paul Edwards, U.S. VP, Chevrolet Marketing, in a statement confirming the move. “We welcome Casanova Pendrill to the Chevrolet team and we look forward to working with them to build on Chevrolet’s strong product momentum among Hispanic consumers.”

The agencies were told Wednesday morning that the business would move to Casanova. This is the first major move by Mr. Edwards in his new post. Both Hispanic shops had presented proposals; Casanova is believed to have presented a more integrated solution.

“We talked about what we offer as an independent expert in multicultural,” said Sergio Alcocer, LatinWorks’ president and chief creative officer. “It’s difficult when an agency does the global work for a brand to make the case why the Hispanic market in the U.S. needs to stand alone.”

LatinWorks won the Chevy business without a pitch four years ago from Joel Ewanick, GM’s chief marketing officer who had been a LatinWorks client earlier at Hyundai. Mr. Ewanick was dismissed from the company in July 2012. In 2012, Chevrolet slashed LatinWorks’ Hispanic budget drastically as part of the global move to consolidate Chevy at Commonwealth. Chevrolet U.S. marketing chief Chris Perry, who also worked closely with LatinWorks, resigned in mid-December 2013.

Hispanic responsibility for Silverado, which LatinWorks has also worked on, is expected to move to Casanova, too.

Since the review only covered Hispanic, Omnicom’s Spike DDB is likely to retain Chevrolet’s African-American business. The agency could not be reached for comment Wednesday evening.

The transition of the Chevy business to Casanova from LatinWorks will take place over the next 30 days, the car maker said.

Commonwealth has been aggressively building up its offering, shifting Linus Karlsson, who was chief creative officer of global brands at McCann Erickson, to creative chairman of Commonwealth, while Andreas Dahlqvist, who was deputy chief creative officer of global brands, becomes chief creative officer at Commonwealth.

Contributing: Alexandra Bruell

11490: A Proofreader Shutdown…?

Latinworks is trying to seize advantage of the governmental shutdown to start a viral happening. Next time, they should take a few extra minutes to run the concept through proofreading.

11238: Latino Lions.

From Advertising Age…

Hispanic Shops Alma, Gallegos, La Comu, Lapiz And LatinWorks Win At Cannes

Pan-Latino New York Restaurant Comodo Run By Agency Execs Picks Up Lion In Mobile Category

By Laurel Wentz

In a good year for the U.S. Hispanic market, five Hispanic agencies won eight Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Independent Grupo Gallegos won two prizes for a long-running campaign for the California Milk Processor Board to encourage Hispanics in California to drink more milk. A Silver Lion in the film category recognized TV commercial “Battle,” depicting a child’s fantastical dreams from drinking a glassful of milk before bedtime. A Bronze media Lion went to the “Bedtime Stories” campaign children to bed with a bedtime story. The agency also created a series of bilingual story books, distributed through pediatricians’ offices as well as downloaded from a website, that feature milk in a heroic role in the narratives.

Alma DDB won two Silver Lions, in the outdoor and promo & activation categories, for “The Glad Tent.” Alma tackled the issue of sustainability, developing giant Glad trash bags in the form of tents. Ten Glad Tents were distributed at SXSW to attendees who promised to live in them and then use the tents as a giant trash bag to dispose of rubbish at the end of the festival. The Glad Tent was perfectly targeted to millennials who care about the environment but wouldn’t normally feel a connection to Clorox’s Glad brand.

Omnicom-based LatinWorks won a film Silver for “Pool,” a spot promoting a parental control bar for the internet offered free by nonprofit WRAAC. And Cine Las Americas, an Austin, Texas festival for Latin American films that garners creative awards for LatinWorks every year, picked up a radio Bronze for “Maduro.” The campaign features absurd but genuine speeches by Latin American leaders, and always ends with the tagline “If this is our reality, imagine our films.” This year the presidential campaign by Nicolas Maduro after the death of Venezuela’s former leader Hugo Chavez was a gift to LatinWorks. The agency seized on one of the most absurd moments of Mr. Maduro’s campaign, when he started making bird calls on the campaign trail and claiming he had been visited by Mr. Chavez in the form of a little bird.

Miami-based independent La Comunidad, run by Argentine brothers Jose and Joaquin Molla, picked up a Bronze outdoor Lion for Converse shoes’ “Converse Highways”, a series of outdoor art installations that brought life and culture to otherwise dismal spots such as space under bridges. The installations were done in three countries in Latin America.

Lapiz, Leo Burnett’s U.S. Hispanic agency, a frequent award winner for its Procter & Gamble work for the Latino market, took home a bronze Press Lion for a print campaign for P&G’s Gain With Oxi, for ads “Soccer”, “Horror Movie” and “Zombie”.

In a surprise win, two former ad-agency executives from Latin America who quit their jobs and opened pan-Latino restaurant Comodo (Spanish for “comfortable”) in New York in July 2012 won a Bronze Lion in the mobile category with an Instagram menu. To generate buzz for the new restaurant, promote the cuisine and highlight the eatery’s playful personality, the hashtag #ComodoMenu was added to the restaurant’s real menu. Guests were invited to add and browse different dishes.

Although Comodo’s agency is not Hispanic, Comodo’s owners Felipe Donnelly and Tamy Rofe met while working at Ogilvy Mexico—Ms. Rolfe is from Mexico City and Mr. Donnelly grew up all over Latin America. The campaign was done and entered at Cannes by Romanian friends who formed Brooklyn-based creative collective Raul X Mihai X Mihnea.

The U.S. had one Hispanic-agency judge at Cannes this year. Sergio Alcocer, LatinWorks’ president and chief creative officer, was on the film jury in his second stint as a Cannes juror.

10865: Target Targets Latinos.

Advertising Age reported Target named LatinWorks as its Latino agency after a shootout that narrowed down to the winner and sister Omnicom shop Dieste. Wow, the network notorious for Corporate Cultural Collusion has added a multicultural twist. Wanted to accuse Omnicom of thinking all Latino agencies looked alike, but the holding company has been positioning its White shops as interchangeable too. According to Ad Age, the “pitch” was essentially handled by Target’s procurement team and without the services of a search consultant. Are there even any search consultancies with multicultural experience?

Also worth noting: Last October, Target Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Jones declared, “This brand has the right to work with the best creative agencies in the world. … When I look at the breadth of our business—in one hour of one day we’re thinking about healthcare reform and b-to-b marketing for our pharmacy business, in the next hour we’re launching an exclusive artist relationship with Pink and in the next we’re worrying about fashion and style and thinking about our partnership with Neiman Marcus, [and] at the holidays we talk about toys—the breadth of the business doesn’t set up well to have one agency that’s extraordinary at all facets of what we have to do.” In other words, Jones doesn’t believe a single White agency is equipped to handle his mainstream business, but uno Latino shop can cover the non-White customers.

Finally, Ad Age stated LatinWorks might have to drop its current client, Marshalls, which likely represents a conflict of interest with Target. However, the CEO of runner-up Dieste ran the group that won Marshalls in his former stint as LatinWorks’ managing director. So Omnicom has covered all bases. ¡Feliz Navidad!

Target Hires LatinWorks After Hispanic Agency Review

Pitch Pitted Shop Against Omnicom Sibling Dieste

By Laurel Wentz

Target is awarding its U.S. Hispanic account to LatinWorks after a three-month review that also included sibling Omnicom Group shop Dieste.

“LatinWorks has been selected and will be our primary strategic partner for Hispanic marketing,” said Katie Boylan, senior group manager of public relations at Target.

Target doesn’t make specific agency of record assignments, she said. The account does not include media planning and buying. Grupo Gallegos, an independent U.S. Hispanic shop, previously handled much of Target’s Hispanic work, often on a project basis. LatinWorks referred calls to Target.

Target ranks No. 29 among the 50 largest advertisers in Hispanic media, spending $45.6 million in 2011, according to Ad Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack.

The pitch, largely handled by Target’s procurement team, started with about half a dozen Hispanic shops then narrowed to finalists LatinWorks and Dieste. No consultant was used.

LatinWorks faces a potential conflict with another retail client, the TJX Companies’ Marshalls. It’s unclear whether the agency will be able to handle Hispanic work for both retailers or will have to resign the Marshalls business.

If Marshalls were to leave LatinWorks, Dieste’s CEO Greg Knipp led the team that won Marshalls in his previous job as managing director of LatinWorks. Dieste previously handled JC Penney, but lost that business in 2008; Grupo Gallegos now handles.

10359: Black & Latino Agencies Win Small.

Advertising Age’s Small Agency Awards included a handful of non-White advertising agencies among the winners. According to Ad Age, “This year saw an increase in entries from minority-owned shops and what are typically described as ‘multicultural’ shops. A number of such shops took home awards based on results they’re garnering not just for ethnic marketing, but for general-market marketing as well.”

Congratulations to all—especially commonground, LatinWorks, Walton Isaacson, and La Comunidad.

Baldwin&, Mono Take Top Honors at 2012 Ad Age Small Agency Awards

Akestam Holst Named International Agency of the Year

Twenty-two-person ad agency Baldwin& was named Agency of the Year in Advertising Age’s Small Agency Awards at the fourth-annual awards show. The show, along with the Small Agency Conference, was held in Minneapolis this year. Hometown agency Mono’s “Human Doing” campaign for BlueCrossBlueShield Minnesota was named Campaign of the Year.

Last year, Baldwin&, based in Raleigh, N.C., won Campaign of the Year for its “Find Your Burt” effort for Burt’s Bees.

New York-based Sub Rosa took home silver in the overall agency of the year category. Johannes Leonardo’s “Project Re: Brief” effort for Google was awarded silver for campaign of the year.

Previous overall winners include Via, in Portland, Maine; Pereira & O’Dell in San Francisco; and Rockfish Interactive, based in Rogers, Ark., which is now owned by WPP.

“The creative ideas and the strategic thinking we are seeing out of the small agency community is highly impressive,” said Ad Age Agency Editor Rupal Parekh, one of the judges. “The work these shops are doing is original, unexpected and above all has a huge impact on their clients’ bottom lines. I’d stack up any of the shops on our list this year against big agencies in terms of quality of output. They are really leveling the playing field.”

This year saw an increase in entries from minority-owned shops and what are typically described as “multicultural” shops. A number of such shops took home awards based on results they’re garnering not just for ethnic marketing, but for general-market marketing as well.

“This is our fourth Small Agency Awards and we continue to be impressed by the quality of entries, proving that size has no bearing on the ability to offer effective marketing ideas,” said Editor Abbey Klaassen. “I can confidently say that our winners exemplify creativity, entrepreneurialism and ingenuity—there’s a lot to be learned from them, no matter what your size.”

To learn more about these agencies, look out for the August 6 issue of Ad Age, which will feature profiles on each of the award-winners.

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

GOLD: Baldwin&, Raleigh, N.C.

SILVER: Sub Rosa, New York

CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR

GOLD: Mono, Minneapolis: BlueCross BlueShield’s “The Human Doing”

SILVER: Johannes Leonardo, New York: Google’s “Project Re: Brief”

INTERNATIONAL AGENCY OF THE YEAR

GOLD: Akestam Holst, Stockholm, Sweden

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: CULTURE

Glass Agency, Sacramento, Calif.

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: 1-10 EMPLOYEES

GOLD: Manifold, San Francisco

SILVER: The Distillery Project, Chicago

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: 11-75 EMPLOYEES

GOLD: Commonground, Chicago

SILVER: Mekanism, San Francisco

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: 76-150 EMPLOYEES

GOLD: LatinWorks, Austin, Texas

SILVER: Walton Isaacson, Los Angeles

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: NORTHEAST REGION

GOLD: Walrus, New York

SILVER: Cross Media, New York

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: MIDWEST REGION

GOLD: Bailey Lauerman, Lincoln, Neb.

SILVER: Modern Climate, Minneapolis

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: SOUTHEAST REGION

GOLD: JESS3, Washington, D.C.

SILVER: La Comunidad, Miami

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: SOUTHWEST REGION

GOLD: Rain, American Fork, Utah

SILVER: Proof Advertising, Austin, Texas

SMALL AGENCY OF THE YEAR: WEST REGION

GOLD: Magner Sanborn, Spokane, Wash.

SILVER: Muh-Tay-Zik Hof-fer, San Francisco

10346: Pepsi Resumes Latino Stereotyping.

Advertising Age published a story titled, “Pepsi Refocuses on Hispanics,” detailing how the brand had abandoned the target audience in recent years. Oddly enough, the piece offered no reasoning for the abandonment or the renewed interest. Someone probably figured Sofia Vergara provided cross-cultural appeal. The soft drink is now being serviced by LatinWorks—which just happens to be a part of Omnicom. So there must be some Corporate Cultural Collusion involved. Additionally, the new commercial features fútbol stars and a popular DJ. So there’s some cultural cluelessness and stereotyping involved too.

Pepsi Refocuses on Hispanics

‘Vive Hoy’ Spot to Air on General-Market and Hispanic Networks

By Natalie Zmuda

Pepsi is recommitting to Hispanic consumers with limited-time offerings of its Pepsi Next product and broad distribution of an ad carrying the tagline “Vive Hoy.”

“Vive Hoy,” a translation of Pepsi’s new, much-hyped tagline “Live for Now,” will be the tagline seen on a spot launching this week on general-market and Hispanic networks. The spot, featuring Lionel Messi, a popular Argentine soccer player, is only the second piece of new creative in the broader “Live for Now campaign.” Pepsi has put a big emphasis on the idea of “Now” as part of its bid for renewed relevance.

“One of the key reasons I came here is to figure out how to dive deeper into the Hispanic space,” said Javier Farfan, senior director-cultural branding, who joined PepsiCo two years ago. “In the carbonated category, exponentially, growth is going to come from Latinos. There’s the population growth, but we’re also more prone to drink soda. So it became really important and strategic for Pepsi to get into that space.”

PepsiCo is no stranger to the Hispanic space. In 2004, the company ranked No. 6 on Ad Age’s list of the Top 50 Advertisers in Hispanic Media, spending $68.5 million. But by 2007, the company had dropped to No. 27, spending $41 million. The next year, PepsiCo dropped off the list completely and hasn’t been ranked since. Rival Coca-Cola ranked No. 24 in 2004, spending $27.7 million, and slipped to No. 48 in 2011, spending $29.8 million.

Mr. Farfan concedes Pepsi “lost its way to a certain extent” after years of being a pioneer in the Hispanic and multicultural space, inking deals with the likes of Ricky Martin and Shakira before they were household names. Now, Mr. Farfan said Pepsi is breaking ground again and increasing spending.

The new spot, with the tagline “Vive Hoy,” will air on networks as varied as BET, Bravo, CMT, ESPN, SyFy, TBS, TNT and USA, as well as Telemundo and Univision. LatinWorks handles Pepsi’s Hispanic work, in partnership with TBWA/Chiat/Day, Pepsi’s main agency.

“There’s a new mainstream evolving. It’s a different state of mind. Latinos don’t want to be separate, they want to be included,” Mr. Farfan said. “We want to nod and wink to them in places where they actually engage with media. Latinos watch MTV as much as Univision.”

Mr. Farfan said his team has considered and is monitoring the reaction of English-speaking consumers who come across “Vive Hoy,” thanks to the broad distribution. So far, the company has been fielding mostly positive responses, he said.

“It’s about the right targeting and hyperlocalizing,” he said, noting the careful promotion of MiPepsi.com, a site mirroring Pepsi.com but featuring a mix of Spanish and English. “Language is not a strategy, it’s a tactic.”

This month, Pepsi also introduced two limited-time offerings, Paradise Mango and Cherry Vanilla Pepsi Next. Both flavors are meant to appeal to Hispanics. Already the industry is closely watching Pepsi Next, a midcalorie cola, as its success or failure could have major implications for competitors.

A Pepsi spokeswoman said Pepsi Next is meeting expectations and maintaining a 0.8 share of the market. “We’ve also seen trial-and-repeat numbers performing at expectation and believe flavors will boost this by not only bringing more attention to the new category product, but also because our research has shown that our flavors may do well with new consumers,” the spokeswoman said.

Mr. Farfan said the Vive Hoy effort, along with the new flavors, are also having another benefit, showing Hispanic retailers that Pepsi “gets it.” Retailers such as Fiesta Mart, La Michoacana and Mi Pueblo are all becoming more influential, he said.

10255: Latino Lions Lollapalooza.

Advertising Age reported four U.S. Latino agencies grabbed six Lions at Cannes last week. Three of the agencies won for radio work. Not sure why the medium is so prominent. Could it be because minority shops don’t receive as much money and/or opportunities to do TV and even digital? Radio is a favorite choice of many multicultural marketing clients, as it’s cheap to execute. There’s no denying the top Cannes winners worked with big production budgets. Plus, minority shops are burdened with the demand to be blatantly targeted with creative—soccer, salsa and sombreros, por favor—which can hamper breakthrough attempts. On the flipside, agencies like LatinWorks and Grupo Gallegos show that the way to move beyond the barriers and stereotypes involves setting higher standards. It starts with the agencies.

U.S. Hispanic Market Wins Six Lions at Cannes Festival

LatinWorks Gets Gold for Cine Las Americas Radio Spots

By Laurel Wentz

Four U.S. Hispanic agencies picked up six Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity last week, with a particularly strong showing in radio, a category U.S. Latin shops often excel in.

LatinWorks’ long-running and much-awarded campaign for Cine Las Americas, which introduces Latin films to the U.S., won both a gold and a bronze Lion for the latest radio campaign from the Austin, Texas-based agency. The basic idea is always the same in the radio and TV spots for the film festival: LatinWorks unearths footage of real Latin American leaders saying imbecilic things, and the punch line is “if this is what our reality is like, imagine our films.”

The agency adds a new twist every year. This time, it’s to add sound effects to make the leader’s idiotic pronouncements sound like part of a movie, and then gradually take them away until only his ridiculous words are left. In the spot “Action,” a man is denouncing America amid explosive noises. The voiceover says “If we remove the helicopters from this action movie … if we remove the shooting … and the explosions … we’re left with [Venezuelan president] Hugo Chavez, expelling the ambassador of the U.S. on a national TV broadcast …If our reality sounds like an action movie, imagine our films.”

In another spot, likened to a porn flick, Uruguay’s president gives an interview on live TV while dead drunk. “Yes, he’s the president of Uruguay,” the voiceover says sadly after that spot’s clinking ice cubes, giggly girls and tacky music are removed.

Also in radio, Leo Burnett’s Hispanic shop, Chicago-based Lapiz, won a silver for an unusual effort for Procter & Gamble in which a woman can listen to one of two different versions of the spot by turning on the audio for either the right or the left speaker while listening to the radio in the car.

The spot “Stork,” for P&G’s Clearblue pregnancy test, lets a woman hear about Clearblue through the filter of her own feelings about possibly being pregnant. In the version played through the right speaker, the product message is delivered by a woman who wants to be pregnant, while the woman in the left-speaker version does not.

Young & Rubicam’s Hispanic agency, Bravo, won two bronze Lions for radio spots for Leica’s V-Lux 20 camera with a zoom feature. In each spot, an announcer tells a story between clicks of the shutter denoting that pictures are being taken of the memories created. But there isn’t always a happy ending. In “Grand Canyon,” a couple get engaged at the Grand Canyon, return every summer and always eat at the same Mexican restaurant, where the wife falls in love with a waiter named Miguel.

In the only award not in the radio category, independent agency Grupo Gallegos won a bronze Media Lion for “Forgot Your Password,” a simple but very effective message for the Alzheimer’s Association. The campaign linked the sensation of memory loss due to Alzheimer’s with the common frustration of forgetting your password on a website. Users of Spanish-language site Univision.com who requested a new password were also sent this message: “If something as insignificant as forgetting your password complicates your life, imagine what it’s like living with Alzheimer’s.” A link to the Alzheimer’s Association website was included, and traffic increased by 400% during Alzheimer’s Awareness Month in November 2011.

10154: LatinWorks Hits The Jackpot.

From Advertising Age…

Hispanic Shop LatinWorks Wins AOR for Texas Lottery Account

As the Multicultural Population Becomes the Majority in More States, Is This a Sign of Things To Come?

By Laurel Wentz

As more of the population in America’s most multicultural states is increasingly non-white, future pitches may be geared toward reaching a market that is no longer divided between the general market and a minority population of different ethnicities.

In Texas, where 57% of the population is already multicultural, and mostly Hispanic, the Texas Lottery is awarding its entire account to Austin-based LatinWorks, which previously handled the Hispanic portion. The business is believed to be worth about $30 million.

When the Texas Lottery holds state-mandated agency reviews, agencies can pitch for pieces of the account, or as a group for the whole business. In the pitch just ended, LatinWorks pitched for the whole account with the support of small digital and media agencies.

More traditionally, incumbent TracyLocke is believed to have teamed up with Hispanic agency Lopez Negrete Communications and urban shop Sanders Wingo for the African-American portion.

“The other agencies came at it from a general-market angle and partnered with different multicultural agencies, with African-American experts and Hispanic experts,” said Christian Filli, LatinWorks’ VP of strategic planning. “We took a different approach. We have a different model, where we own the consumer insights, and rely on partners for different disciplines.”

As the winner, LatinWorks will be the lead agency, and work with Springbox to grow Texas Lottery’s digital presence, and the David Group to support LatinWorks’ in-house media planners.

“In certain markets like Texas where Hispanics are the majority, it makes sense that an agency with an understanding of that target across all levels of assimilation will be well positioned,” said Alejandro Ruelas, managing marketing and the agency’s CMO.

In Texas, for instance, the shift is accelerating, with more than 60% of the state’s population projected to be multicultural by 2016, Mr. Filli said.

In deciding to go for the whole account, rather than just the Hispanic portion, “It wasn’t from a place of ambition or arrogance, but understanding that’s where the state is going,” said Sergio Alcocer, LatinWorks’ president and chief creative officer.

He said the agency has handled non-Hispanic work before for clients such as Mars’ Skittles candy and Anheuser-Busch, but always on a project basis rather than as the agency of record.

“Our objective is not to be a general-market agency,” Mr. Alcocer said. “What we want is to bring the multicultural phenomenon to the mainstream in categories where it makes sense to lead with multicultural because that’s where the business opportunity is. It’s a formula of the past that only the general market can lead.”

9326: Bud Light Loves Hip Hop.

Advertising Age reported that Bud Light and Latinworks are launching a campaign with recording artist Pitbull, demonstrating that Latino adpeople love hip hop too. In fact, Pitbull has already been hawking products for the Latino market, including Dr. Pepper. While the Bud Light spot has not yet aired, there’s a behind-the-scenes video that makes it look like, well, the Dr. Pepper spot. Whatever.

Bud Light Senior Director Mike Sundet gushed, “[Pitbull] epitomizes everything that our brand is about. He’s fun. He’s outgoing. He’s social. Obviously he has huge appeal within the Latino segment, but like Bud Light, he is broadly appealing [with] huge crossover appeal to the general market as well. … We’re not even looking at this as a Latino campaign. We’re looking at this as a multicultural campaign that is going to reach all of our core drinkers.”

Does that mean Bud Light will stop looking at Latinworks as a Latino agency? Will the shop be invited to pitch for AOR status on the brand? The clients—and officials at parent network Omnicom—would probably have to consume quite a bit of Bud Light before that would happen.

8941: Cannes Color Commentary.

Closing Cannes Comments Collection:

• A White agency scored big with hip hop, as “Decode Jay-Z with Bing” secured Lions for Droga 5. The agency boasted phenomenal responses for Bing as a result of the campaign. Really? A few Facebook posts and Tweets by Jay-Z and his wife likely would have generated the same results. Regardless, it’s just another example of White agencies’ obsessive love for Black culture—which never seems to translate to hiring Black candidates.

• The most prominent Black Americans at Cannes were Pharrell Williams, Will.i.am and Jay-Z (represented by Droga 5). And CP+B probably held a special event in honor of Dr. Dre. Over the years, Will.i.am, Jay-Z and Sean Combs have been named creative directors for various brands. Even Steve Stoute’s career is rooted in urban recording arts. Guess the easiest way for Blacks to get promoted on Madison Avenue requires first becoming a premier hip-hop star.

• LatinWorks grabbed a couple of Lions, and other Latino shops reportedly shortlisted in categories. Did any Black shops come close?

8940: Latino Shop Captures Lions.

From Advertising Age…

U.S. Hispanic Agency LatinWorks Wins Two Lions at Cannes Festival

Cine Las Americas Takes Gold for Radio Campaign Inspired By Crazy Speeches by Latin American Leaders

By Laurel Wentz

LatinWorks was the big winner among U.S. Hispanic agencies at last week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, picking up two Lions for new twists in long-running campaigns for Austin’s Latin film festival Cine Las Americas and anti-child obesity effort Active Life.

The Cine Las Americas campaign, winner of a Gold Lion in the radio competition, mines the seemingly endless supply of bizarre but genuine public statements made by megalomaniac Latin American heads of state (Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is a favorite target). The tagline is always: “If this is our Latin American reality, imagine our films.”

The new twist this year is to pretend at first that the news report is about a European or U.S. leader. In the spot “Cameron,” a news reader reports that U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said all European men are going bald because they eat chicken, which also leads to hormonal changes that could turn them into homosexuals. Then he rants against potatoes from the Netherlands. The news reader then explains that if Mr. Cameron had really said those things, he would have been shut up in a psychiatric ward. “But Bolivian President Evo Morales said it. He’s still the president of Bolivia.” The spot ends with a quick clip of Morales’ real rant in Spanish about baldness, chicken and homosexuality and the “If this is our Latin American reality, imagine our films” tagline.

In another spot called “Obama,” the U.S. president is greeted at an airport by 50,000 people “and jumped into the crowd screaming ‘I’m Batman.’” (That was Ecuador again.) “Merkle” features the German leader’s graphic description of a bout with diarrhea, which turns out to be from a public speech by Venezuela’s uninhibited Mr. Chavez.

Over the last few years, the annual version of the Cine Las Americas campaign has both boosted attendance at the film festival, held in Austin, Texas, and opened the door for the festival organizers to get good films for the program because the ad campaign has become so well-known among Latin American filmmakers. In the U.S. Hispanic market, radio is a bigger and more creative category than in the general market. Last year, Leo Burnett’s Hispanic shop Lapiz won two Gold Lions in the radio category, both for a Procter & Gamble spot for Bounty paper towels called “Battle.”

This year LatinWorks also picked up a Bronze Lion in the press competition for a print campaign for Active Life encouraging kids to enjoy the active outdoor activities they often abandon to spend hours online, contributing to child obesity. Each ad shows two children as paper cutouts from a Facebook profile, with each child’s photo, name and a few words like “4 mutual friends. Add as friend.” In each ad, the two kids meet outdoors to fly a kite or play on a slide or swing. The copy line is “Meet online, play outside.”

Several other U.S. Hispanic entries were shortlisted but didn’t win Lions, including a Conill spot in the film category called “Lineup” for the New Cinema Film Festival, which last year won a Gold Lion in film for the shop, and another Conill effort for T-Mobile, shortlisted in the media category.

The U.S. Hispanic market also sends two teams to compete in onsite Young Lions contests for film and cyber, open to creatives aged 28 and under. The U.S. Hispanic team for film won the Gold Lion in that category after competing with 40 other Young Lions teams from around the world to create the best 60-second mobile spot in 48 hours. The film Gold, which was judged by the festival’s film jury, was awarded to Omar Sotomayor and Gaston Soto, a creative duo from Lapiz.

7539: Adweek Salutes LatinWorks.

From Adweek…

LatinWorks: Multicultural AOY ‘09
Insightful creative gave this Hispanic agency a year to remember

By T.L. Stanley

In a new Hispanic market commercial for Domino’s Pizza, close-knit neighbors play a game of telephone. As the famous kids’ game goes, they pass along the information person to person. But in this case, the message—Domino’s tastes better than Pizza Hut—is so strong, even a game of telephone can’t mess it up.

The spot, and another recent one in which a Domino’s delivery man shows up at an outdoor party where everybody knows him, are already ringing up strong 2010 sales for the marketer and “some of the best ad scores we’ve seen since we’ve been tracking Hispanic work,” says Karen Kaiser, director of national advertising at Domino’s.

The new campaign is the brainchild of LatinWorks, the Austin, Texas-based agency formed more than a decade ago by a couple of Anheuser-Busch marketing veterans and an advertising maven who Kaiser calls “the centrifugal force” of the shop.

“They’re really bringing it for their clients,” Kaiser says of Adweek’s Multicultural Agency of the Year. “And it’s not just the creative, which is very visually rich. They really hit the bull’s-eye on strategy.”

It’s that kind of right brain/left brain balance that LatinWorks is striving for, explains CMO and managing partner Alejandro Ruelas, who runs the agency with his former A-B colleague Manny Flores, CEO and managing partner, and Sergio Alcocer, president and CCO.

While 2009 was a punishing year for the ad industry overall, the minority-owned Omnicom agency grew 13 percent to more than $18 million in revenue and staff increased by 15 percent. Still, the realities of the market prompted a good deal of introspection.

“We couldn’t take our eye off the fact that every client was looking for performance and sales,” says Ruelas, a self-described client-focused introvert. “We had to make sure our ideas were very focused. It was a year to be diligent and disciplined. Achieving an emotional connection with the target becomes essential at a time when consumers are so hesitant in their purchasing. It’s a good time to differentiate and create brand loyalty.”

Dave Peacock, president of longtime client A-B, appreciates the agency’s collaborative nature. “Everybody kicks around ideas and it’s a very open atmosphere,” he says.

In 2009, LatinWorks won a heated battle for two major accounts, Burger King and Bacardi, adding those to a roster that already included Lowe’s, Domino’s, ESPN Deportes and Hyundai. And, the agency secured more from Mars by landing Snickers, Twix and M&Ms after producing a hit with a Starburst campaign that featured just a guy and a llama. Even now, LatinWorks execs are hard-pressed to say why they picked a lanky, sweet-faced animal as the co-star of the campaign that launched last summer. They wanted to convey that the flavorful candy was social—people liked to share it—so the llama happily fed a piece to his friend and vice versa in the surreal 30-second spot.

“It talks to the heart and has attitude,” says Alcocer “I can’t even explain why it works. It’s just fun.”

The campaign was intended to reverse a hefty 27 percent slide in sales and make an impression with young Hispanics who weren’t enamored by the brand. Within three months, Starburst saw a 14.8 percent sales increase, according to the agency, and the llama spot become a viral hit. It crossed quickly into the general market, noteworthy because the modest ad budget had been concentrated on Spanish-language media.

Aside from hundreds of friends signing up on the brand’s Facebook page and a Mattel American Girl doll getting a pet llama named Starburst, the work spawned the ultimate pop culture compliment: YouTube parodies, tweets and retweets. It also landed LatinWorks a silver Lion at the 2009 Cannes International Advertising Festival.

Mars wasn’t the only satisfied client. Burger King, suffering from a sales slide as recession-wracked consumers ate at home, picked LatinWorks to increase Hispanic patrons. The agency looked at longstanding English-language efforts, with their emphasis on BK’s flame-broiled burgers, and realized that was the key to bringing in Hispanics, who prefer grilled food.

As a play on the cooking concept, the campaign showed burgers being fried in a pan as opposed to BK’s “a la parrilla.” A related stunt put giant frying pans in place of barbecues in public parks and recorded people’s disappointed and unhappy reactions with hidden cameras. The efforts helped bump up sales significantly in cities like Chicago, New York, Dallas and Los Angeles, the agency reports.

Knowing the consumer has always been key for LatinWorks. The mantra of the agency was planted in the 1990s as Flores and Ruelas traveled the country speaking to marketers about A-B’s success in selling to Hispanics. Their boss, August Busch IV, had suggested the road trip because so many firms wanted to tap into the lucrative demo and were looking for help from a pioneer.

“The state of advertising then was rooted in stereotypes and cliches,” says Flores. “We wanted to change that and show that the Hispanic consumer deserved to be addressed with respect.”

LatinWorks opened in 1998 to tap into the U.S. Hispanic market, now numbering 47 million—making it the second-largest Hispanic population in the world behind Mexico—with $1 trillion in buying power. Though the agency has become best known for its campaigns on TV—Bud Light spots ran on three consecutive Super Bowl telecasts—it’s increasingly exploring social media, digital and mobile marketing because young Hispanics over-index on their use of new technology, Flores explains.

The agency prides itself on its own diversity, with a veritable global village of employees from South America, Mexico, Puerto Rico and more infusing the work with their varied sensibilities. It’s a necessary mix, Flores says, to keep up with the ever-evolving demographic makeup in the U.S. Having client-side experience has also been an advantage, with former Dell and Frito-Lay executives in senior management alongside Flores and Ruelas.

Though some high-profile work has crossed over into the mainstream, there are no plans for LatinWorks to become a general market agency, its principals say. But the flexibility to live in both worlds reflects the assimilated-yet-traditional target.

Says Alcocer: “Over the next 10 years, we’ll really start to see the power and strength of the multicultural market.”

7469: LatinWorks Works Its Way To Top Honor.

Advertising Age named LatinWorks as Multicultural Agency of the Year. It’s still bizarre to lump all minorities into a single receptacle, but LatinWorks definitely displays breakthroughs in a variety of areas.

LatinWorks Is Ad Age’s Multicultural Agency of the Year
Austin Shop Grew 13% in 2009 and Pulled in Work From Burger King, Starburst

By Laurel Wentz

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In LatinWorks’ Starburst commercial, a llama faces a young man as they both chew contentedly, then with a hand and a hoof feed each other more Starburst candies, selling the message of an intensely juicy treat that people—and their llamas—love to share.

“I think we used the word bizarre,” said Carole Walker, VP-integrated marketing communications at Mars. “It’s really endearing.”

Though created by Mars’ U.S. Hispanic agency, the spot crossed over from the Hispanic market to general-market TV and into the popular culture in 2009, as people posted their own spoofs on YouTube and tweeted “I wanna eat Starburst with a llama.” Mattel’s American Girls doll line gave one of its dolls, Chrissa, a white baby llama pet named Starburst. And after a double-digit decline in Hispanic sales, down 27.7% in 2008, Starburst’s Hispanic sales shot up 14.8% within three months of LatinWorks’ campaign launching.

“That opened up not only larger budgets on current pieces of business, but also adding new brands,” Ms. Walker said. In addition to new Starburst ads breaking in March 2010, LatinWorks is readying work for Twix, M&M’s and Snickers.

One of the agency’s hallmarks is work that is highly creative and effective in the Hispanic market, but eschews stereotypes and transcends ethnicity. Despite the disastrous 2009 economy, LatinWorks grew revenue by 13% and came up with strategic solutions to drive business for its clients’ brands, earning the accolade of Ad Age’s Multicultural Agency of the Year. While other shops did layoffs, LatinWorks’ staff grew by 15% to 106 people. In a slow year for new business, the agency won pitches for Bacardi and Burger King, now its biggest client, and took home the U.S. Hispanic market’s only trophy from the Cannes Lions International Advertising festival. Unsurprisingly, the prize went to the llama.

Beer vets
LatinWorks was started by two Anheuser-Busch marketing veterans, Manny Flores, a fourth-generation Texan who was Anheuser-Busch’s VP-marketing development, and Mexican-born Alejandro Ruelas, A-B’s director-ethnic marketing. They ended up creating the model for their own Hispanic shop when their boss, August Busch, sent them to explain A-B’s success with Hispanics to other marketers who had asked about it. They opened LatinWorks in 1998 with Sergio Alcocer, now the agency’s president and chief creative officer. (In 2006, they sold a 49% stake to Omnicom Group.) With their background, Miller was soon the biggest client, accounting for almost half of revenues. The shop resigned the business amid leadership changes and a sense that the client was talking down to Hispanics.

That opened the door for Anheuser-Busch, where LatinWorks became one of three U.S Hispanic shops and competed for general market assignments, scoring three Super Bowl slots for Bud Light spots. After InBev bought A-B, the only Hispanic agency left standing was LatinWorks.

“They have a very open, collaborative creative process,” said Dave Peacock, president of Anheuser-Busch InBev North America. “We’ve learned a lot from them about what motivates the Latino consumer.”

In their battle against the status quo in the Hispanic market the beer guys who had no agency experience built somewhat of a contrarian agency, based in Austin, a city where no one opens a Hispanic shop. But the Texas town is affordable, has a superb quality of life for creative people, and brims with talent. The University of Texas at Austin graduates more Hispanic students in advertising than any other U.S. school, Mr. Ruelas said.

LatinWorks has a deep creative bench, led by third partner Mr. Alcocer, who completed an executive MBA last year that included a team project with McKinsey Europe to analyze what makes ads both award-winning and effective.

“Sergio, Sergio, Sergio,” said Russell Weiner, exec VP and chief marketing officer of another LatinWorks client, Domino’s Pizza. “I’m such a Sergio fan. He’s a big part of the special sauce.”

Winning another fast food account, Burger King, in early 2009 was a “blessing” because it got a tough year off to a good start, and let the agency hire people, Mr. Alcocer said. Burger King’s Hispanic traffic was falling, and LatinWorks quickly realized the company promoted Whoppers to the general market as “flame-broiled,” but not to the Hispanic market, where flame broiling, or “a la parrilla” is exactly how Latinos like food prepared. LatinWorks did ads portraying a strange world where people did their cookouts in huge outdoor frying pans. In Los Angeles, Burger King’s biggest Hispanic market, traffic had dipped by 10% but went back up to previous levels after the flame-broiling campaign targeting Spanish-dominant Hispanics.

In 2010 Mr. Flores estimates LatinWorks, which reliably posts double-digit revenue increases every year, will grow 10% to 15%.