1. First, why is the launch of an agency Web site worthy of an email blast from HispanicAd.com? Was it the fact that it was created internally at the agency? Maybe the music (see #3 below).

2. All Flash. Not to pick on Lopez Negrete, but I thought agencies finally got over their fascination with creating all Flash animated Web sites (in 2002). I mean, I get the benefits, but I still feel the drawbacks outweigh them (inferior user experience, clunky navigation), assuming the Flash was optimized for SEO (search engine spiders) and made web analytics friendly (which I doubt)

3. Music. Really? I know CMO’s, the press, and potential employees love music like the rest of us, but is that what they’re really hoping to find when the site loads up (I’m glad the status bar continues to live on!)

4. Navigation. Rule one of usability – make sure a Web site’s navigational elements are immediately intuitive and straightforward to users. I get the Loteria/Village theme, but will a user really know that the “Post Office” is the Contact Us page or the “City Hall” tab is really About us?

5. The splash page! I know most sites lose 50-80% of their visitors off the home page, but doggonit, it’s worth it if there’s an animated carousel involved.

I know, I probably sound really negative and snarky with this post. Again, don’t mean to pick on the really smart folks over at Lopez Negrete, but I think their new site, launched in November 2009 is indicative of the predicament facing most traditional agencies. They still don’t get the intricacies of digital communications. In this case, creating an immersive, usable, and engaging user experience that matches up with their key users’ (Web personas) needs…

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

It is all over the news that there was a shooting incident today at Ft. Hood outside of Killeen, TX.

The interesting social media story is that within hours, if not minutes, of the shootings the Austin American-Statesman set up a Twitter account called @FtHoodShootings to cover the news of the event.

In less than two hours they have almost 2000 followers.

Much like URLs, the Twitter land grab has started and will only accelerate. As events happen or stars become famous, people will move quickly to snatch up Twitter accounts with relevant names. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I think the trend Forrester notes is undeniable.

One interesting thought exercise would be to consider what this shift in the agency food chain, if fully realized, would mean for Hispanic agencies. Considering that few Hispanic shops have robust digital capabilities, coupled with the increasing pace of technology-driven media changes – might this trend further their marginalization?

What do you think?

I am extremely proud and excited to announce that our agency ranked No. 2 on Hispanic Business magazine’s list of the fastest growing Hispanic-owned businesses and earned a spot at No. 448 on the HB500, a list of top Hispanic-owned companies in the nation.

While our growth has been fueled by multiple internal and external factors (not the least of which is our amazing team of professionals), I think the trend in multicultural marketing towards digital platforms has helped validate our business model and provide us with some nice tailwinds to help spur our growth.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Last Thursday, Current Network became the first brand to solicit agencies via Twitter to receive RFPs for its account review.

Just another chapter in the burgeoning popularity of Twitter? Or just a side-show stunt for a brand to get some free PR.

While I tend to view this as more the latter, the entire turn of events got me thinking about Hispanic agency reviews. Can you imagine what would happen if Current Network was looking for a Hispanic agency? Probably wouldn’t have been as exciting nor have solicited the hundreds of creative responses that Current received (check out One to One’s video response). I mean, how many leaders at Hispanics agencies even Twitter? My theory is that not a lot. Would love to be proven wrong…

If any of you follow any Hispanic agency leaders via Twitter, please share their Twitter usernames. Mine is www.twitter.com/jrvilla

A professor (Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management) from my alma mater, The Wharton School of Business, claims that paid advertising as we’ve all come to know it and make a living from, will inevitably fail, because:
1. Consumers do not trust advertising
2. Consumers do not want to view advertising
3. Consumers do not need advertising

While 600+ angry responses ensued, one particularly thoughtful debate developed between Professor Clemons and Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of SearchEngineLand, regarding the future and sustainability of search engine marketing on Google, Yahoo! etc.

I highly encourage that you read Professor Clemons’ original post, and the debate between Professor Clemons and Danny Sullivan.

For one, I think this is a very healthy debate for our industry to be having. It is during recessionary times that everything, including fundamental business models, need to be re-evaluated, optimized and/or abandoned.

However, I was struck by the omission of two key assumptions that most everyone has seemed to miss in this debate – the intelligence and savvy of consumers to:
1. Trust effective, honest and compelling advertising for products or services they are interested in and,
2. View and find value in ads that are relevant to their needs or wants

Professor Clemons doesn’t seem to see that. Those of us in advertising give much more credit to the intelligence of our audiences and the value of the products and services we are selling.

What do you think?

The piece prompts an interesting question – does multicultural advertising reflect the world we live in today or is it helping shape the world. The classic “chicken or the egg” question.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Jose

According to the Pew Hispanic Center’s “Unemployment Rises Sharply Among Latino Immigrants in 2008,” Hispanics have actually maintained a higher rate of employment than the overall population (62.3% vs 61.6%, respectively) The report also shows that Hispanics have the highest labor force participation rate of any group measured at 68.3%.

While not good news, it shows that this is a labor market that more quickly adapts to difficult economic circumstances, especially when you consider how key Hispanic employers in construction, hospitality, and the retail sector have been hit by the recession.

At least this blogger isn’t a journalist. I’m a guy who works in marketing and posts something on a blog every once in a while. I have no editor, no fact checkers, and no policies of any sort (my wife corrects my grammar sometimes). A few weeks ago I posted something I had heard from a reliable source. Turns out the source didn’t know the whole story and I made a couple of logical leaps in the wrong direction. By the time someone with all of the facts came around, my version had gotten out into the press. What I wrote wasn’t false or in any way malicious, I just didn’t have the whole story. What’s more, I didn’t have any responsibility to go looking for sources to verify my facts. I’m no journalist, I’m just a guy who works in marketing and has a blog.

George Parker is a marketing guy. He also has a blog. It has a lot of what might be considered unprofessional language in it and also reprints rumors about the advertising industry. He gets a pretty good amount of traffic and has semi-reliable informers. He’s also not a journalist, but he gets a lot of traffic so he may be a “blogger.”

Silicon Alley Insider is one of my favorite blogs. They have several writers and are part of a larger company that owns several blogs. They have editors and paid advertisers. They sometimes post industry rumors and often break out with opinions. They also do things like post little throwaway items that seem designed to just increase pageviews and therefore revenues (again, my opinion). So SAI is a business and it’s writers are definitely bloggers. However, it isn’t a newspaper and I would hesitate to call those guys journalists. Bloggers and writers – yes. Journalists – no.

The New York Times is a “newspaper of record.” It has editors and policies and fact checkers.* Everything it prints is reviewed and revised and fact-checked. It actually prints things (as opposed to just posting) because there is a print edition of the newspaper, for better or for worse. The people who work for the NYTimes are professional, trained journalists.

During his first presidential press conference, President Obama took a question from Sam Stein. Mr. Stein works for the Huffington Post, which is a blog. HP is one of the most popular blogs on the Internet. It has a lot of very smart people writing for it (as does SAI), and lots of paid writers and original content. It has editors. However, it is not on the same level as the New York Times or Washington Post. At least not yet. It seems to sit somewhere between the New York Times and Silicon Alley Insider.

As blogs accumulate writers and editors and advertisers and credibility, they begin to look more like newspapers. As newspapers add interactive features and video and comments, and cut back on their print editions, they begin to resemble blogs. Although the NYTimes and Washington Post and Wall Street Journal have been around for years and are considered newspapers “of record,” the line indicating whether they are more reliable or have better content is blurring. As more people get their news and information online, this line will become more blurry. Even President Obama can see this.

In a world where anyone with a computer has a voice (and a blog), it is important that we as consumers of news and information understand who it is we’re reading and how reliable, and worthwhile, the content is. By the same token, magazines, newspapers, blogs, and other sources of information will have to prove their reliability and credibility over time. As much as writers have a responsibility to be credible and get their facts straight, readers have a responsibility to understand what their source is and in what context any information comes from.

* Jayson Blair notwithstanding

According to TubeMogul, Univision is the most pirated network on YouTube, drawing 586 million views for mostly telenovela clips.

Ironically, I was just interviewed yesterday about the viability of long-form online video content for the U.S. Hispanic market. Needless to say, it’s viable, and clearly an untapped opportunity.

Hopefully Univision and Televisa can work out a deal soon regarding digital content… before someone takes advantage of the dearth of Spanish video content online.