Puerto Rican advertising creative Gary Bentz has really stirred up some Hispanic marketing shit with his recent post entitled, “Creativity Is My Culture: Why I Didn’t Open a ‘Hispanic’ Shop,” published on Ad Age’s Small Agency Diary blog. In it, he implies that traditional Hispanic ads blow donkey dick, snowball a donkey, turn around and receive a dirty sanchez from the donkey and then get punched by said donkey before finally passing out. Oh wait, he didn’t say that. We did. But he did touch on a few points with which we agree:

It’s all cool to address us Latinos in our own language and it’s OK to make the images livelier with bright colors and big bold letters. I’m fine with bringing the family and the hot music to help connect. While this is the first instinctive approach to make sure everyone is on board with what must be in target, I dare to challenge those who think we Latinos live in that exclusive traditional box.

You see, we Hispanics share the same diverse cultural insights with most of the general American population. Culture is not only defined by ethnic background, color of skin or language. It’s much more. Computer Gurus — that’s a culture. Wine Connoisseurs, that’s another culture. Baseball Fans, NASCAR Fans, Soccer Fans, Broadway Fans. Members of these cultures all speak the same language, even if their accent is different and the color of their skin is not the same.

Seems logical, right? Well, not if you’ve managed to build your career bamboozling White folks into paying you millions of dollars to write for the elusive, Hispanic market. In fact, if they find out about this, you might be shit out of a job. As witnessed by the long-winded attacks Bentz has received in the comments section from people you’d think have more important things to do with their time than troll the internet. Like Antonio Ruiz the CSO and partner of the largest independent Hispanic ad agency in the country, The Vidal Partnership:

I beleive [sic] Mr. Bentz gets paid to “reach” U.S. Hispanics. Therefore, a more narrow vision or understanding is adequate. I aspire to be paid by intelligent Clients [sic] like mine to move, impact, engage, and persuade U.S. Hispanics. A deeper vision and understanding is required.

So does The Vidal Partnership want to tell the clients Betz works for that they don’t fall into the intelligent category, or should we? Moving along, there’s a TWENTY PARAGRAPH article someone named Gene Bryan, CEO of HispanicAD.com posted in its entirety in the comments section entitled, “By the way … ¿Quien es Gary Bentz?”

How do Hispanics have more in common with the average American than their differences? ¡Por Favor! Have you been to a focus group lately?

For those not in the know, focus groups are where 12 people sit in a conference room and tear apart ads in exchange for $20 and free donuts. Advertisers let their opinion determine what the rest of the country will and won’t see in an ad campaign. Which would be like us letting latinogamer choose our story angles.

Fortunately, the positive comments on Bentz’s story far outweigh the negative ones with even African-American advertisers feeling his pain, including this one:

I cannot count the number of times I have been asked for the “Black insight” and watched GM clients’ faces fall as I tell them that there is no such thing.

Another commenter agrees Bentz has touched a nerve with his post saying they’ve received ten phone calls about it already. In fact, they suggest an Ad Age hosted roundtable on the subject. Let us know if you have it, guys, and we’ll send over the donkey.

Creativity Is My Culture [Ad Age]