Al Punto’s One of Several OC Hispanic Agencies With Big-Name Accounts
A few months ago, Tustin-based al Punto Advertising Inc. took on a fight for the Doughboy and won. Pillsbury Co., the packaged foods division of Diageo PLC, was searching for an advertising agency to market its refrigerated dough products and Progresso Soups to the Hispanic market. Al Punto executives knew they had to prove to Pillsbury executives that they were in touch with the Hispanic market. They had to go beyond merely translating campaigns into Spanish. So the minority-owned agency set out to show Pillsbury that while its products are consumer staples, the 50-year-old brand was invisible among many Hispanics. Peggy Goff, al Punto’s co-president and director of strategic planning, first held a series of Southern California baking parties and invited about a dozen Hispanic women to attend. She also brought a small film crew to record the parties. “We handed them the product and let the cameras roll,” she said. “They asked ‘What is in this can?’ And when they found the dough and baked it, they asked, ‘When is it going to hit the stores?’ They did not grow up with refrigerated dough, but they love it.” The women’s responses to the refrigerated cookie dough and bread products were taped for an 11-minute video. The tape was played for Pillsbury executives during al Punto’s pitch for the advertising and promotions account. The tactic worked: The Pillsbury team was taken aback by what they saw, according to Goff. It offered them a glimpse of their product through the eyes of their target audience. “We play to win,” said Eduardo Bottger, al Punto’s co-founder, chief financial officer and creative director.
The agency also brought baskets of baked goods from local Hispanic bakeries to Pillsbury executives so they could see the products their target market knew.
“We always try to bring the market to life before the client’s eyes,” Goff said.
After a shootout with San Antonio, Texas-based Bromley Communications and Luna-Bacardi in Santa Monica, al Punto walked away with Pillsbury’s refrigerated baked goods business for the Hispanic market. Al Punto is one of four advertising agencies in Orange County focused on the Hispanic market. The 15-person firm is OC’s only independently owned, stand-alone Hispanic agency and is one of about 70 national Spanish-language agencies with minority ownership. This year, al Punto officials expect billings to hit $20 million, up from $15 million last year.
“Southern California has a huge Hispanic audience and it’s going to get even bigger,” said Denise Denison-Erkeneff, past president of the OC Ad Club, a local industry group. “Santa Ana has one of the largest communities of Hispanics in the country and as advertising professionals we should be paying attention to it before it slaps us in the face.” Al Punto’s Goff and Bottger first met in 1988 at La Agencia de Orci in Los Angeles and in 1990 moved to Irvine’s Casanova Pendrill Publicidad Inc., OC’s second largest Hispanic agency by 1999 billings. When Goff and Bottger founded al Punto in November 1994, OC’s two largest Hispanic agencies,Casanova Pendrill and Mendoza, Dillon & Asociados Inc. of Newport Beach,counted a combined $100 million in annual billings. By 1999, the two firms counted $138 million in annual billings from clients such as Seagram Co. and General Mills Inc. Al Punto got its start with Sizzler International Inc. after Casanova Pendrill passed on the business due to a conflict with one of its clients. Goff and Bottger were nervous about the pitch to the restaurant chain. A win stood to jump-start the agency. A loss could have put their agency’s launch on hold.
“We were confident, but we had no track record as a company,no clients or no real offices,” Bottger said. “We were not an agency yet, but we had experience. We really had to sell ourselves.”
“We were confident, but we had no track record as a company,no clients or no real offices,” Bottger said. “We were not an agency yet, but we had experience. We really had to sell ourselves.”The agency won out in its bid for Sizzler’s media planning and production work. But a year later Sizzler filed for bankruptcy protection and the account was lost. Sizzler’s media director Pat Chambers left the chain and joined al Punto as vice president and media director. Still, the agency’s work at Sizzler proved to be a launching pad. In its first year, al Punto went on to land new accounts with Pizza Hut Inc., Standard Brands Paints, Toshiba America Business Solutions Inc., Sears Optical and Disneyland. By the end of 1995, the agency had grown from Goff and Bottger to five employees. The agency picked up two restaurant clients in 1996. They won KFC Corp.’s local and national creative work for the Hispanic market, replacing Young & Rubicam Inc.’s Bravo Group. (KFC now is handled by DGWB advertising Inc. in Irvine.) Al Punto also picked IHOP Corp.’s Hispanic business. When IHOP parted ways with its general market agency earlier this year, al Punto was tapped to create its English campaign as well. In 1997, the agency picked up the Hispanic advertising account for Miller Brewing Co.’s Genuine Draft and put out a promotion featuring Hugo Sanchez, the all-time best Mexican soccer player. A year later, al Punto won a Belding Bowl Award for its Hispanic campaign to launch Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. The Disneyland account grew to about $3 million in annual billings before Walt Disney Co. moved the work in-house last year. Along with Pillsbury, the agency’s current clients include: Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.; the Department of Health and Human Services and its “Keeping Youth Drug Free” program; Roswell, Ga.-based Telscape International Inc., a phone services company operating in the U.S. and Mexico; The Los Angeles Times and its Reading by Nine program; and Santa Ana-based Mi Inter.net. Recently, the agency picked up another contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to promote organ donation among Hispanics through TV and radio ads. The Pillsbury work is scheduled to debut in November featuring the Doughboy in a Spanish hand-painted tiled kitchen created by children’s book illustrator Marcela Cabrera. “Disney and Miller took us to the level we are at now, but Pillsbury will take us to the next level,” Bottger said. n
