Business
in Brief:
Politics, marketing, trade and trends
PHILLY'S
COFFEE CULTURE
That Colombian immigrant Juan Valdez is
living his own American dream these days. Juan Valdez
Stores, the brand of coffee shops owned by Colombia’s
National Federation of Coffee Growers, has just acquired
another four locations, this time in Philadelphia.
The Colombian company has just bought out the small chain
of Passero’s Gourmet Coffee Co. Inc. of Philadelphia,
which will be closed for several months while being rebranded
with Juan Valdez’s simpatico smile.
The Colombian coffee growers group has announced plans
to acquire another two coffee shops in the city of brotherly
love next year, making Philadelphia, with six locations,
its biggest U.S. coffee shop market. Juan Valdez also
has three shops in New York, two in Washington and two
in Seattle, all launched over the past two years.
Starbucks may still have some 50 percent of the market,
but Juan Valdez coffee shops, with their warm interiors
of Colombian wood, are seeking another niche. As The Economist
reported, the idea is to “emphasize the quality
of their coffee rather than trying to rival Starbucks
as a social spot.”
—Conrad Dahlson
TEXAS:
PORT OF ENTRY
Giant infrastructure projects in the works
at the Port of Lazaro Cardenas on Mexico’s lower
west coast could bring “more cargo through the Port
of Laredo (Texas) than NAFTA has produced over the last
10 years,” the Laredo Morning Times quoted Roger
Creery, executive director of the Laredo Development Foundation,
as saying.
The Lazaro Cardenas megaport is being built in three phases,
with a first-phase investment of $200 million. It is expected
to be up and running by July 2007. It seems that shipping
goods into the United States from there via Laredo will
require significantly less time and money than going through
the Port of Los Angeles.
Hutchinson Port Holdings Group out of Hong Kong has already
invested some $90 million in its Lazaro Cardenas container
port.
According to the Laredo Morning Times, Creery said that
these shifting trade-route dynamics position Texas as
the U.S. port of entry, a challenge to existing infrastructure
along the border.
—Conrad Dahlson
TRENDWATCH:
AD BOOM
Among the top 50 Hispanic
ad agencies, 28 posted double-digit growth in 2005. And
of the top 50 advertisers to Hispanics, 26 increased their
ad budgets by double-digit amounts for the year. Marketers
aren’t just spending more. They are also looking
at new ways to sell more to Hispanic consumers. Home Depot,
for example, successfully introduced a paint palette called
Colores Origenes with vibrant colors and names that are
not just in Spanish but evoke familiar Latin foods and
images.
—Source: Advertising Age’s Hispanic Fact Pack
EXECUTIVE
CALENDAR: WHAT NOT TO MISS
November
2-4: National Hispanic Business Association Leadership
Conference, Radisson LAX, Los Angeles, CA. For additional
information, visit www.nhba.org.
November
3-5: West Coast Franchise Expo, Los Angeles Convention
Center, Los Angeles, CA. For additional information, call
(201) 226-1130 or visit www.wcfexpo.com.
November
8-10: 2nd Annual Executive Leadership Summit of The National
Organization for Diversity in Sales and Marketing and
The Foundation for Diversity; Westin Peachtree Plaza,
Atlanta, GA. For additional information, call (888) 689-8896
or visit www.minoritymarketshare.com.
November 16: U.S. Small Business Administration-Business
Matchmaking Southeast Regional Event; Broward County Convention
Center, Fort Lauderdale, FL. For additional information,
visit www.businessmatchmaking.com.
November
18-19: The National Franchise and Business Opportunities
Show, The Rosemont Convention Center, 5555 North River
Road, Chicago, IL. Additional shows are planned in the
coming months for the following locations: Atlanta, Dallas,
Denver, Detroit, Houston, Las Vegas, New York, Pasadena,
CA, Phoenix and San Diego.
For additional information, call (800)891-4859 or visit
www.franchiseshowinfo.com.
PET
FOODS: FOR CHOOSY CHIHUAHUAS
““The major benefits of incorporating
your business are the [protections] it affords you against
business liability as well as personal-debts liability.
In case of a lawsuit or judgment against your business,
no one can seize your personal assets, your home, car,
bank accounts, etc. Your exposure to loss is limited to
the assets of the corporation. In the reverse case, if
an individual has credit problems, the corporation’s
assets cannot be touched.”
—www.inc-it-now.com
ENERGY:
PUMPING PROFITS
What with high prices at the gas pump
and petroleum giants raking in record revenues, now is
obviously the time to be in the gasoline business—even
for small businesses. Cuban immigrant Orestes Flores,
who started working as a truck driver 30 years ago, today
is president and CEO of multimillion-dollar Floval Oil
in South Florida. He started his company in 1979 as a
small fuel distributorship and turned it into a money-spinning
procurement and transportation business that owns and
operates 46 gas stations under such well-known logos as
Exxon and Marathon while delivering millions of gallons
of fuel across South Florida.
CONSTRUCTION:
BUILDING A BUSINESS
Colorado’s fastest-growing minority-owned
business last year was Colorado Springs-based Sun Construction
Inc., according to Hispania News. The scorching track
record won founder and president Floyd G. Abeyta the prize
awarded by ColoradoBiz magazine for phenomenal expansion
of a minority-owned business, based on Sun’s 165
percent sales growth in 2005 over the previous year for
a total of $11.4 million.
DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE:
THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL
An audit conducted by the Government
Accountability Office (GAO) of Congress found that the
Department of Defense takes longer to pay small businesses
than other suppliers. In 14.5 percent of cases, the department
delays paying bills to small firms, in many cases causing
them financial problems and an interruption in their daily
operations, and frequently forcing the businesses to seek
loans to cover their costs while awaiting payment for
goods and services already delivered. The Department of
Defense admitted that big contractors get priority in
being paid.
—La Opinion
SERVICES:
HISPANIC ONLINE JOB SEARCH
If filling a need is the secret of entrepreneurial
success, the new website Buena Chamba may be right on
target. The bilingual site for Hispanic job seekers, founded
by Mexico-born University of Pennsylvania-educated Eli
Portnoy, tells nonprofessional workers: You don’t
have to look for a job—we’ll do it for you.
All participants do is fill in their résumé
and wait for Buena Chamba to tell them where to go for
the interview.
What, no plowing through endless classifieds for some
remote possibility of employment? Absolutely not.
The site, which also includes personal and classified
ads of items for sale, translates announcements into English
or Spanish, depending on the user’s preference.
These days there’s no time for anything complicated
or time consuming, so Buena Chamba founder Portnoy developed
his site with user-friendly software. And it appears to
be working—BusinessWeek reported that soon after
the website’s launch last year, it was attracting
500 to 1,000 unique visitors per day, 50 calls per job
advertised, and a circulation of 30,000 for the printed
version. And those numbers appear to be growing. Currently,
the website boasts visits by over 50,000 unique individuals
a month.
The fact that the service is free to
MARKETING
& ADVERTISING:
SPAMMING THE HISPANIC MARKET
The canned luncheon meat Spam has been
around a long time, but this year marks the first time
it has been advertised on Spanish-language television.
Spam manufacturer Hormel’s Hispanic ad agency of
record, the San Jose Group, created a TV spot that went
on the air August 14.
“We are positioning Spam to fit into our target
demo’s busy lifestyle,” said George L. San
Jose, president and COO of the San Jose Group. “As
such, we leveraged a high-energy, urban approach to solicit
a curiosity of Spam as an incentive to trial.”
The commercial shows two young professional guys heading
home from work in the city. Above the hero’s head,
the happy daydream materializes that he will be having
Spam Classic for dinner—but his so-called friend
steals his daydream and runs away with it. After a classic
chase, the hero gets his dream back—and sure enough,
it comes true the minute he gets home.
The Chicago-based San Jose Group is a consortium of marketing
communications companies specializing in reaching the
Hispanic and non-Hispanic markets in the U.S. and Latin
America.
TEXAS:
PORT OF ENTRY
PET
FOODS: FOR CHOOSY CHIHUAHUAS
DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE: 
SERVICES:
MARKETING
& ADVERTISING: 
