6963: Translating Ad Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack.

Read the Ad Age story below. Then check out the MultiCultClassics commentary immediately following.

As Lines Continue to Blur, Some of Today’s Top Hispanic Shops Aren’t Hispanic After All

Ad Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack Ranks Agencies and Uncovers Latino Trends

By Laurel Wentz

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Agencies are trampling the traditional boundaries between general-market and multicultural accounts to win business in a tough economy. Enough, in fact, that seven of the shops in Ad Age’s ranking of the top 50 U.S. Hispanic agencies this year aren’t primarily Latino shops.

The changes are coming swiftly enough that four of the seven agencies this year are new to the ranking, which appears in Ad Age’s sixth-annual Hispanic Fact Pack, published today. Five non-Hispanic agencies that appeared on last year’s list have dropped off.

Independent GlobalHue, originally an African-American shop, now gets 50% of its revenue from a GlobalHue Latino unit that recently restructured with a number of high-level Hispanic execs. It now ranks as the fourth-biggest Hispanic shop, up from No. 7 last year.

In one anomaly in the U.S. Hispanic market, full-service Hispanic agencies with hefty media departments—which have all but disappeared from the largest general-market agencies—are competing with big media agencies that are trying to capture their clients’ multicultural business by growing and packaging their own expertise in units such as Omnicom Group’s OMD Latino and WPP’s Mindshare Multicultural.

Just two years ago, WPP’s Mediaedge:cia opened a unit called MEC Bravo, based in Mediaedge’s New York office and run by the media agency’s former CEO in Argentina, Gonzalo Del Fa. MEC Bravo is now tied for third-largest Hispanic media shop, according to Ad Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack ranking. Last year two Hispanic creative agencies, Omnicom-backed LatinWorks and independent Republica, started their own media departments, a move that has helped LatinWorks grow its business with clients such as Pizza Hut.

The new normal

Blurring the lines between who handles what business isn’t new. Interpublic Group of Cos.’ McCann Erickson, for instance, has such a lock on MasterCard’s “Priceless” ad franchise that the agency produces Spanish-language work, too. But it’s increasingly the new normal. When Volkswagen’s U.S. Hispanic agency, Creative on Demand, does a Spanish-language ad for Volkswagen of America, it usually does an English-language one, too. And at Omnicom-owned Hispanic shop Alma DDB, Chief Creative Officer Luis Miguel Messianu troubleshoots for biggest client McDonald’s Corp. as far away as Romania, as well as handling Hispanic, urban and general market assignments in the U.S.

Hispanics themselves often live in two worlds, going back and forth between English and Spanish, even as demographic patterns are being reversed. In today’s America, 61% of Hispanic adults were born outside the U.S.—but 88% of Hispanic children were born in this country.

Marketers short on time and money appreciate go-anywhere agencies. In a microcosm of the U.S. market, small agency Walton Isaacson handles African-American work for Toyota’s Lexus, has pitched in on general-market projects and recently hired Rochelle Newman-Carrasco as chief Hispanic strategist after Lexus inquired about Hispanic capabilities. This summer the agency organized Lexus events in two cities that were planned as general-market events for affluent attendees drawn from dealers’ mailing lists. As it turned out, the general market was mainly African-Americans in Atlanta and Hispanics in Miami.

Some agencies are positioning themselves as being more about cultural convergence than ethnic labels. Project 2050, a small New York shop that says it helps marketers reach diverse consumers, just hired as chief creative Bobbito Garcia, described as “a curator of underground culture.” CEO Phil Colon compares the move to the agency’s 2005 hiring of then-underground street artist Shepard Fairey as founding creative director. Mr. Fairey went on to create the iconic Obama image plastered everywhere during the last presidential campaign.

¡Ay, caramba! The Taco Bell Chihuahua must be spinning in its grave. As different cultures often see the same events in different ways, here’s the MultiCultClassics point-of-view on the scenarios presented by Ad Age.

Uno. Ad Age wrote, “Agencies are trampling the traditional boundaries between general-market and multicultural accounts to win business in a tough economy.” It’s probably more accurate to say that Whites are remapping the borders, raiding the undiscovered country of Latino marketing in search of mucho dinero. GlobalHue is the oddball, yet its uniqueness is mostly based on the shop’s original goal of servicing all the top minority segments. To write that GlobalHue was “originally an African-American shop” is a bit strange too, as many clients employ the place as their African-American shop. The agency is likely considered to be in every major racial/ethnic category except general market.

Dos. Full-service Hispanic agencies battling with big media agencies is not an “anomaly.” It’s business as usual—another example of Whites seeking to dominate the game.

Tres. “The new normal” is a polite term for neo-racism in the industry. As always, the White agencies are allowed to handle any business available, while the minority shops are systematically shut out from vying for general market work. The examples of Latinos leading on projects are extreme cases, paling in comparison to the cross-cultural steals executed by White counterparts. Blurring the lines? Blurring the truth is a better phrase.

Cautro. The Age Age story inspires a new term you won’t find in the Hispanic Fact Pack: Greengos—Gringos seeking Latinos’ green.