FAIRFAX, Va., June 2, 2017 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Since 1999, AHAA has honored those that have made significant contributions to the U.S. Hispanic advertising and marketing industry. Expanding on this program, AHAA has established the AHAA Hall Fame, which recognizes a select group of visionaries, leaders and luminaries who have made significant contributions to the development and advancement of the Hispanic advertising and marketing field. In addition to previous Eduardo Caballero Lifetime Achievement winners, Hispanic advertising giants Pedro Font and Carlos Montemayor; academia and research legend Dr. Felipe Korzenny; and media pioneer Raul Toraño will be inducted during an awards gala at the 2017 AHAA Annual Conference taking place on Wednesday, June 13 at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago.

“Each of these men played an extraordinary role in the conceptualization, building and development of the Hispanic marketing and advertising field – our industry is the multibillion dollar business it is because of them,” said AHAA Chair Linda Gonzalez.

Thanks to a generous three-year sponsorship by State Farm, AHAA will create a digital repository of videos and images that chronicles the Hispanic marketing industry, featuring images and videos of these and all Hall of Fame inductees.

Pedro Font
Pedro was a major force in making the Hispanic market, and multicultural marketing, into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Along with Joseph Vaamonde, he opened Font & Vaamonde Advertising in 1979, which was then sold to Grey Advertising Inc. in 1987. Font led efforts to encourage America’s consumer-product giants to supplement their advertising campaigns for the general market with broadcast commercials, print advertisements and other sales pitches aimed more specifically at Hispanic consumers. Once those advertisers realized just how quickly the Hispanic population was growing, they enthusiastically began augmenting mainstream campaigns with tailored messages. Since leaving the agency he has served as CEO of Global Media Distribution, a business responsible for selling Televisa’s content and other companies’ films distribution rights all over the world.

Dr. Felipe Korzenny
Felipe is the Professor Emeritus of Advertising and Integrated Marketing Communication, and Founder and Director Emeritus of the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University. He currently independently consults with major US corporations on their Hispanic marketing strategies, and speaks to them about approaches to better connect with Hispanic Consumers. He is well known in industry for the consumer experience insights he has helped generate to position successful products in the U.S. Hispanic market and in Latin America. A social scientist by training, Felipe has a critical academic perspective combined with a strong business practice. He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Communication Research and has published six books and almost a hundred research publications dealing with communication and culture.

Carlos Montemayor
Carlos is nationally recognized as one of the founders of the Hispanic Advertising Industry in the U.S. Carlos proudly served in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant. A graduate of the University of Texas with an MBA from Northwestern University, Carlos worked for Ross Roy and Campbell-Ewald Advertising Agencies specializing in automotive accounts. When Carlos returned from Detroit to San Antonio, he became the national marketing director for Church’s Fried Chicken and eventually founded Montemayor y Asociados. The agency grew with the acquisition of major accounts, such as Pepsi, Chrysler and Continental Airlines, to mention a few. Nationally, the agency became the sixth largest Hispanic agency in the country. After merging with GlobalHue, Carlos became vice-chairman and in January 2006, after retiring from GlobalHue, he became vice president for strategic development for Rumbo Newspapers, a Texas chain of Hispanic language newspapers. Carlos passed away in September 2006.

Raul “Ruly” Toraño
Raul is considered by many to be the godfather of Spanish-language television. A Cuban immigrant, Raul launched a successful career in television advertising & marketing in the 1960’s that spanned four decades. A pioneer in his field, Raul was a driving force in raising awareness among Fortune 500 companies on the need to allocate a greater percentage of their advertising budget to the growing U.S. Hispanic population. He began his career working at the Spanish Advertising and Marketing Services in New York City with the Diaz-Albertini brothers. In 1984, he joined Spanish International Network (SIN), the first non- English-language television network in the United States, which was later renamed to Univision Network in 1987. During the 1990’s, he held various executive positions in the sales and marketing departments at Univision culminating with his being named President of Network Sales. He held this position until his retirement in 1997. Raul served as chairman of the board of Little Havana Activities & Nutrition Centers of Dade County Inc., a non-profit organization that provides social services to economically disadvantaged seniors in the South Florida area, and was also an active member of the Cuban American National Foundation. Raul passed away in May 2010.

In addition, past winners of the Eduardo Caballero Lifetime Achievement Award will automatically be inducted to the AHAA Hall of Fame:

For more information, please visit http://ahaa.org and follow all conference chatter on Twitter using the @ahaa handle and hashtag #ahaanextgen.

About AHAA: Founded in 1996, AHAA: The Voice of Hispanic Marketing is the national trade organization of all marketing, communications and media firms with trusted Hispanic expertise.

About State Farm®:
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SOURCE AHAA