Hispanic Female Ad Exec Looks to Nurture Her Peers

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Patricia Gracia, owner of ad agency Power Media Group in Santa Clarita, plans to open a business incubator for Hispanic women-owned businesses that can benefit from her savvy in the Latino market.

The Power Woman Business Center will be based in offices that were recently vacated in Power Media’s building. Gracia plans to invest about $200,000 in the venture.

Candidates for the incubator are Latina-owned companies, either startups or going concerns. Each company will pay a membership fee between $250 and $750 per month for office space and Gracia’s advertising assistance.

“Small businesses really need to know how to invest their budgets in media,” she told the Business Journal. “If I can bring together two or three small companies with small marketing budgets, we can pool them to create one medium budget.”

Seven years ago, Gracia started her company in an apartment with just a computer, fax and telephone. The agency now has annual billings of $2.4 million, and creates Spanish-language campaigns for clients such as Toyota, Universal Music Latin Entertainment and NYX Cosmetics.

Through the new center, she hopes to

help other entrepreneurs reach similar success, while recruiting a few clients for her agency.

Short Subjects

Two local studios have created video shows for a newly launched Web site featuring arts and entertainment-oriented subject matter, and including subtle advertising messages.

Therapy, a postproduction studio in West Los Angeles, and BlackLake Productions, a film studio in Santa Monica, have produced a series of short Webisodes for Wieden & Kennedy, a Portland, Ore.-based ad agency famous for its Nike commercials.

The Webisodes appear on Wieden & Kennedy Entertainment, which launched Dec. 1, and features products of W&K clients integrated into the interviews.

Notable personalities featured in the series include skateboarder Tony Hawk and Shepard Fairey, an L.A.-based artist who created the famous “Hope” campaign poster for the Obama presidential campaign.

Gold Medal Mom

The Cuties brand of mandarin oranges has signed up the ultimate soccer mom as a spokeswoman for 2010.

Joy Fawcett, who won a gold medal with the U.S. soccer team at the 1996 Olympics, will promote a Cuties contest to find cheerleading soccer moms. The winner will receive a free soccer clinic for her child’s team with Fawcett, who runs the Saddleback United Soccer Club in Mission Viejo.

Cuties is a joint venture between two packers, Sun Pacific in East Los Angeles and Paramount Citrus Association in Delano. The venture’s mission is to market Cutie mandarins, a small sweet orange fruit.

Discount Art

An art exhibit at Los Angeles International Airport portrays the aesthetics of discount retailing. The 12 works of art are made exclusively with materials from 99 Cents Only Stores, the Commerce-based discount retail chain. The free exhibit is housed in Terminal 1, where discount airlines Southwest and US Airways dock their planes. Marketers at 99 Cents Only secured the exhibit in a deal with Los Angeles World Airports, the agency that runs LAX, and the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Agencies & Accounts

Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at USC, has joined MediaLink as a senior adviser. MediaLink, with dual headquarters in West Hollywood and New York, is an advisory firm to media, advertising, entertainment and technology companies. Cole will retain his post at USC while working part time as a MediaLink consultant. … Added Value, a brand consultancy division of WPP, has hired Peter Brine as senior vice president and digital strategist in Los Angeles. Brine will design digital campaigns for clients such as AT&T, Microsoft and Ford. He previously worked at digital shop Genex and in the new-media group at ChiatDay. … DB&R Marketing Communications in Westlake Village will manage PR for Sunlight Planet, a startup in Venice that provides financial advisory services to companies in the renewable energy sector. DB&R will promote the company’s launch and handle future corporate communications. … Worldcom Public Relations Group, an international network of independent PR firms, has elected Stefan Pollack chairman. He is president of Century City-based Pollack PR Marketing Group. … Roddan Paolucci, the PR shop in Palos Verdes Estates that specializes in real estate projects, has broadened its client base by adding the city of Riverside, the Escena Golf Club in Palm Springs, Energy Labs in Torrance and Rolling Hills Country Club to its customer roster. … Muse Communications in Hollywood has created a series of Webisodes for Honda targeting African-American car buyers. The shows, plus a 30-second TV spot, follow rapper Mickey Factz in his daily life and will be posted on a Honda Web site.

Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.

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