THE 2023 HMC STRATEGIC EXCELLENCE AWARDS KICK OFF WITH A CALL FOR ENTRIES AND A JURY OF DIVERSE INDUSTRY LEADERS

Fairfax, Va. (February 2, 2023) – The Hispanic Marketing Council (HMC) continues to grow and enhance the Strategic Excellence Awards, the only award competition of its kind recognizing strategic excellence in Hispanic marketing and advertising and cultural fluency. This year, HMC has expanded the categories and invited a broader pool of diverse judges with the goal of celebrating impactful creativity. With the leadership of jury president Nuria Santamaria-Wolfe, director of strategic audience partnerships at Meta, and the collaboration of Círculo Creativo USA, HMC announces the call for entries for its 2023 Strategic Excellence Awards—for campaign submissions, click here.

“Today, it is a critical imperative for brands to lead with cultural intelligence and win with Hispanic consumers,” said Victor Paredes, chair of the HMC Strategic Excellence Awards Committee and executive director of cultural strategy at the Collage Group. “HMC is proud to honor the strategic ingenuity and innovative creativity behind the most effective and inclusive campaigns in the market.”

New to 2023 are two categories, Content Creator & Consumer Engagement Strategy category, which recognizes the Hispanic or multicultural insights that are used to develop a content creator/influencer marketing program, and Creative Ingenuity, honoring creative campaigns that activate a courageous or unexpected interpretation of a Hispanic or multicultural insight. They join Best Hispanic Cultural Insight, Mainstream Impact, Impact on Innovation, Pro-Bono, Shopper and/or Experiential Impact, and Media Connections & Content Strategy Impact categories.

This year’s jury, helmed by Santamaría Wolfe, includes a diverse array of strategists, media experts, creative directors, and leading marketing professionals from both agency and client sides:

  • Flor Leibaschoff, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of BeautifulBeast and Director of Círculo Creativo USA
  • Luis Alejandro Moreno, Marketing Director of Lifestyle and Experiential for Constellation Brands
  • Maria Zavala, Manager of Media Marketing Strategy at McDonald’s
  • Luz Varela, Senior Director of Communications, McKesson Corporation
  • Cristy Clavijo-Kish, Talent & Influencer Management/Marketing, Content Strategist and Founder of Talento Unlimited LLC
  • Jennifer Rivera-Vega, Head of Multicultural for TikTok‘s Global Business Solutions
  • Alice Ovadia, Vice President of Media Strategy at TRUth
  • Gustavo Lauria, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer of We Believers and Co-Chairman of Círculo Creativo USA

The HMC Strategic Excellence Awards are open to all U.S.-based companies whose media has run since January 2022 and feature a simple submission process similar to that of Cannes and FIAP. Click here to submit a campaign for the 2023 HMC Strategic Excellence Awards—the deadline to enter is March 3. The winners will be announced the last week of March and will present their award-winning campaigns on Thursday, April 27 at the HMC Annual Summit taking place in New York City.

For more information, visit hispanicmarketingcouncil.org and follow the HMC on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at @hmchispanic.

About HMC: Founded in 1996 as the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, the Hispanic Marketing Council is the national trade organization of all marketing, communications, and media firms with trusted Hispanic expertise.