Hector Orci
Title:
Chairman
Company:
La Agencia de Orci & Asociados
Born:
Hermosillo, Mexico; 1942
Education:
B.A., internal relations and economics, USC; Masters in economics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
Career Turning Point:
Took La Agencia de McCann Erickson independent to form his own company in 1986
Most Influential People:
Gene Kummel, chairman of McCann Erickson; Bill Bernbach,
co-founder of DDB ad agency
Personal:
Lives in Pacific Palisades with wife Norma, who co-founded La Agencia de Orci. Daughter is a homemaker in Mexico City; son is a commercial and TV producer in L.A.
Hobbies:
Classical guitar (“no amplification”), yoga, reading biographies and political history
Hector Orci’s life embodies the development of the U.S. Latino market. Born in Mexico, he moved to Los Angeles as a teenager, where he met his Mexican-born wife Norma. After college, he worked in marketing for Procter & Gamble and Alberto-Culver before switching to the agency side of advertising. He served stints in Chicago, Puerto Rico and Mexico City before returning to Los Angeles in 1982 to manage the Hispanic office of McCann Erickson. In 1986, he and Norma founded La Agencia de Orci & Asociados. Orci served as the first president of the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, and he currently serves on the boards of the American Advertising Federation and the New America Alliance, a group of business leaders committed to expanding the U.S. Latino market. La Agencia’s clients include American Honda Motor Co., Bacardi, Gamesa USA and the NBA. Installations around the office, such as basketball hoops, reflect his clients. The company employs about 40 people. Orci met with the Business Journal recently at his agency in Brentwood to discuss his background and the marketing challenges for the contemporary U.S. Latino market.
Question: Who most influenced your career?
Answer:
My first real job was at Procter & Gamble. The first guy who influenced me was a salesman who helped me get the job. I wore a mustache at the time. He influenced me tremendously by explaining that there’s nothing wrong with a moustache, except that it takes attention away from the individual. I don’t remember his name.
Q: Why did you locate your agency in Los Angeles when all the big players at the time were in New York?
A:
Before we opened our agency, we opened La Agencia de McCann Erickson. McCann transferred my wife Norma and me here from Mexico City, where we were both working for different agencies. They decided, because of client pressure, that they needed a Hispanic agency.
Q: Then what?
A:
We decided the only way to grow the business was to be single-minded. McCann was worried about things all over the world. The attention paid to a small, struggling but promising Hispanic unit was not sufficient to make it grow. Norma and I felt going independent was a really good answer to the single-mindedness issue.
Q: Was the Hispanic market as hot then as now?
A:
The 1980s were defined as the Decade of the Hispanic. When we came in, the market had already reached a critical mass that was being noticed by Corporate America, albeit at a smaller level and only by the most enlightened marketers.
Q: Did the Hispanic market live up to its hype for the decade?
A:
What that phrase meant was that by the end of the decade, Hispanics would have assimilated and blended into the population, homogenized. We understood, as soon as we did research, that this market was here to stay. It had been around 450 years. We thought it had at least another 450 good years of marketing to go.
Q: What is your approach to persuasion, in particular for the Latino market?
A:
Bill Bernbach taught me about advertising. He had a strong sense that deeply held values are universal and do not change. Fads and fashions come and go, but what’s important is always important. We’ve seen that in the Latino community. The values remain the same whether the people speak English or Spanish, whether they came here yesterday or two or three generations ago. He was insistent that the people who worked for him understood that, because we were to set the fashion, not follow it. You set the fashion by knowing the values.
Q: Doesn’t the focus on values lead to advertising that simply perpetuates stereotypes?
A:
There are two common mistakes that inexperienced marketers make: opposite extremes. First, they translate what they think are values into stereotypes. At the other extreme, they identify the Hispanic market with the general market.
Q: Don’t people still make those mistakes all the time?
A:
We know we are not a stereotype, but we also know we are not a slightly different version of the Anglo-Saxon community. In recent years, we have minimized the ad pieces at the extremes that go out into the market, but they still happen because new advertisers are constantly entering the market.
Q: Any other epiphanies regarding advertising?
A:
The other important experience came from one of my favorite clients, Colgate. I worked on the account for years in Mexico. They would send their creative gurus to enlighten us down in Latin America. One gentleman came with a simple message: Creatively, the consumer always has the answer.
Q: How do you put that in practice?
A:
We proceeded to talk to consumers all over the country. Since that time, I have retained that. All of us need to constantly talk to our consumers, constantly understand their thinking. They always have the answer.
Q: People in the advertising business love commercials that win awards. But clients have a numerical definition of a good ad one that makes sales go up. What’s your take?
A:
We love winning awards. They say something about the work we do and they tell creative people that this is an interesting place to work. It’s great for recruiting.
Q: But?
A:
But we don’t put anything up for awards that hasn’t proven itself in the marketplace. Period. I’m not interested in winning an award unless my client is satisfied. The worst you can do is to win an award for an ad your client knows isn’t building business. I don’t know if others have that concern, but I’m careful that only winners get to participate in awards competitions.
Q: Where do you think the Latino market is headed? What will it look like in the next few years?
A:
It’s looking larger and larger. The likelihood is that it will continue to grow once we get past this immigration heat.
Q: How about here in L.A.?
A:
It’s going to look much more influential. We see that in Los Angeles, where the economy is highly affected by Latino presence and participation. We’ll see that in other cities, where Latinos participate in all levels of society and government. And it’s not unusual and it’s not a “first” anymore. It is part of what we are.
Q: How do you think Latino voters interpret Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s romantic entanglement?
A:
The Hispanic market is very much like a large family. In fact, “family” is a metaphor for the market. The overwhelming feeling is sorrow. All of us feel badly that the family and mayor are going through this tough time. It is a cause of personal sadness, not a political issue.
Q: But do you think the voters will show a reaction on Election Day?
A:
It’s not a monolithic market, so I’m sure it will affect a small proportion of people who vote. No one will forget, but again it’s not a political issue. So most votes will be only on the mayor’s performance.
Q: Will the mayor’s relationship with a TV news reporter affect how Latinos view Spanish-language media?
A:
It’s not an evaluation of the media. I don’t think it will impact the loyal watchers of Telemundo news. At the same time, they are smart consumers and know that Telemundo is different from Univision, and what happens at one doesn’t affect the other.
Q: Do you believe in the so-called Latinization of the U.S. market?
A:
The face of nation is changing. Not only in skin color but also Latino cultures are bringing some interesting contributions in fashion, education, design, music, cinema everywhere. This is a very different situation from the past, where this was a relatively separate segment that didn’t really touch the general culture. That has changed with its size and economic strength.
Q: Then won’t it just homogenize eventually, as predicted in the 1980s?
A:
Latinos will continue to speak Spanish. It will continue to be a very important language. What I like, however, is that English is equally or more important. So we’re looking at the development of a bilingual population. About 78 percent of Latinos are able to function in either language competently.
Q: What are the implications for marketers?
A:
You’ll see a lot of Hispanic media in Spanish and a lot of mainstream media with messages directed to Latinos specifically, because it’s now part of the general market. Anywhere you go, you’re talking to Latinos. You can’t avoid it.
Q: What media are best to talk to them?
A:
The only difference between the Latino market and the general market is that television is hanging on as the unifying family medium among Latinos. But it’s going in the same direction, meaning there are alternatives to television.
Q: Like what?
A:
Games. The Internet. We’re seeing Latinos very much involved with the Internet and games.
Q: General market advertisers are moving money away from TV to the Internet. Do you see that in the Hispanic market?
A:
Already we’re seeing the movement of money away from traditional media to the Internet, but that’s a normal. It’s a new medium. We expect that as we learn how to use the medium better, there will be more resources put into it. What gets money is what works in the marketplace.
Q: What is your opinion of the TV show “Madmen,” about a Madison Avenue agency in the 1960s?
A:
It’s like choosing an advertising agency: You have to determine if these are people you want to hang around with. In my case, I don’t think I want to hang around them. I don’t like the personality of the agency or them. It’s very well done, but I wouldn’t work there.
Q: Does it accurately depict the inner workings of the business?
A:
Yeah, it’s a pretty accurate portrayal. The differences between then and now are mostly with technology. But the way people operate, the corporate-agency personalities, are very much the same.
Q: To save money, a lot of advertisers simply translate English ads into Spanish. What do you think about that?
A:
It used to be the only way to produce creative.
Q: But the industry has changed?
A:
The whole business of making mistakes in appealing to this market because of language issues, that’s gone away, mostly because we all know the language, Spanish. As Latinos have become more present in the business, those issues have dissipated.
Q: Did the fact that you located your agency in Los Angeles affect its history or creative output?
A:
In one way, it should not have made any difference. We are familiar with markets all over the country and we take into account where all of the business is. Most Hispanic agencies are interested in reflecting the entire U.S. Hispanic experience. In that respect, a lot of our advertising wouldn’t be different.
Q: Geography doesn’t play a role in creativity?
A:
But who have the creatives been? Our organization has had representation from all over the Latino world. Most times, when you get five people together, you have three countries represented. That allows us to reflect the audience, but also the creative genius that only occurs in certain countries. Only in Peru do you get certain things. To get that, you need Peruvians around. Only in Mexico are certain creative sparks shooting. When you those two together, you get something completely different.
Q: Sounds fun but sort of chaotic.
A:
What’s always present is the consumer. The consumer dictates what we say to them, because they tell us, they respond to us. Our consumers are extremely generous. We ask them, and they respond. Our job is to communicate to the consumer for our clients.
