Brand Activism delivers! Below is a sample of our work for the Herdez® brand and information from Hormel Foods with additional details on the MegaMex Foods marketing success:

From today’s release:
Hormel Foods Celebrates Growth of MegaMex Foods at its Annual Shareholder Meeting

During its annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Minn., on Jan. 31, 2012, Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a multinational marketer of consumer-branded food and meat products, celebrated the growth of MegaMex Foods, its 50/50 joint venture with Herdez del Fuerte. Since its inception just two years ago, MegaMex Foods has increased sales by more than 150 percent.

“The focus of MegaMex Foods is to bring the spirit of Mexico to every table,” said James M. Splinter, group vice president, Grocery Products at Hormel Foods. “Great brands like Herdez®, CHI-CHI’S®, La Victoria®, Don
Miguel®, and the new additions to MegaMex Foods, Wholly Guacamole®, Wholly Salsa® and Wholly Queso®, will help us accomplish this goal. We are excited about the future because our expectation for this business is that it will continue to grow at an accelerated rate exceeding that of our core Grocery Products portfolio.”

MegaMex Foods was a key driver of success for Hormel Foods which experienced record success in fiscal year 2011. To highlight this achievement, Jeffery M. Ettinger, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer at Hormel Foods, offered remarks on the company’s recent growth.

Read the full release from Hormel Foods here.

Leading up to and on this day people from diverse backgrounds are united at street festivals, grocery stores, restaurants and museums. The events celebrate diversity and the Hispanic culture, while highlighting the perseverance of the human spirit: in this case, commemorating the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.

As marketers, the human spirit is something that should be at the root of all we do. After all, it is people who make or break brands. RIESTER is privileged to mark Cinco de Mayo with a ‘real people’ campaign that captures the authenticity of HERDEZ, an international Mexican product line that has earned a place in the pantries of American households. Have a Feliz Cinco de Mayo and see first-hand how this new favorite is spicing up dishes every day.

Flag of Mexico. The tri-colors of the Mexican flag predate Italy's flag.

Today our neighbors to the south are celebrating a significant national milestone. September 16 or “El 16 de septiembre” is a very special day in the history of Mexico. This year is the 200th anniversary of its independence from Spain and the 100th anniversary of the Revolution.

Both dates are significant milestones in Mexico’s history, the first marking the start of a ten year effort by Mexicans to free themselves of Spanish rule and the second, another ten year struggle to break the chains of the dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz.

Mexico has elaborate plans to celebrate this important occurrence ranging from parades to art exhibits to musical concerts in the country. Mexico is also encouraging Mexicans living outside of the country to hold celebrations of their own to not only mark this historic occurrence, but to also celebrate and promote Mexican art, music, food and culture.

In keeping with this, RIESTER worked with our client, HERDEZ® to develop a promotional campaign that promotes Mexico’s rich cultural and culinary traditions. The campaign includes the sponsoring of Telemundo’s five bicentennial shows in which it airs videos that teach Mexican food enthusiasts how to prepare authentic Mexican meals. The campaign also has a sweepstakes in which two lucky HERDEZ® Salsa enthusiasts will win an HERDEZ® Salsa catered party for themselves and twenty family and friends!

But the promotion of authentic Mexican food for this historic and festive occasion did not end there. HERDEZ® also reached out to Mexican restaurants across the U.S. by participating as a sponsor and exhibitor of the Mexican Restaurant Association’s (MERA) convention whose theme this year is, “A New Era of Mexican Cuisine—The Largest Culinary Bicentennial Celebration in the United States”.

Happy bicentennial Mexico! Let’s help our neighbors celebrate by enjoying some authentic Mexican food with HERDEZ® Salsa!

To learn more about HERDEZ® and how to prepare great tasting Mexican meals using HERDEZ Salsas, visit HERDEZTraditions.com.

The commercial, directed by veteran still photographer and director Dana Tynan, embraces the cooking process and the feeling cooks have when they prepare a successful meal. It also features a brand new tag line for the brand: “You. Victorious.” Derived directly from the brand name itself, the line and the commercial speak directly to the confidence cooks have when they use any of the delicious La Victoria products.

Young girl at Hope. Photo predates the earthquake.

The situation in Haiti is dire. Our friends Tim and Toby Banks are struggling to deal with the chaos around them. They need to care for two of their own children who live in Haiti with them and the twenty girls whose home is the orphanage. 

The orphanage, which is both school and home to the Banks and the twenty orphan girls who live there is unsafe and unusable. The Hope Center for Orphaned Girls exists to provide a stable home and an education to young Haitians without parents. It is not an orphanage that places children with adoptive families. The number of orphans in Haiti, over 200,000 before the earthquake, has led to a variety of types of orphanages to serve these children. Hope raises Haitian girls to live productive lives in Haiti. One of Haiti’s many problems is high illiteracy and lack of education. Hope is working to change that.

Because the situation is so bad and there is not currently a home or even a safe place for the girls at Hope, the Banks decided the best thing to do was to seek temporary asylum and bring the orphans to their home in Ohio until the building could be secured and the situation in Haiti stabilizes.

On Wednesday, U.S. Embassy personnel granted humanitarian visas and the group of 23 was about to begin their journey out of Port-au-Prince. Before they could leave, the paperwork was subsequently revoked. The visas granted were a new type of visa created by the Department of Homeland Security specifically to speed the process of migration for Haitian orphans being placed in American families. The orphans at Hope live in the custody of Americans who are temporarily expatriates–there is no intention to permanently relocate the orphans to the U.S. They fall into a grey area where no current visa clearly covers them.

For over two days, Toby, her two children and the twenty girls camped out inside the U.S. Embassy. Tim Banks is planning to stay behind to begin the rebuilding process. Last night officials at the embassy encouraged Toby to stay with her group inside the embassy. Current laws and rules do not allow her to take the children out of the country, however, because of the extraordinary circumstances Toby and Tim are hopeful that something will change.

This afternoon Toby and the children left the embassy and went back to Hope’s compound. They are still trying to find a way to leave the country for a temporary safe haven.

Regardless of what comes next Tim and Toby Banks need funds for the orphanage especially because of the extreme situation they are facing as a result of the earthquake.

The need in Haiti is huge. There are many good people and organizations working as hard and fast as they can for the millions of people affected by the earthquake. Because of our connection to the Banks we are doing what we can to help them. Please join us.

Your contribution will make a difference for twenty little girls aged 2-13 who need our help. Please send a check to:

RIESTER Foundation
802 North 3rd Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85003

Write “Haiti” in the memo line of the check.

Thank you.

See all posts regarding Haiti at http://www.riester.com/haiti/

Photos can't begin to capture the extent of the ruins. Members of Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue scale the former Montana Hotel during rescue operations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 14, 2010. The all volunteer service partnered with U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and multi-national relief agencies to support relief efforts in the aftermath of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Photo by member of U.S. Navy.

They put into action their mantra of “service above self.”

In the truest sense, Rotarians (1.5 million members in 33,790 clubs worldwide) are volunteer activists — doers and believers — for numerous causes, be it buying wheelchairs for underprivileged children, combating hunger, improving health and sanitation, providing education and job training or teaming with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($335 million donated) to provide polio vaccines to tykes in the ghettos of less-developed countries.

A classic example of Rotary-style activism was aptly expressed in an article by Dr. Scott Leckman that appeared in the Salt Lake City daily newspaper, the Deseret News, on Oct. 23, 2009.

A physician and member of the Salt Lake Rotary Club, Dr. Leckman wrote of an experience he had earlier in the year after immunizing kids for polio in Firozabad, a ghetto of some 400,000 inhabitants 40 miles from Agra, India, home to the storied Taj Mahal.  He was one of a group of 16 from Utah who paid their own way to India to partake in a Rotary International humanitarian effort.

"Namaste."

Dr. Leckman wrote: “Indians have a wonderful greeting, ‘Namaste.’  When spoken to another person, it is commonly accompanied by a slight bow and made with hands pressed together, palms touching and fingers pointed upward.  It means ‘I bow to the divinity inherent within you’.”

He recalled this exchange following a day of giving babes-in-arms polio vaccine drops in the squalor of Firozabad where mud-brick shanties front on alleys lined with troughs full of sewage:

“As I walked through Firozabad to catch the bus, an Indian gentleman rode his bike past me, then stopped to talk.

“Why are you here?,” he asked.

“I am here with a group of Rotarians to give children polio vaccines.”

“What do you get out of it?”

Dr. Leckman responded: “A world free of polio.”

“He (the stranger) thought for a moment and said ‘namaste,’ then rode off,” the doctor recalled.

In that brief exchange, Dr. Leckman epitomized Brand Activism in its basic form.  He had a good product, he strongly believed in that product and he conveyed its value succinctly to his audience — who obviously was sold on it.

That is similar to the studied approach RIESTER takes in advocating Brand Activism about products and services it successfully touts to targeted audiences on behalf of its clients. RIESTER (with 100 employees in offices in Phoenix, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City) develops advertising, public relations, web, social media and public policy  messages that resonate.  Just like Dr. Leckman’s.

Rotarian and RIESTERite Mike Korologos administering polio vaccines in India in 2008. This is Brand Activism.

The Palace of Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

There have been many moments throughout my career in production when I have found myself standing on location in an unusual place. I would look around and appreciate all the elements that came together that brought me to that moment in time when something remarkable was happening. Tonight I am reflecting on a day filled with remarkable moments.

I have the humble pleasure of being on assignment in Geneva, Switzerland this week.  I am following 40 Executive MBA students from Thunderbird School of Global Management.  My job is to track these students through the experiences of their day as they meet with influential diplomats, economists and esteemed professors.  These are men and women who meet every other week on the Thunderbird campus in Glendale, Arizona over 18 months and this is their first trip abroad for an immersion experience in international business.  The group is a microcosm of the globe with students from places like Pakistan, Brazil, Mongolia, South Africa, the United States and many other countries.  

My task initially has been to be invisible and to capture in still photos, pure moments of their experience here, whether it be engaged in a thought provoking debate with a cohort on child labor issues, or gazing out picturesque windows of the conference room deep in thought, pondering what it means to be a global citizen today.

Today we went to the U.N. and toured the great chambers, where issues of the world have been debated for decades.  I could not help but feel the power of the historic and relevant decisions that have been made here as we moved through hallways of marble in this storied building that was originally built for the League of Nations. 

To be on the floor of the U.N. under the great golden symbol of peace and unity and standing with these students from all over the world was an intense experience.  I am captivated by the students as people and to be able to watch them through a long zoom lens as they debate with passion and compassion on important global matters is an honor.  It’s exciting to witness the spark of enthusiasm through their eyes as they experience a personal epiphany.  Here we were where leadership characteristics like this matter. It is the human quality of compassion, care and concern blending with practical knowledge and the desire to drive the world to a better place.  These are the qualities of leadership that I see being transferred to the men and women in this class from Thunderbird and it was humbling and remarkable to be there.

Although there were many remarkable moments today it seems fitting to end my first entry for this travel blog with this one particular moment. Today I was a RIESTERite standing in the halls of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  I felt humbled to be here on many levels and in a fleeting moment I felt the honor of what we get to do at the agency sometimes, and that is, to play a small role for a client which in turn empowers them to play a small role in the lives of people who may very well go on to change the world in a remarkable way.

Robert Farthing
Geneva, Switzerland

Don’t miss Mirja’s post on our web site: http://tinyurl.com/MirjasBerlinPost