Multicultural Marketing Agency Marketvision Adds Dedicated Account Team for African American Consumer Market

Multicultural marketing agency Marketvision has expanded its expertise with a dedicated account team whose primary focus will be on one of the firm’s rapidly growing practice areas, the African American consumer market. Chereese Griffin, who has more than 18 years of brand management and packaged goods experience on both the corporate and agency sides, heads the agency’s African-American marketing efforts. Asha Parker, based in Atlanta, will lead in-market execution efforts. Charles Davis, an art director based in San Antonio, will focus on creative.

For the last three years, Marketvision has been creating and executing African-American marketing projects, utilizing the expertise of existing staff and the agency’s “multicultural collaborative” team – a consortium of African-American-owned firms.

“In the years since I founded the agency in 1998, Marketvision has become well-known for its promotions targeting Hispanic consumers, but my plan always has been to provide a multicultural point of view for everything we do,” said agency founder and CEO Yvonne “Bonnie” García. “The addition of this new team will not only focus on the African-American consumer market, but also will help ensure that we view all our clients’ marketing challenges through a multicultural lens.”

Griffin, based in Marketvision’s Chicago office, is senior account director supporting African-American consumer market projects for The Coca-Cola Company and Kraft-Nabisco. Prior to joining Marketvision, Griffin was account director at a Chicago-based African American advertising agency, where she crafted strategy and led creative development of a Coca-Cola Teen initiative tying the consumer to the Hip-Hop lifestyle. For several years prior to that experience, she worked in corporate marketing positions, including marketing director at Soft Sheen-Carson, a L’Oreal company, where she was responsible for brand management and strategic business development. She was a category manager at Blistex, Inc, where she handled the entire Lip Care Business category, including the launch of two key products, Silk & Shine and Fruit Smoothies. She also has been a product manager in brand management at Revlon. A native of Philadelphia, Griffin holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BBA from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

A native of Atlanta, Parker has extensive experience developing and executing programs and events targeting African Americans and Hispanics. She began her career as an editor and later began working in marketing, public relations and event management in the medical, small business, entertainment, publishing, fashion, food and beverage, global commerce, education and religion fields. She has helped manage and execute successful events throughout the Southeast. Parker earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Spelman College in Atlanta. An active member of the Spelman Alumni Association, she frequently creates partnership opportunities between businesses and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Art director Charles Davis brings five years’ experience from several San Antonio ad agencies. Most recently an art director at The Atkins Group, he created brand messaging for national, regional and local clients in a variety of industries including healthcare, telecommunications, sports and entertainment, banking, public utility, newspaper, and business-to-business. His design work encompassed television, print, interactive, OOH, and Web. He also has worked as a junior art director at Creative Civilization. Davis started his professional career as an intern at ESD (Eric Simpson Design), where he was promoted to junior art director after a short time. Davis has a bachelor’s degree in communication design from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.

About Marketvision
Marketvision is a multicultural marketing firm specializing in strategic planning, advertising, promotions, experiential marketing, events, media planning/buying, community outreach and public relations. Clients include Amway Latin America, The Coca-Cola Company, Continental Airlines, Copa Airlines, Crisco, Fisher-Price®, Hershey, Kraft, MillerCoors and TIAA-CREF. A San Antonio native and University of Texas at Austin graduate, Yvonne “Bonnie” Garcia established Marketvision in 1998 after 20 years directing corporate Hispanic marketing initiatives at The Coca-Cola Company and Stroh Brewery. In 2010, Marketvision merged with communications agency Garcia 360, founded by Luis Garcia in 1998. Marketvision is based in San Antonio, with offices in Atlanta, Chicago and New York, and has strategic alliances with a consortium of multicultural agencies. For more information, visit www.mvmas.com or call 210-222-1933.

For more information, contact: Tanya Alvarez, Talvarez@mvmas.com, 210-222-1933.