INTRODUCTION

In the 13th century, Marco Polo returned to Venice after a 24-year journey from Italy to Constantinople to China and back. Through spoken tales and the written word, he described an enormous variety of diets, clothing styles, marriage customs, religions, and trades to his contemporaries. Famously, he wrote, “I believe it was God’s will that we should come back so that men might know the things that are in the world.”

In the 21st century, Marco Polo Advertising aims to help businesses understand the wide variety of cultures in their economic neighborhood.

The general population in the Unites States is rapidly becoming more diverse: African, Asian, and Hispanic Americans make up over 30% of the population. By 2030, that number will probably grow to 50%. These Americans have a combined buying power of $1.8 trillion and account for the fastest small business entrant in our economy.

Many companies try to reach these consumers, but do not understand how the consumers see and respond to the world. At Marco Polo Advertising, we understand the needs of multicultural consumers, and we help businesses establish positive relationships with them that can grow. By offering consulting services for advertising agencies and other companies, Marco Polo Advertising exists to bridge ethnic gaps so that men might know the things that are in the world.

CREDENTIALS

In 2003, Marco Polo business partners started a marketing consulting practice Under the name www.latincreate.com specialized in the Hispanic segment.

In 2005, Latincreate made a working partnership with www.seisc.com a graphic design leader.

In 2008, Marco Polo Advertising LLC., is launched to serve the needs of Multicultural America.

We are proud to be a MMSDC certified company

In 2009 Marco Polo Advertising LLC created a separate brand, Corporate E-training to handle all of their online educational and training materials and Next Door Look for local talent.

The professionals at Marco Polo Advertising have extensive multicultural marketing experience in a number of industries. The group brings multiple languages and cultures, as well as international and U.S. experience, to work for you.

Our management team is:

Antonio Lizano: President with international and national experience leading Fortune 500 companies marketing campaigns. Antonio is also a part-time water polo player.

Ronald Sanchez: Creative Director with an extraordinaire portfolio of work completed for major companies. Ronald is also a part-time diaper changer.

We also have a staff for web programming, photography, design, copywriting, project management, event production, video production, editing, language skills, and cultural research.

Visual BrandingMarket Structure

Analysis

Client & CompetitorAnalysis

Ethnic ConsumerFocus Group?

Culturally Relevant Design Strategy Report

DesignStrategyReportReview

Initial Design D

evelopment

Design R

efinements

Finals

ConsumerFocusGroup

Client Approval

METHODOLOGY & DESIGN PROCESSPhase One: Conceiving Understanding the cultural and emotional traditions of the target market. Defining strategies with short and long-term goals. Simplifying sales processes to educate and connect with consumers.

Phase Two: Believing Creating vibrant campaigns that transmit cultural elements. Guiding the sales and marketing forces to reach the segments. Connecting with the target market

Phase Three: Achieving Tracking marketing response. Adjusting to changes in the marketplace. Getting to consumers heart and the privacy of their homes.

CORPORATE IDENTITY

CHANDLER GROUP

Challenge: Chandler Group is an executive recruiting firm dedicated to finding only the highest quality candidates. They wanted to bring their corporate identity into the internet modern age by completely redoing their current website, brand, logo, and overall identity.

Solution: After doing qualitative research on competitors and analysis on current brands, Marco Polo Advertising developed a series of new logos for Chandler Group to choose from. After picking the perfect brand that not only exemplified their work but also was eye catching and unique Marco Polo Advertising created a completely unique website layouts with flash elements to highlight their brand, national reach. The website mirrored the identity based on Chandler’s new corporate brand MPA also created corporate powerpoint layouts, business cards, envelopes, and letter head.

Benefit: After completely updating the look of their brand, and making their website more user friendly and sophisticated Chandler Group now had a corporate, intelligent looking brand to mirror their executive recruiting services.

PANCHO VILLAChallenge: To re-design their corporate identity, their online presence, and to engage in a social media campaign to attract new customers to Pancho Villa’s restaurant .

Solution: MPA created a new corporate identity for Pancho Villa which included a new website, menus, fliers and video. MPA created social media webpages for Pancho Villa and taught the owners how to maintain and advertise correctly with them. The social media pages included youtube, facebook, and twitter. In addition, MPA created a 30 second commercial to be played virally to advertise locally about Pancho Villas.

Benefit: As a result business, 18-30 year old business has seen significant growth of over 10%. They continue to position themselves as the top authentic Mexican Restaurant in the Twin Cities.

Challenge: Ramy’s Restaurant was starting to become a chain, expanding from 1 to 2 restaurants in southeast Minnesota. The owner, Ramy, had plans to continue to expand in the coming years and was looking to capitalize on his restaurant brand with a permanent identity.

Solution: MPA unearthed the story behind Ramy’s mix of Mediterranean and Moroccan food. MPA created a stylish yet simplistic identity that fuses the two foods together . The logo was featured on Ramy’s new MPA created website and TV advertisements.

Benefit: Ramy’s has established their brand in the two locations and they are expanding to three restaruants in 2010. Ramy’s now has a corporate identity associated with their unique food.

RAMY’S RESTAURANT

Challenge: Sigma Alimentos is the largest manufacturer and distributor of frozen foods in Mexico, with sales over a billion dollars annually. This multi-national company is widely recognized for the most product presence of any company within the Mexican market. Nonetheless, in its constant model towards company improvement, Sigma launched an initiative seeking to examine their purchasing demographic with a view towards expand current product range. Towards this end, our task was twofold. First we would evaluate brand attributes and marketing techniques. Secondly, we provide support for the company initiative seeking product demographic redefinition.

Solution: Our response to this challenge began through various qualified market studies. These studies identified brand attributes and product connotations. From this step, we moved to evaluate these results through the creation of a marketing strategic plan. This plan aimed to carefully distinguish between new and traditional product sales as perceived through current marketing techniques. We moved to action by creating a product differentiation in the newly introduced Yoplait desserts brand. Additionally, in order to reignite appeal with traditional products, our creative design team re-imaged the product packaging of selected traditional products (such as frozen meats) marketed around the attributes of quality and prestige.

Benefit: The family of products under the Yoplait brand endorsement has experienced continual growth. Spurred by this success, Alimentos Sigma has developed and successfully launched a variety of innovative products from breakfast sandwiches to dinner entrees. As a result of our marketing redevelopment, the traditional product line has also experienced a renovation which will enable it to stand the test of time for years to come.

SIGMA ALIMENTOS

PRINT EXAMPLES

OTHER CORPORATE EXAMPLES

NSHMBA

Welcome to the Minneapolis – St.Paul Chapter of NSHMBA!

We are your one stop resource for everything Hispanic in the community. We relish the partnerships we have with our local community and want to continue making NSHMBA a tool for our local business people and students to make meaningful connections with peers and grow as strong leaders.

NSHMBA aims to be the premier Hispanic professional business association for economic and philanthropic advancement. NSHMBA’s mission is to foster Hispanic leadership through graduate management education and professional development in order to improve society. We encourage all who are interested to come attend one of our events or contact our membership chair for more information.

PO Box 64101, MS 4010 St. Paul, MN 55164-0101

www.msp-nshmba.org

2010 Conference & Career Expo

McCormick PlaceChicago, IL

March 2010

As the demographics in America change, so do the hiring practices. It is natural for companies to target candidates to mirror the buying power of potential customers. In fact, as a diversity recruiter, I receive weekly phone calls from corporations asking my advice on how to reach the growing ethnic populations.

Knowing that NSHMBA has relationships with many diversity recruiters, and wanting to gain a broader perspective, I reached out to:

Jennifer Funderburk from Target, Cindy Johnson from Land O’Lakes, Kathryn Johnson-Coleman from Supervalu, and Ouraphone Siri-Outhay from United Health Group.

There were a series of questions I asked all of them. I started by asking:

What is the best part of your job? “The best part about my job is being able to work with a variety of organizations and help promote diversity within Target. My team has a unique way to significantly impact the entire organization.”

- Jennifer Funderburk, Target

“I enjoy collaborating with teams and recruiting top diverse talent in Minnesota. It’s rewarding to be able to make a difference every day by being a part of a company that values innovation and differences daily.”

- Cindy Johnson, Land O’ Lakes

“The best part about my job is working with our team and associates across SUPERVALU.. Diversity is a core value for our company, and our customer base is critical to our success. SUPERVALU is America’s Neighborhood Grocer, serving customers across the U.S., which makes us, strive to have a diverse workforce to reflect that.”

- Kathryn Johnson-Coleman, Supervalu

“It’s rewarding to know that I’m making an impact at United Health Group by helping to create high-performing,

diverse teams. Additionally, I enjoy working with internal teams across the nation to help drive change within the organization.”

-Ouraphone Siri-Outhay, United Health Group

What role do you think you play within your organization?“My team partners with diverse organizations to help bring top talent into Target.”

- Jennifer Funderburk, Target

“I am an ambassador for the company and focused on positioning Land O’ Lakes as an employer of choice, which is why it’s imperative to bring top diverse talent to Land O’ Lakes with different ideas and thoughts that drive business results.”

- Cindy Johnson, Land O’ Lakes

“Our team works to ensure the best candidate experience; to identify the right talent for the right role, and to drive diversity through external partnerships.”

- Kathryn Johnson-Coleman, Supervalu

“My role within the organization is to create a diverse workforce, foster an inclusive culture, and help employees leverage their unique thoughts and perspectives within the company.”

- Ouraphone Siri-Outhay, United Health Group

Inclusion at Work: Diversity Recruiting

ANNUAL REPORT

WEBSITE IDENTITIES

Sagradocorazon.us

Challenge: Health Partners runs different service programs for seniors and medically challenged individuals to receive services in the comfort of their homes. They created a division that will concentrate solely in the Hispanic market. Our challege was to create a vibrant web identity and help them position their sub brand in the Hispanic market.

Solution: We created a joomla bilingual website with exciting messages and multiple pictures in their homepage to attract the Hispanic market segment. The website features larger text tabs for easy navigation, multiple capabilities to search for materials internally, flash elements and a Spanish feature.

Benefit: They continue to position themselves as the best health provide for home health care services in the state of Minnesota. Soagrado Corazon has been a success and a benefit to the Hispanic community.

SAGRADO CORAZON

OTHER WEBSITE IDENTITY EXAMPLES

TRADITIONAL ADVERTISEMENTS

Challenge: MPA was approached by the state of Minnesota Demography department to create a 30 second and 2 minute PSA to promote filling out census information. MPA wanted to be inclusive by showcasing all of the diversity Minnesota has to offer. The demography department had the challenge of appealing to a wide variety of cultural backgrounds (Anglo, Hispanic, Asian and African populations of Minnesota).

Solution: MPA had the capabilities to create the PSA is 4 different languages (English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong) to appeal to a wide group of people and cultures. MPA developed the script, concept and also the ‘Every 1 counts in Minnesota’ tagline.

Benefit: The census department was able to embarrass all communities and media outlets. The state of Minnesota is getting a reward and recognition for utilizing those materials created by Marco Polo Advertising. The national census office has decided to run the same ads created for the state of Minnesota under their national strategy.

CENSUS

Challenge: La Mera Bena had the challenge of communicating nation wide to corporate sponsors about it’s target demographics and events. In the past they had created their own advertisements but they were not getting the response they had hoped for.

Solution: MPA created two 30 second radio advertisements to promote themselves as well as a flash presentation that can be played online and as a DVD.

Benefit: MPA’s professional radio advertisements are used by La Mera Bena salesmen and have vastly improved sponsorship of the station. It also projected a professional look and their national sales have increased 50% since the creation of the MPA sales materials.

LA MERA BUENA

EVENTS

Campaign 1: Campaign created around market buzz. To promote the new BMW X1 vehicle in Central America we sent a polarized version to cruise around the city in the most well know night life avenues. Every time the vehicle stop at a crowded locations a group of paparazzi will surround the card and started to take pictures, after a while no one will get out and the car will leave. Event people passed around information about the car.

Campaign 2: Exclusive by invitation campaignInvitation to pick up potential buyers for a lunch date with the BMW X1, sales rep and car will pick them up at their office for a test drive and will sponsor a pick up lunch. After the text drive buyers receives car interactive CD.

Campaign 3: Around the city spotlightA team of uniform security escorts will travel around the BMW X1 vehicle for some of the most popular streets. Key stops around the city were designated to let people see the vehicle while creating buzz.

BMW LAUNCH EVENT STRATEGY

Challenge: To create eye opening, head turning, crowd creating promotional events. When a new product is launched and it requires consumer participation, interaction, or testing, event marketing is required. Event marketing is also used to general buzz, create new relationships and business opportunities, and is used as an opportunity for businesses to position themselves as leaders in their industry.

Solution: MPA has hosted a wide variety of events and participated in a wide variety of promotional marketing conventions. We have our own directory of models, thanks to Next Door Look, to be used to pass out fliers, entice potential customers, and model the products. MPA always comes prepared with promotional materials, banners, fliers, video reels, or whatever the occasion calls for. If you need something, we can deliver.

Benefit: After using MPA’s event services clients can save thousands by using our models and promotional services to staff your marketing events. The exposure after a successful event will create awareness and general sales. Whether it’s a professional networking event or you need outgoing passionate people for a county fair, we’ve got you covered.

EVENT MARKETING

EVENT EXAMPLES

PRODUCT SAMPLES

STRATEGY

LANGUAGE

• English• Spanish• French• German• Russian• Somali• Hmong• Cantonese• Thai• Hindu• Italian• Manderin• Vietnamese• Korean• Japanese• Filipino

Marco Polo Advertising does not look at language as a barrier, but something that celebrates our differences. MPA can support up to 16 different languages on any copywriting or voice over work,

We can provide Quantitative and Qualitative work. The quantitative work that we provide is web based, and it can easily be connected to social media links.

Our qualitative work we custom design questionnaires that represent the customers needs and work scope. Marco Polo Advertising has worked with multiple third party vendors to execute and run focus groups. Once the results are tallied, we summarize and analyze our findings. We always give our customers the strategy outcomes of all research projects.

RESEARCH

ETHNIC MARKETS AND DESIGNIn today’s internet savvy world, all companies are going global. Marco Polo Advertising is helping companies reach multiple locations around the world.

LIVERPOOLChallenge: One of Mexico’s largest department stores sought to increase online sales by targeting 1st and 2nd generation Mexicans residing in California. In this project, the company sought to position Liverpool as the customer’s best option based on the company themes of Tradition, Service, Quality, Ease of Purchase and Elegance.

Solution: In order to create an effective marketing campaign, my team developed a Positioning and Communication Strategic Plan aimed at actualizing the company’s marketing vision. Our plan strategy would capture the target demographic and increase sales through the following touch points: 1) Liverpool assists in meeting the basic needs of your loved ones in Mexico. 2) Purchases communicate personal success for you and for your loved ones in Mexico. 3) Liverpool guarantees the quality of their products and your personal satisfaction. 4) Liverpool stands in solidarity with you and your far-away loved ones in implementing this plan, we designed a campaign which sought to elicit the human motivational dynamics of well-being and connectivity with absent loved ones.

We appropriated the tag line “Pensando en ti” (Thinking of you) and marketed Liverpool products to customers as meaningful gestures for absent loved ones.

Benefit: After a consideration of our proposal, Trone, (Liverpool’s Public Relations and Marketing firm) presented our strategic marketing plan to Liverpool, which quickly awarded us the account. Through the implementation of our marketing strategy, Liverpool has successfully managed this growing account for more than two years.

PUBLIC RELATIONS &MEDIA PLACEMENT

Solution: After a needs assessment study, I moved to partner with selected Online Hispanic leaders such as Univision.com, Terra.com, Batanga.com, and others. I recommended to divide budget accordingly between Geo Target areas in key Hispanic markets that could maximize results (NY, FL, NC, SC, DC, and TX). The marketing concentrated inventory ads that could be rotated between playlist, big box, skyscraper and banners and measured results periodically for maximal effectiveness. We also followed up results in all sites and compared CPM rates with conversion rates and made appropriate directional changes.

Challenge: As part of Wachovia free checking launch, Carat Agency, Wachovia’s online retainer agency needed to drive traffic to their client’s site. As a collaborator I was contracted to provide research and strategy on Hispanic internet properties. Wachovia aimed to drive traffic to their foot-print across the nation. Properties requirements were to audit page follow through, offering selection and sign up. A campaign audit determined ROI at the end of campaign.

Benefit: Wachovia surpassed expected goals on their introductory offering. Wachovia today is one of the leading financial institutions on the online customer acquisition not only for Hispanics but also for the general market.

MEDIA PLANNING

MEDIA RELATIONS AND WRITING TACTICS

Learning how to reach consumers nation wide is a challenge. Negotiating contracts, sending payment systems is a hard task for any company.

We have been able to manage and create processes to help investigation who would be the best partner for radio, TV, magazine, newspaper, internet or any other medium for companies to advertise to any ethnic group. We also have the capabilities to create written and spoken content in 16 different languages.

MPA offers a wide variety of creative and strategic way to interact with the public: • Press Releases • Feature Stories • Creative Writing • Media advisories • Testimonials

Marco Polo Advertising understands the Web 2.0 world and how to properly interact and utilize these tools for your company. We help set up social media accounts and offer training courses on how to maintain them. We also offer public relations services and tips on how to get your name recognized on the internet in a positive way.

EMERGING MARKETS

CORPORATE E-TRAINING

Corporate E-Training is a creative studio that specializes in designing graphics and the production of videos to support learning. We offer eLearning companies and training departments dramatic cost savings and rapid scalability in creative visuals design. Corporate E-Training is a product of Marco Polo Advertising LLC.

Expertise scope:

Creating Visuals that increase engagement, retention and recall.

Replacing text-heavy content with well designed visuals.

Using visualization techniques to improve in info-graphics.

Summarizing complicated information in info-graphics.

Organizing information in a way that is quickly digestibly and easy-to-recall.

Understanding the characteristics of graphics that support (or disrupt) learning.

Following a systematic graphic design model that helps us design graphics that match instrucutional content.

Memberships:

The eLearning Guild: A community of practic for designers, developers and managers of eLeraning.

ASTD: The world’s leading association of workplace learning and performance professionals forming a world-class

community of practice.

WHAT IS CORPORATE E-TRAINING?

Challenge:A financial institution was looking for a way to train their employees to generate and increase business as well as how to communicate and interact with clients. The tools that this company used in the past were outdated and featured people who were no longer working for the company. Their previous materials consisted of a 52 slide powerpoint presentation.

Solution: Corporate E-Training re-wrote the company’s training materials, including creating customized modules and interactive images. Animated characters were developed and were brought to life with professional voice-over talent to help explain the training information. With the help of these visuals, the training information was explained in a way that was fun and easy to understand.

Benefit:As a result, the financial institution was able to place the interactive training materials online, allowing businesses in 24 states access. The company was also able to track which employees participated in the training and measure their results.

FINANCIAL INSTITUTION

Challenge: Employees and customers were unable to differentiate the benefits, vitamin information and the health factors of various pet food products because the product information was too technical and disengaging.

Solution: Corporate E-Training developed new, condensed product materials and information for employees and customers. Through the use of three modules, Corporate E-Training highlighted information on how to choose the right product, the difference and benefit of vitamins, and protein facts. This simplified the information about the overall long-term care of pets.

Benefit: Customers and employees were able to easily recognize differences between each product. Customers were also able to understand pet food products and how they improve the lives of their pets as a result of the materials Corporate E-Training developed.

MAJOR PET RETAIL STORE

Challenge:This software company was looking to establish itself in a billion-dollar industry by positioning its software as easy to use for insurance companies nationwide. Their target markets range from senior management positions to mid-level to insurance agents. The company had the challenge of explaining their robust technical software in an engaging and educational way.

Solution:Corporate E-Training was able to develop a customized, interactive demo that was 3.5 minutes in length. It contained attention-grabbing sounds and images that easily explained the core business of software.

Benefit:The software company has been able to maximize the attention spans of customers in trade shows and business development presentations while continuing to position itself as one of the leading software vendors.

SOFTWARE COMPANY

Hello. I’m Dr. Jones and would like to introduce you to HIPPA.Established by the government in 1996, HIPAA has been helping protectworkers’ health insurance coverage along with setting a nationalstandard for keeping people’s information private.

In today’s crazy job market, HIPAA is there to offer a benefit to theworkers and their family by protecting their health insurancecoverage. This is in case they chose to switch or happen to lose theirjob.

The other issue that HIPAA covers is all about privacy. Byimplementing a set of rules the act hopes to increase the efficiencyof the health care system and control the use and dispersal of healthcare information.

Since the passing of HIPAA, it has been affecting a large spectrum ofpeople and businesses connected with healthcare. With healthcare beinga hot topic in today’s society, it is required that employees ofhealthcare businesses be trained in the laws and policies of HIPAA.Although I have only given you a brief look at what HIPAA is, what itdoes, and whom it affects, it’s important to learn more to know allthe facts.

COPYWRITED DEMO FOR HIPPA

NEXT DOOR LOOK

Next Door Look was created to fulfill the incredible need today’s world has for a casting agency that is dedicated to developing talent and having multi-cultural urban talent available to book for various advertising and marketing campaigns. The talent provided by Next Door Look comes in all shapes, sizes and colors and with all different backgrounds and experience levels. The talent of Next Door Look models has been used in local commercials, voice-overs, live events, promotions, print ads and numerous other facets.

With the creation and development of Next Door Look, the world of modeling, acting and talent has become much more diverse. With the help of multi-cultural talent, companies and businesses have been able to better target specific demographics and to better promote and advertise their events, products and services. Next Door Look has given the opportunity to be a model or actor to hundreds of beautiful and talented people who may not otherwise get the chance. In a world that is growing more and more diverse by the minute, it is necessary for companies and businesses to reach out to and to target different audiences and demographics. It is the job of Next Door Look to provide them with the talent to do so.

WHAT IS NEXT DOOR LOOK?

The website for Next Door Look is as bright and unique as its models. The Next Door Look website was created to be inviting, user-friendly and informative. Aspiring models can sign-up online to become a part of Next Door Look by choosing their membership package, completing their online profile and uploading a few photos. The Next Door Look website also provides our Elite package members access to on online academy, providing them with daily modeling and acting tips, advice and instructional videos. Potential clients are also able to register online to become a corporate partner with Next Door Look. These corporate partners are comprised of companies and businesses that are looking to hire multi-cultural talent for various campaigns. Once registered, corporate partners are able to browse models by category or search for models based on specific criteria.

THE WEBSITE

WEBSITE CONTINUED

DETAILS SHEET

Model Info Gender Availability Age Ethnicity Complexion

First Name Male In town 0-2 years African Brown

Last Name Female Out of town 2-4 years African-AmericanDark

DOB weekdays 5-12 years Amer-Asian Fair

Address weekends 13-17 years Asian Freckles

City 18-24 years Caribbean Medium

Phone 25-34 years Caucasian Olive

Additional Phone 35-44 years East Indian

Postal Code 45-54 years EuroAsian

State 55-64 years Exotic

Country 65-85 years Fillipino

Location Hispanic

Mediterranian

Middle Eastern

Multi-Racial

Native American

Nordic

Pacific Islands

Portuguese

Scandinavian

Sicillian

Spanish

Build Eye Color Hair Color Glove Size Hat Size Hair Style

Athletic Amber Auburn 6.5 6 Afro

Extra Large Black Bald 7 6.25 Bald

Large Blue Black 7.25 6.5 Buzz Cut

Lean Muscular Blue/Green Blonde 7.5 6.75 Conservative

Medium Blue/Gray Brown 8 7 Curly

Muscular Brown Dark Blonde 8.5 7.25 Dreadlocks

Petite Brown/Green Dark Brown 8.75 7.5 Long

Plus Dark Brown Gray 9 7.75 Medium

Thin Dark Blue Light Blonde 9.5 8 Shaved

Gray Light Brown 10 Short

Green Platinum Waist

Gray/Green Red Wavy

Hazel Salt & Pepper

Light Blue Silver

Light Brown Strawberry Blonde

Violet White

NEXT DOOR LOOK MODELS

Marco Polo Advertising7505 Metro Boulevard, Suite 340

Edina, MN, 55439

P: 952-746-8636 F: 952-746-4161E: help@marcopoloadvertising.com