Posted by Elena del Valle on December 4, 2009
Watercooler: Behind the Scenes and Off the Record book cover
Photos: Ascot Media Group, Inc.
In Watercooler, Behind the Scenes and Off the Record, The Untold Stories from Broadcasters (Authorhouse, $16.98) Elizabeth Sanchez shares untold stories she gathered around the office while speaking with colleagues in newsrooms and broadcast studios. They are personal stories from nine women (including Sanchez) and four men reporters at networks like Fox News and CBS as well as local affiliates of the big networks in several areas of the country.
Sanchez, host of the national PBS TV show A Place of Our Own, dedicated seven chapters to the stories in the 112-page paperback book published this year. The chapter titles are: Mother Nature’s Fury, In the Thick of Things, Putting It into Perspective, Choosing Course, Perks and Punches, Reflections on Death, and Launching Pad.
The new book features stories about what the reporters thought were inspiring and horrific moments covering crime and natural disasters, including war zones, Hurricane Katrina and the Los Angeles riots. Rita Cosby, former Fox News correspondent and MSNBC talk show host, told Sanchez about how she was riding in a media helicopter to survey damage from Hurricane Katrina when the craft was recruited for rescue efforts.
“Our chopper became a crammed aerial ambulance transporting evacuees, some covered in blood from falling debris and broken glass,” said Cosby. “I remember asking a young rescued woman where she was going to go next. She simply responded, ‘Just away from here.’”
Barry Peterson, a CBS News correspondent, tells of his experience covering the war in Sarajevo and trying to catch a flight on “Maybe Airlines,” an unreliable United Nations airlift that sometimes dropped off supplies and picked up hitchhiking journalists and their gear, when there was no sniper fire, bad weather or mechanical problems. His old passport has the stamp of “Maybe Airlines.”
Other story contributors include Stacy Case, a TV host and producer; Juan Fernandez, a reporter for KCBS; Elise Finch, a WCBS-TV meteorologist; Sandra Gonzalez, a reporter with Fox; Kristine Lazar, a television reporter; Drew Levinson, a national correspondent for CBS Newspath; Jennifer Miller, a CBS reporter; Tracey Neale, a primary anchor for 9News; Sarah Schulte, a reporter with ABC; and David Whisenant, a reporter and anchor with WBTV.
Author Elizabeth Sanchez
Before becoming host of the Emmy-nominated PBS TV show Sanchez, winner of several Emmys, worked as a news anchor and reporter in San Diego, Charlotte, and Phoenix. She also has been a national correspondent for CBS NewsPath and covered the death of Michael Jackson, presidential elections, the Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy, the Kobe Bryant and Scott Peterson court cases, and the White House.
Click here to buy
Watercooler
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Filed Under: Books
Posted by Elena del Valle on December 3, 2009
An article with comments by Elena del Valle, principal LNA World Communications and HispanicMPR editor and host, was recently published in Diversity Matters edited by Annette Merritt Cummings in the Bernard Hodes Group online publication (September/October 2009).
Posted by Elena del Valle on December 2, 2009
When my budget is tight I strive to obtain as much as possible for my money. I examine purchases to make sure they offer the best value for money. In doing so I look closely at new and existing vendors. I’m most likely to patronize those vendors that offer the same value I have received in the past. Vendors that offer additional benefits compared to past purchases and existing options are the most likely to receive my business.
I am in good company thanks to the spreading economic crisis. Many, if not most, consumers face the same decision issues today. According to a recent Mintel (“a global supplier of consumer, product and media intelligence”) survey, a majority of shoppers said they always look at sale items before shopping for non-sale items, especially in department stores (64 percent), at mass merchandisers (53 percent) and at discount apparel stores (53 percent). Four in 10 shoppers said they spend a lot of time looking for clothing sales and shopping around for the lowest price.
That is why I find it puzzling and self defeating to see the increasing number of companies that decrease benefits for the same cost. To illustrate I will tell you about a favorite restaurant my husband and I used to visit regularly. Although the food was nothing to write home about for years we stopped there on weekends for a quick bite and to enjoy the stunning and extraordinary waterside setting the historic restaurant offered.
It was a popular restaurant. Often there was a long wait (an hour or more) for a table, longer for the section we liked. As the economy soured the crowed thinned. Now here’s where it gets interesting. As fewer guests came the restaurant management began cutting back on the quality and quantity of the food. The prices remained the same. The cloth napkins were replaced with paper napkins. The yummy Hawaiian bread and warm cornbread had to be requested instead of being brought automatically as in the past. After a while, the nice bread disappeared completely to be replaced with boring buns. The guacamole was excised from the fish tacos plate. It could be ordered for a supplement of $1. The portion size became smaller than ever and the quality of the food diminished. The prices remained the same.
Eventually, and worst of all, the quality of the food dropped so much I couldn’t eat it. For a while we had struggled with the state of the restaurant but kept on going hoping that the management would realize that taking good care of the loyal customers that remained was the best avenue to surviving difficult times. Instead things continued to worsen. After several more disappointing visits we stopped going altogether.
Last week the Air Transport Association predicted holiday traffic would drop 4 percent and others speculated that the drop in air traffic would be ever greater during what is historically one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. It’s no wonder with high unemployment, a deep recession and airline surcharges for holiday travel. It’s bad enough having to travel through crowded often ill designed, uncomfortable airports; and run through the gauntlet of airport safety checks, removing sweaters, belts, shoes, watches, and even jewelry to pass through; sometimes being wanded or patted down by a stranger; and obliging any instruction an arbitrary security agent provides to get from Point A to Point B on an overcrowded airplane (although there are fewer passengers than in past years the airlines have reduced flights leaving remaining flights overcrowded) when there is so much stress in our lives already.
If they want to improve their bottom line and customer loyalty, should airlines be offering better deals and more incentives; and doing everything they can to make it more pleasant and easier than ever for passengers to travel? Are they doing that already? Is adding luggage fees and holiday surcharges producing the results they desire? Are passengers likely to eagerly book when they return from full flights that results in increasingly less comfortable travel experiences?
It seems counter intuitive to raise prices and lower quality and quantity when everyone is cutting back budgets and looking to maximize value for money. And yet that seems to be what so many companies are doing. From a marketing perspective to draw traffic you offer an irresistible product or service or the perception of it. There are many examples of this. A prominent one is the ubiquitous iPhone, and iPod. Thus far Apple has survived, some would even say thrived while so many others have gone the bankrupt.
In the absence of a product the customer can’t resist the vendor can offer good or better value for money to sweeten the deal. Should smart executives increase marketing and public relations budgets to spread the word and remind the public of their brand, product, or service and prompt a purchase as soon as the customer is ready? Instead so many companies are doing the opposite, offering poor or lower quality and lesser value for money than in the past. Why then are they baffled to see their bottom line affected?
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 30, 2009
Manuel Wernicky, president, Adrenalina
Photo, radio ad: Adrenalina
A Spanish language Tecate beer radio ad dubbed Disclaimer by Adrenalina, the ad producer, is noteworthy because of its comic take on the disclaimer sections found in many ads. The ad, which explains why wimpy men who lack character should avoid drinking Tecate, was recently recognized with a silver trophy at the El Ojo de Iberoamérica Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
In a rapid-fire format, the ad indicates that Tecate discourages wimpy men from consuming the Mexican beer. The ad points out that listeners who own dogs named Puchi, Tinkerbell or Princess, or call a girlfriend Baby or Little Smurfette haven’t got what it takes to enjoy Tecate. The beer promoters set out to reaffirm Tecate’s image targeting Mexican men living in the United States who favor the brand.
The Disclaimer Tecate beer radio ad was recorded at the end of January 2009 in Miami and New York at a dual studio recording session at RedCar, Miami with Paco Olavarrieta, in-house voiceover talent and chief creative officer, for the disclaimer portion of the spot; and at Bond, New York with Mexican actor Marco Treviño.
The Adrenalina team for the 2009 Tecate Disclaimer radio spot included Manuel Wernicky, president, chief ideas officer and managing partner; Paco Olavarrieta, chief creative officer and managing partner; Ivar Rodríguez, associate creative director; Daniel Roversi, agency producer; and Yonathan Bendesky, brand leadership.
The ad has been airing via national and regional Spanish-language networks Univision Radio, ESPN Deportes Radio and Lieberman Media since April 2009. According to an agency spokesperson, Adrenalina presented the spot to consumers in research conducted this year and the Disclaimer ad received the most laughs, with consumers reporting the highest recall for the spot and saying that the spot was most memorable for it’s humorous message and use of colloquial phrases.
“El Ojo is further recognition that our team’s creative work resonates among our colleagues in the global advertising community,” said Wernicky.
Adrenalina, the lead agency for Tecate and Tecate Light, recently embarked on its third consecutive advertising and marketing programs for the brands’ distributor, Heineken USA via Cervecería Cuauhtemoc Moctezuma (CCM) of Monterrey, Mexico. New creative for both brands is expected to roll out in early 2010.
El Ojo de Iberoamérica is a marketing and advertising event created to showcase creativity and innovation in advertising, communication, marketing and entertainment in Latin America, Spain and Portugal.
Adrenalina, a New York minority-owned and managed ad agency seeks to create ideas that provoke engagement, experience and emotion between brands and consumers. MDC Partners is a partnership of entrepreneurial firms that offer marketing communications services to clients in North America, Europe and Latin America.
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 20, 2009
Branding the Man book cover
Photo: Allworth Press
Bertrand Pellegrin, an international branding consultant, is convinced that men are fond of shopping and that they don’t shop as much as they might because stores are designed for women and don’t cater well to men. In the newly published Branding the Man Why Men Are the Next Frontier in Fashion Retail (Allworth Press, $27.50) he offers retailers, buyers and marketers suggestions to capture that often elusive demographic group.
Pellegrin believes today’s man is more confident in his shopping choices than his predecessors. This modern male shopper pays attention to his appearance and grooming and looks for fashionable clothes, sports, electronics, fitness, sex and related items that are a good value, according to the author. In the book, he addresses the men’s retail environment including store design, purchasing, sourcing, merchandising, marketing, promotions and advertising.
The 201-page hardcover book is divided into 14 chapters and two appendices, and includes 60 black and white images. According to promotional materials, Pellegrin specializes in strategic positioning, customer insight and creative direction in retail.
In the past, he worked with Gensler Worldwide, Lane Crawfor, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Lotte department stores in Korea. Before that the San Francisco resident was an award-winning television producer and director.
Click here to buy Branding the Man
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Filed Under: Books
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 18, 2009
E Commerce trends by country - click to enlarge
Chart: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
According to Empowering E Consumers, a November 2009 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), some of the benefits of the advent of the Internet for consumers around the world include increased competition and lower prices, greater product and services options than offline, and a choice of vendors from around the world at the convenience, time and location of the buyer’s preference.
The report finds that while the retail sector has suffered severely by the current economic crisis, e-commerce has prospered and even exhibited continued growth in many countries. Those trends are the result, in part, of consumers becoming more cost conscious, and increasingly comparison shopping online to save money.
For example, in the United States, while most offline retailers had low sales in the first quarter of 2009, online retail sales for 80 retailers rose by an average of 11 percent. There was a similar pattern in France where the French electronic commerce and distance selling federation estimated that, for the first quarter of 2009, e-commerce sales grew by 26 percent and should increase throughout the year by 20 to 25 percent.
E commerce serves as a business forum for consumers and businesses. Lately, more businesses are going online as a result of the recession. Attracted to the Internet as a means to increase visibility and markets at relatively low cost, business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce showed marked growth. Most online sales in the United States were B2B generated, $3.1 trillion in sales in 2008 compared to $130 billion for sales to consumers.
OECD provides a forum for member governments to compare policy experiences, “seek answers to common problems, identify good practice and coordinate domestic and international policies.
Reach Hispanics online today with
“Marketing to Hispanics Online” audio recording
Identifying and characterizing the booming Hispanic online market
Joel Bary, Alex Carvallo and Matias Perel
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• The 16 million Latino online users
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Click here for information about “Marketing to Hispanics Online”
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 17, 2009
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Search Engine Strategies is the pioneer of educational conference series in search engine marketing. It’s the venue where the industry visionaries and thought-leaders gather each year to discuss the newest trends, share insights, and present the strategic action plans you need to grow your business.
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HispanicMPR readers receive a 15% discount when using HMPR15.
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 16, 2009
The Signal album cover
Photos, song: HardKandy Records, Inc.
Singer Eva Natal, whose father is from Spain, considers herself Latina. She describes her music as an eclectic mix of alternative rock, electronica, and trip hop. Her self written lyrics are designed to intrigue and keep listeners guessing whats next. She plays guitar, keyboards, violin and bass.
Her debut album, The Signal, on HardKandy Records Inc. is scheduled for release in early 2010. Late last month the record label made a special fan track available. Scroll down to listen to Pulse from The Signal.
Singer Eva Natal
Born March 28, 1987 Natal is described as a very quite and polite girl who spent most of her time reading, dancing in front of her mirror, fearfully playing sports alongside girls with way too much aggression, and practicing the violin.
By her teens she began expressing her likes through fashion and dance and stopped taking violin lessons. As a young adult she rebelled against the what she considered suppression in a private catholic school environment by dropping out of college, enraging her parents; and pursuing a life of what she calls a struggling creativist through various stabs at the modeling and dance industry, and most recently as a budding recording artist. Her 12-track album should be available at major online retailers next year.
Click on the play button to listen to Pulse from The Signal album
Posted by Elena del Valle on November 13, 2009
Los Simuladores
Photos, video: Cinelatino
Sony Pictures Television (SPT) will premiere Los Simuladores, a Mexican series, in the United States on November 15 exclusively on Cinelatino, a Spanish-language movie channel. Based on an Argentine series of the same name, Los Simuladores centers on the adventures of four men operatives, trained and prepared to carry out sting operations. Scroll down to watch a preview of Los Simuladores in Spanish.
Shot in high definition, the show features a cast of Mexican actors, including Tony Dalton (Matando Cabos, 13 Miedos, Sultanes del Sur), Arath de la Torre (La Parodia, La Hora de La Papa), Ruben Zamora (7 Dias, Pasion) and Alejandro Calva (The Producers, The Pillow Man, Sin Memoria). They dedicate their efforts and skills to solving human-interest conflicts for their clients, including troubled marriages, dangerous loan sharks, swindling agents and broken hearts.
The team features Mario Santos (Tony Dalton), the brain, who comes up with the plans; Emilio Vargas (Arath de la Torre), the chameleon, who plays different characters in the operations; Pablo Lopez (Alejandro Calva), the go-to man, in charge of logistics and technical aspects; and Gabriel Medina (Ruben Zamora), the researcher, who finds the necessary information for Santos to come up with the plans.
“This is the highest-caliber premium series currently available to U.S. audiences in Spanish, and we’re excited to offer it exclusively to our viewers,” said Jim McNamara, chairman of Cinelatino. “The superb production values, excellent cast, and compelling story lines make this THE must-see series of the season.”
The series also features Natalie Esperon (Por un Beso, La Esposa Virgen and El Nombre del Amor), Rafael Amaya (Las Dos Caras de Ana and Amor Letra Por Letra), Silverio Palacios (Morirse en Domingo, Amor a Morir, Matando Cabos) and Adal Ramones (Otro Rollo con Adal Ramones).
Los Simuladores
In late 2008, Los Simuladores debuted in Mexico on Televisa and throughout Latin America on Sony Entertainment Television. After a successful first season, a second season of the series began production earlier this year.
Los Simuladores is the second premium series to air on Cinelatino. The channel premiered the series Tiempo Final in the spring of 2009. The first two episodes of Los Simuladores are scheduled to premiere on Cinelatino on Sunday, November 15, at 7 p.m. EST and repeat at 11 p.m. EST (4 p.m. and 8 p.m. PT). A new episode of the 13 episode series will air every Sunday at 7 p.m. EST and will repeat at 11 p.m. EST (4 p.m. and 8 p.m. PT) during the season. Cinelatino plans to air Season Two in early 2010.
According to promotional materials, Cinelatino has more than 3.6 million subscribers on major cable, satellite and telephony providers throughout North America. Cinelatino offers Spanish-language programs and titles from Mexico, Latin America, Spain and the U.S. Cinelatino is jointly-owned by Grupo MVS, InterMedia Partners and Panamax Films.
Sony Pictures Television produces and distributes varied programming including series, telefilms, theatrical releases and family entertainment around the world and for every platform: broadcast and cable television, first-run and off-network syndication and digital distribution.
