If you have ever been to Mexico, chances are you’ve eaten or at least seen a Negrito, an ubiquitous chocolate sweet produced by Mexican food giant Grupo Bimbo and sold pretty much in every tiendita around the country.
I ate one as recently as last month, and while the taste has not changed a great deal, its advertising has.
Check out the following commercials for Negrito Bimbo.
1983
Oh, and did I forget to include its 1980′s packaging?
Poor Tom Corbett; he was asked to talk about the Latino vote and complicated stuff like that… But how on Earth can this poor soul possibly answer all those questions when he needs help from a reporter to even find a Latino? (1:50 in the video.)
Let’s give him a hand shall we? Perhaps he can start here, at the annual Carnaval de Puebla en Filadelfia.
I can spot several, can you?
Video: Al Día
As I reported a few days ago on Portada Online, Univision soon will debut Flama, a “digital destination that promises culturally relevant content targeting Hispanic millennials.”
So far so good. As most Spanish-speakers know, “flama” is Spanish for “flame,” which I think is a great name for a Hispanic media outlet. However, a simple Wikipedia search, informs us that FLAMA is also the acronym of:
The Frente de Libertação do Arquipélago da Madeira (English: Madeira Archipelago Liberation Front), a right-wing terrorist paramilitary organisation from Madeira, whose main goal was to achieve Madeira’s independence from mainland Portugal.
Wait. What?!
I’m sure Univision’s Flama has absolutely nothing to do with a paramilitary organization in Madeira, but just in case, it might be safer to be really “millennial” about it and just call it “Flame?”
Just sayin’
Organic food marketers will have you believe that us (i.e. The Mexicans) have a way of going about carrying a bunch of essential herbs, including non-essential nor-necessarily Mexican herbs [peppermint leaf, cumin seed, basil and coriander.]
I do carry around some Mexican chili powder, except in Mexico I just call it “chili powder.”
Cumbia Ninja is the story of a group of cumbia musicians and a Chinese ninja who live in some unnamed Latin American slum.
What happens when an old Chinese ninja master meets a group of cumbia musicians living in a Latin American slum controlled by drug dealers?
Well, I’m not really sure but we will soon find out, as MundoFox last week announced the upcoming premiere of Cumbia Ninja, an original series set in a Latin American slum (we’re not sure which one, but I guess they’re all the same,) where a young idealist and his buddies come up with an unusual way to clean up the streets where they live.
I don’t know you, but anything that doesn’t include a septuagenarian dancing around with a group of scantily-clad Latinas on a Saturday afternoon or some evil twin trying to poison the hacendado in a primetime telenovela sounds very refreshing.
Miblogestublog CEO and a bunch of blurry people who insisted on taking a picture with her.
This is exhausting! In addition to covering this week’s Hispanic TV Upfronts for these guys and these guys, I had to save some juicy details for the not-so-serious side of the 3-day-marathon of parties, parties and parties, programming presentations, interviews and business meetings.
* Hispanic TV Upfront week started May 13 with two networks, Azteca America and Estrella TV, holding “intimate dinners” at the exact same time in two very distant places, presumably to keep me from attending either. But, as you all know by now, I’m a sneaky Mexican and managed to attend both.
* Estrella TV brought to dinner at Tao Restaurant its most recent acquisition, Myrka Dellanos, who looked amazing and who is now going to be news anchoring instead of selling toothpaste.
* As it has been the case before, I crashed the People en Español party at Marquee, which was OK, but not nearly as as glamorous and/or fun as previous years. However, beggars can’t be chosers, so I shut up now. Besides, I must continue to be nice to them, especially to Elvis Lizardo, who famously calls me “The Mexican glue that keep us all together.”
Marlon Moreno and Hernán Lopez, uno más guapo que el otro
* After surveilling the venue for some famous bellos, I realized celebrities are not the only beautiful bunch, so I proceded to propose People en Español Editor ArmandoCorrea a co-production of “Los 50 ejecutivos más bellos del mercado latino,” a list that would be curated by @miblogestublog -of course, and published and promoted by Time Inc. or someone with that kind of money. I’m thinking MundoFox’ Hernán López should go on the cover, while Telemundo’s Peter Blacker will take the back cover, though I’m still not sure. Other execs being considered: Mundo Fox’ Oswald Mendez, Telemundo’s Emilio Romano and Fusion’s Miguel Ferrer. [This blog is accepting submissions now.]
* Tuesday events kicked off at 11:00 am at The New Amsterdam Theatre, where Univision held a lavish presentation for over 1,600 guests.
* Pretty much all those 1,600 guests then walked or took buses to Univision’s after party, which took place at ESPACE, where there was not a lot of “espace” nor food to feed all those hungry mouths. At some point, many attendees grew restless and angry as waiter after waiter kept passing in front of us with trays full of food, but destined to “VIP’s only.” That didn’t stop me, however, so I quickly managed to get a hold of a VERY VIP name tag (above) in order to secure some mini-burgers.
* The stunt didn’t work and I had to settle for a peanut butter cookie that surely contained about 5,325 calories.
* Since it secured me no food whatsoever, my Randy Falco name tag made a second appearance later that night at the Telemundo upfront in Lincoln Center, where it was not as well received as I had imagined. I still wore it to go say ‘hi’ to NBCU’s Chairman of Hispanic Ventures Joe Uva, who requested my immediate removal from the premises. [I stayed.]
* The marathon continued Wednesday with a noon presentation by Fox Hispanic Media at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. The presentation included FHM’s four networks: Fox Deportes, Fox Life, Nat Geo Mundo and Mundo Fox. It attracted some big talent, including Bárbara Mori, Marlon Moreno, Mario Lopez and Oscar de la Hoya, who came onstage not wearing fishnet stockings but a pair of cowboy boots.
* After a presentation that seemed to last hours, most of us headed East towards Vme’s upfront at the Instituto Cervantes. Under new management, Vme hosted a small, intimate, sit-down presentation in a dark basement with no cellular signal whatsoever, making it the perfect setting for a much needed afternoon nap. (I caught several executives and members of the media happily snoring away, but I decided not to publish their names, mostly because it wouldn’t be fair and because I was also fast asleep.)
The Elevator’s Daniel Salcedo and me, before my Vme nap
* The marathon ended Wednesday night with a much-needed, circus-themed party hosted by Viacom’s Tr3s and headlined by Daddy Yankee, who made even the most stiff media executive shake his/her hips. EXTRA BONUS POINT for Tr3s, which spared us the power points and the data on Hispanic TV audience growth, etc. etc. etc.
This is Daddy Yankee in a very bad photo taken by @bathtubmedia
Yet, my favorite moment this week came at the Tr3s party when I was able to capture the following shot, featuring the great Eduardo Caballero, the father, grandfather, godfather of Hispanic media, and Ari Madrid, probably the craziest -and smartest- millennial I’ve ever met and one of the youngest entrants to this business.
Caballero changed the media world once. Ari will change it forever.
Media revolucionarios. Eduardo Caballero & Ariadna Madrid
Disney, the company that thinks Latino families dance cumbia while at an amusement park, this week unveiled the Disney Royal Ball collection, “the first ever line of Quinceañera gowns inspired by the inner qualities, personalities and stories of the Disney Princess characters.”
According to Gilberto Martinez Kladt, the VP of licensing of Disney Princess, and not related to this blogger:
Disney is thrilled to provide young Latinas with the opportunity to celebrate the elegance, grace and poise of their favorite Disney Princess characters on such a special and momentous day.
I’m not sure how much grace and/or poise you can display strutting around in these things; but then again, I am a little past my quinceañera, and for sure cannot afford these graceful dresses, which range between $530-$999. I guess I’ll have to find a way to display elegance, grace and poise in jeans and a pair of huaraches.
