Thoughts on the AHAA San Antonio Conference
I know this is late, but I wanted to provide some parting thoughts on the AHAA Semiannual Conference held in San Antonio 2 weeks ago. I’ve been attending all the AHAA conferences for the last 3 years and left with the following thoughts:
- The conference had very good attendance. However, an informal straw poll during one of the general sessions revealed that over 2/3 of the attendees were media folks (ad salespeople to be exact). Like any good party, you always want to make sure that you have a nice balance - and unfortunately AHAA was a bit of a stag party.
- There was little to no discussion of digital during any of the panel discussions. This was very disappointing, considering how much Hispanic digital is growing. I think it was indicative of Hispanic ad agencies general lack of digital adoption.
- There was a very interesting panel discussion the last day about the “One Stop Shop” model and whether it was a thing of the past. This panel got very heated - focusing on Alex Lopez Negrete’s big concern about the disintegration of Hispanic advertising as it relates to media planning and buying. I found it interesting to hear how worried he and other Hispanic ad agency principals were about losing the media business and how little they were concerned about losing the Hispanic digital business. I mention this because I am pretty sure most Hispanic ad agencies are unaware that General Market ad agencies are taking most of the Hispanic digital dollars out there. This is a disconcerting trend that will have huge ramifications for the future of Hispanic advertising - and most Hispanic agencies are unaware of this.