Change is coming, an observation from The 2012 Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies conference.

by Brock Wright

Earlier this week a dozen or so students, including myself, from the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communications at Florida State University, traveled to Miami for the annual Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) conference. While there are countless blog posts that can be written about the conference and the knowledge we all gained from attending, I have chosen to focus on how the brands are finally giving the Hispanic market the credit it deserves.

Without a doubt, one of the best presentations at the conference this year was by Marc Stephenson Strachan who is the VP of Multicultural Marketing at Diageo North America. In his presentation, he told us about the organizational culture shift that had to take place in order for Diageo to be successful in its multicultural endeavor. He credited their success to the fact that the top, non-minority, executives got it; they understood that they needed to reach these markets. From there, they made the Hispanic market priority number one. One of the best ways Mr. Stephenson Strachan put it was “You change as your audience changes” and “if we didn’t change, we would lose.”

Later on in the conference we got to hear from Steven Rommeney, (a non-Hispanic Caucasian) brand manager for Eli Lilly, talk about how they, as company, have over indexed in their investment in the Hispanic market compared to the industry. While not as moving as Mr. Stephenson Strachan’s presentation, I enjoyed seeing a non-Hispanic in a leadership role from a major Pharmaceutical company that understood the challenges and dynamics of the Hispanic market.

So you may be wondering what am I trying to get at. When I look at where things have been headed since even last years’ conference in October, it seems that the day where the Hispanic market is left on the back-burner while the “general market” is allocated almost all of the companies’ marketing resources could be a thing of the past, sooner rather than later. I think this may be caused by a mix of having more enlightened and educated upper management, along with the ability of the free market to force companies to seriously look at the purchasing power of Hispanics.

One example of this shift was right in front of me the whole time I was at the conference. Walking from our hotel to the conference venue,  three GNC ads grabbed my attention. Two were in Spanish and one was in English. While the English ad was far larger than the Spanish ads, I found it interesting how GNC didn’t just take the English print and add Spanish. Instead, they created three unique ads. All of the below ads were taken within two blocks in downtown Miami on Biscayne Boulevard near Bayside and the American Airlines Arena.

English GNC ad:  Live Vibrant
Live Vibrant
Viva Saludablemente:  GNC ad
Viva Saludablemente: GNC Spanish ad by bus stop
Viva Saludablemente:  GNC ad
Viva Saludablemente: another GNC ad by bus stop

I’m not saying these are by far the best examples of a company getting the message, but I do think it shows us what the future will be, and not too distant at that. So don’t get left behind. I leave you with this question by Mr. Stephenson Strachan, “What is the color of your money?”