Video: Latino Marketing Expert Maria Lopez-Knowles

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As president of Global Hue Latino, Maria Lopez-Knowles is helping build the agency's digital practice. A longtime agency exec with a background in more general consumer marketing at MRM/McCann Worldgroup, Lopez-Knowles brought her own personal experience to building a unit at McCann dedicated to targeting second-gen U.S.-born Hispanics.

She carries on that work at Global Hue, where her "Wink" approach has become something of a mantra. Lopez-Knowles describes the nuanced way marketers should message to U.S. Hispanics - especially those who grew up here - as a wink. It's not just about Spanish translation. Rather, it's understanding the sub-markets within the Hispanic audience and winking to them in a way that tells them a brand recognizes their uniqueness.

"A lot of folks say 'Spanglish' but that's not what this is."

Often, the wink manifests itself as a Spanish action verb nestled in mostly English ad copy, Lopez-Knowles explained during a meeting with ClickZ at the Global Hue offices in lower Manhattan.