These days, where everything is Latino this and Hispanic that, you cannot just sleep in your laurels and do nada. That is why 7-Eleven, a company which is as American as apple-pie and bad coffee, is all excited beefing up its “Latin-themed” snacks.
Sí señor. As early as this week, 7-Eleven Inc. introduced the Breakfast Empanada Bites, a “Latin-inspired hot foods snack,” which I’m sure are almost as delicious as the 7-Eleven Mini Tacos introduced last year. Per a company press release:
As the fastest-growing U.S. demographic, Hispanics are an important core customer group for 7-Eleven; however, it was the popularity of Latin American foods among all demographic groups spurring the addition of a snack-size breakfast empanada.
But don’t be fooled by their size. These tiny, crescent-shaped pastries are filled with eggs, cheese, bacon, smoked ham and sausage, which I’m sure will go down nicely with a 24 oz. Diet Pepsi.
Oh, and for the underemployed, underpaid Latino in you, they are only $1 for three at at participating 7-Eleven® stores.
The mostly Latino staff at this Dominican salon on Amsterdam and 107th St. will not only wash, style, blow dry and fix your hair. They will also wash your hands, because, you know, they have to.
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.
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.)
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-wingterroristparamilitary organisation from Madeira, whose main goal was to achieve Madeira’s independence from mainlandPortugal.
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?”
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
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.
Univision’s upfront presentation Tuesday in New York City included some surprises and lots of more-of-the-same programming announcements.
There were some humorous moments, though, including a collective seizure (i.e. Harlem Shake) performed by Steve Mandala and his top sales team. However, this blogger’s favorite moment has got to be this AT&T spoof spot in which Univision CEO Randy Falco asks four adorable, non-Hispanic children what’s better, more or less?.
This blogger is so tired from all this partying busy this week, that a proper upfront round-up will not come until the weekend (sit tight.) However, I thought you’d like to know that barely minutes after Univision wrapped its upfront presentation under the theme “One for all,” NBCU found it amusing to park a van right outside Univision’s party venue using the exact same tagline but touting NBCU, not Univision, as the company that reaches 90% of all Hispanics.
NBCU does indeed reach a large percentage of Hispanics as it owns not only a bunch of English-language networks that are popular among Latinos, but also mun2 and Telemundo.
The stunt was the most talked about subject during both, Univision’s and Telemundo’s parties, during which this blogger drank only cranberry juice and an occasional glass of water.
It seems to me that everyone and their mother tonight are talking about the amazing ‘Space Oddity’ cover by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. So I won’t bother you guys with it.
However, much more relevant to this blog is Hadfield’s comprehensive explanation of why tortillas are better than bread in space… (and everywhere else, if I might add.) Watch him walk you through making a “sandwich” in space and behold the floating tortilla.
It is no secret that international air travel is undergoing a severe financial crisis; with fuel costing a lot of money and all. But airline owners are a creative bunch and have found “innovative” ways to make additional cash, including charging us extra money to use the bathroom; to take an extra piece of luggage or to seat between rows 5 through 45.
But Mexican airline Aeroméxico has gone even further and is now using its aircrafts to pitch the latest installment of Iron Man, which by the way pulled almost $36 million since opening in Mexico less than two weeks ago.
So, I’m not sure what they are waiting for. Just change the company name to IronMéxico and get the whole thing over with.
As this blog dutifully reported it almost one year ago, Lifetime Television has finally set a date for the premiere of Devious Maids, a 13-episode series featuring a bunch of Latino women who work as -what else?- maids.
Devious Maids is being executive produced by the one and only Eva Longoria, la “prieta faya” and this blogger’s favorite retroacculturated Latina, who this week came out in full force to defend the series. [Oh, she also starred in this other cinematographic masterpiece.]
Judging from the trailer [below] I can see Devious Maids will touch on some of the hot-button issues that keep my people at night: Earning the minimum wage; working 80 hours a week for a bunch of ungrateful, rich bastards; getting by without health insurance and living in constant fear of deportation.
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