Gustavo Razzetti of Lapiz: 2013 broke the barriers between Hispanic, multicultural and general market

Gustavo Razzetti, executive VP and general manager of Lapiz, sums up 2013 as an excellent year in which the barriers between what is Hispanic, multicultural and general market were finally broken down. “We acknowledged that we’re all competing for the same thing, which seems like good news to me”.Another positive point the executive mentioned was the fact that many general-market agencies are recognizing the importance of the multicultural market and have realized that the only way they’ll grow is to take part in it. “The discussion in 2014 and 2015 will be to determine who will lead the way – it will be all against all and whoever is best prepared will be the winner” he said.With regard to the most discussed topic of 2013 – total market – Razzetti believes that in some cases people get the wrong idea. “There are agencies that think that by incorporating multicultural insights, they’ve got their general market campaign all fixed up and ready to go. That’s not the solution, because we’re in a more diverse, more complex market than that” he said.“We live in a world where there’s more and more segmentation, we’re witnessing a breaking up of the mass market, and that will necessarily influence how we work with an eye to the future” he said.Which is why Lapiz redesigned its strategies. “We stopped thinking of segmentation by ethnic groups and we think much more in terms of behavior, because whether you belong to the ethnic group or not, it doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily have exclusive behavior” Razzetti said.For Lapiz it was a year full of triumphs, above all internationally. “These awards show that our creativity compared with that of other agencies worldwide can compete perfectly well”.In terms of new accounts, the Chicago-based agency added Remax, Marshalls and Firestone to its portfolio.