The Hispanic and Latino Media and Marketing International Conference took place Feb. 19-21 at the Donald L. Tucker Civic Center. The event was hosted by the College of Communication and Information Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. The conference aims to develop and provide better ways to connect and communicate with the Hispanic population.
“This is the largest international conference for academics who study Hispanic media and markets and the use of the Spanish language in the media. The official purpose of the conference is for professors and researches from top universities in the U.S., Spain, Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico to come and present their latest research. We have also brought in business leaders in order to close the gap between the business and academic world being there is not always communication between the two. Top leaders from Google, Coca Cola, Facebook, Wells Fargo and Walmart are here. We have an all-star team of Hispanic and multicultural marketing executives,” said Art Schwartz Restrepo, outreach director for the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication.
Some of the core objectives of the conference are to bring awareness to consumer behavior, mass communication and challenges to media. Individuals are also encouraged to exchange and generate ideas that could benefit from further research. Most importantly it is to connect academics and business professionals for the common cause of Hispanic and Latino and multicultural communication.
“We hope with this event we can educate the community and our students about the new trends, and about Latino consumers in the U.S. and in the world. We hope that we can find ways for everyone to better connect with the Latino communities and create better societies,” said Dr. Sindy Chapa, assistant professor and associate director for the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication.
The conference originated in 2009. It is the largest meeting of academics, media professionals and students and occurs every two years. Some topics that were covered include marketing communication, media adoption and culture, history and development of media, and Hispanic and Latino marketing to name a few.
“As a presenter I talked about the community initiatives that Wells Fargo does to reach the Hispanic community. I personally have been in this industry for 20 years now and I wish there was a program like this when I started my career. Back then it was a little bit of a discovery and trial and error with working with the Hispanic community. Now a days there is so much great research that can inform big and small companies with the work that they do. It’s terrific that this conference is put together to provide the very best information to students that are interested in this field,” said Mariela Ure, senior vice president for Hispanic Segment Strategy for Wells Fargo.