A study released this month by Experian Simmons for Univision Communications shows that Hispanics are less affected by the recession - and have a much more positive attitude toward their country's economic outlook and are less affected by some of the current economic market conditions: Only 45 percent of Hispanics have credit cards versus 71 percent of non-Hispanics, have fewer loans, and are less burdened with debt, and 34 percent expect to be better off financially in the next 12 months versus 25 percent for non-Hispanics.

Of those surveyed:

-95% said that they target Hispanics (up 86% since a previous 2003 survey)

-45% said they were satisfied with the results of their multicultural initiatives

-55% said that they prefer to use a multicultural agency for their creative work.

In fact, satisfaction scores indicated that they are much happier with their multicultural agencies than those who rely on their general-market agency of record for multicultural work.

The same type of frustration has been brewing these past few years in the marketing industry due to its own compensation system. Clients are becoming wary of commission fees and agency markup percentages – methods that date back to an earlier time in advertising, the likes of which you may have witnessed on AMC’s popular television series “Mad Men” (amctv.com/madmen). These are pricing models that do very little to deliver value to clients, but do a great deal to add padding to agency revenue systems to pay for their complex, heavy organizational structures. Ironically, traditional agencies will counsel advertisers on brand pricing models that communicate positioning and value – yet they do not follow their own best practices when caring for their own *consumer* relationships. The problem – much like CEO compensation on Wall Street – is that when you don’t know what you are paying for – how do you really know if your agent is acting in your best interest?