We kick off the first of our 2021 Hispanic/LatinX Heritage Month four-part series with Stephen Paez of global media giant Publicis’ Spark Foundry agency. Stephen oversees the multicultural practice, leading the framework, development and execution of strategies that help big name brands connect with the LatinX audience in engaging ways. Brands like Audible, Mondelez, Telemundo, Taco Bell, and Brown-Forman benefit from Stephen and his diverse team’s insights.
My goal with this series is to have frank conversations about the US LatinX marketplace and try to discover why a population that accounts for nearly 20% of Americans is so woefully under-targeted, represented, and misunderstood by brands.
What better way to help us all get smarter on the topic than to talk to the experts advising the most astute brands who are leveraging a buying power potential of the 62 million LatinX Americans who would constitute the world’s 7th largest GDP if they were their own country.
Here are the highlights of this episode:
- Origin Story. How Spark Foundry came to be and where it now sits within Publicis.
- Day Job. What Stephen does to guide brands in the LatinX marketplace.
- Media Landscape. The biggest changes and trends Stephen is seeing – both good and bad – from brands getting and investing in the LatinX community.
- Case Study Cliff Notes. Stephen shares a case study to illuminate a best practice for brands to think about.
- The multicultural lens. How current events are changing the dialogue of what multicultural and general market advertising and content marketing mean in 2021.
- LatinX Audience. The stereotypes and complexity of different LatinX cultures and other contributing factors to why the LatinX marketing dollars from brands lag other minority populations.
- The Integrated Content Challenge. Content consumers (like you) enjoy content where they want it, when they want it, yet many brands still cling to to old school model of agency by platform (TV vs. digital) or general market vs. multicultural. We discuss the challenges of brands’ content consistency with so many competing factions at play.
- Morning Musts. Stephen dishes out his best sources of industry intel and morning routine to stay on his business game.
- Bedside Bookstand. As we do with every guest, we get personal with a book rec.
I invite you to connect with Stephen Paez on LinkedIn and follow Spark Foundry here so you can get insights on content like we discussed today.
We want to hear from you. Share this podcast, give us your feedback and hit me up with topic suggestions and guest ideas. Brand Story, Inc. is for you, so let’s make it great together. You can ping me on LinkedIn or follow me on Twitter @_JaySharman. Thanks for listening. Enjoy!