Can-Do Collaboration
Marketers targeting Hispanics have a new resource for event marketing, and they have local chambers of commerce to thank for it.
Grupo Hacerlo began operations this fall as a network of five regional event-marketing agencies. The network (its name loosely translates as “The Can-Do Group”) was formed by CoActive Marketing Group, Great Neck, NY, which expects to add five more shops within the next year. Plans call for Grupo to cover the 24 biggest Hispanic markets in the U.S.
“It’s a group of good little companies specific to their geography, but lacking the capital and resources to get out of their neighborhoods,” says CoActive president John Benfield.
Working together, the shops (including The Lopez Advertising Group, El Paso, and By Design Multimedia, San Francisco) give clients national reach with local expertise. First work is expected by spring.
Grupo Hacerlo works directly with marketers, promo and ad agencies — and each other. The network treats its members like clients: A member shop that lands a project controls it, contracting with other Grupo members to handle their regions. Work is done on a project basis; Grupo management in Great Neck takes care of the books. Each shop can handle multiple projects.
“It’s a completely flexible servicing group with a financial and strategic arrangement,” says Benfield, who saw a need for Hispanic event marketing when CoActive’s own event marketing arm, U.S. Concepts, had to “fake” Hispanic programs because there was no clearinghouse for authentic local field teams.
Benfield called 16 Hispanic chambers of commerce to find “authentic, 100-percent minority-owned local marketing agencies,” he says. Many chambers had agencies as members; Benfield courted them into the network. The shops have worked on projects for a broad slate of clients including Coca-Cola, Dole, Home Depot, PepsiCo, SBC Pacific Bell, and DaimlerChrysler.
“I had been on the lookout for a group of agencies like mine that would facilitate my company growing,” says Coco Corona, president of 12-year-old By Design Multimedia. “As long as the people involved connect, it’s a great opportunity.”
Corona’s shop works on Latinas on the Move, a five-year-old women’s expo sponsored by DaimlerChrysler. The shop handles p.r., logistics, and event production with DaimlerChrysler’s lead agency. The free, daylong event runs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Jose.
Corona sits on the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which referred Benfield to her special events firm.
“There’s real potential to provide hands-on service to clients,” says Lopez Advertising president Joe Lopez. “I love the idea of experts in each market.”
CoActive also has minority ownership in Hispanic promo shop Market Vision, San Antonio, TX; the venture is separate from Grupo Hacerlo.
