LaVERDAD is a full service marketing, advertising, research and public relations firm that serves Fortune 1000 clients. We serve brands such as Mercy Health Partners, Vicks, Pepto Bismol, Prilosec, Pantene, Mr. Clean, Pampers, Iams, Crest, Bounty, Kroger, Wal-Mart, State Farm, Mentos, SunnyD, Evenflo, Fifth Third Bank, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, Toyota, Old Spice, TriVersity Construction, Smart IT Staffing, Downtown Cincinnati Inc., Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, Ohio Department of Health and more.
Our forte is understanding the emerging markets, and we have in-house multicultural experts that conduct marketing & research in-culture and in-language with a focus on healthcare and wellness, education, nonprofits and select corporate brands that improve people’s lives.
If you are in the advertising, marketing, public relations or research fields and also interested in joining a high performing multicultural agency, don’t hesitate to connect.
Specialties: Multicultural marketing, Grassroots outreach, Clinical Research and Clinical Trial Recruiting, Hispanic, African American, Asian American, Global, Advertising, Media Planning and Buying, Public Relations, Marketing Research, Integrated Marketing, BRIC Nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China).
Mike Robinson is a targeted marketing and public relations expert with an in-depth understanding of the multicultural consumer and marketplace that spans 30 years. He is well known for his innovation and strategic results as a global manager with Procter & Gamble, General Research Corporation and Global Strategic Solutions.
Mr. Robinson is a Mexican-American and has lived and worked throughout Latin America for over a decade. He has significant global experience helping leading consumer products and Fortune 500 companies win in the global marketplace. He is the founding President of LaVERDAD Marketing & Media headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.
He’s served clients such as Toyota North America, State Farm, Procter & Gamble, Kroger, Walmart, National Institutes of Health, Cintas, Old Spice, Tide, Olay, Pantene, Dawn Detergent, Ohio Department of Health, and Downtown Cincinnati Inc.
Mr. Robinson and LaVERDAD Marketing & Media have received numerous recognitions, including the 2007 US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Businessman of the Year, 2007 National Minority Supplier Development Council’s MBE of the Year, the 2011 and 2006 South Central Ohio Minority Business Council’s Minority Business of the Year, and the 2006 Diversity Circle of Excellence from the Cincinnati USA Chamber of Commerce. In 2010 he was recognized by the Governor of Ohio as both the Distinguished Hispanic Ohioan and the Distinguished Ohio Veteran.
Not only an exceptional business leader, Mr. Robinson is a disabled veteran and former Army officer who served in occupied Berlin and on the East German Front during the Cold War, and went on to lead elite Special Forces units on operations throughout Central and South America after earning the coveted Green Beret. He led strategic units conducting highly classified operations in Panama, Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Venezuela, and across Latin America.
After the Anthrax attacks in 2002, Mr. Robinson was asked to take a leave of absence from Industry to serve as a Program Manager to rapidly build a national infectious disease detection system to help protect the Nation against a pandemic or outbreak due to bioterrorism.
His leadership helped develop the National Retail Data Monitor that analyzed over the counter medicine sales for signs of infectious disease, so that public health officials could rapidly respond. His efforts helped rally the trillion dollar Food & Drug industry to come to the support of the nation after the attacks of9/11/01. President Bush called the initiative the modern day Manhattan project.
In 2003, Mr. Robinson was asked to serve on the Expert Advisory Board for Middle Eastern Affairs, where he helped create strategic communications recommendations for U.S. Central Command in the war effort. The group was instrumental in providing strategic communications advice that helped quell anti-American sentiment in foreign media.
Mr. Robinson is a first generation college graduate and holds a Bachelor’s in Geography and Planning from Arizona State University, a Master’s in Business and Analytics from Webster University and post graduate studies from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
His leadership portfolio includes current or past service on Fifth Third Bank’s Community Advisory Forum, the committee of management for YMCA Teen Services, the Board of Directors for America’s Team youth development initiative, the Board of Directors for the National Society of Hispanic MBA’s, the Board of Directors for LULAC, the Board of Directors for the Army Special Forces Association, and currently serves on the advisory committee for the Institute for Social Media and the Board of the United Way of Greater Cincinnati. He resides in Loveland, Ohio with his wife of 27 years and is a proud father of three.
His vision for the future is to create an inner city workforce development program that partners with academic institutions to provide hands on opportunities for youth to learn technology and social media skills to help companies and organizations promote “green” and diversity initiatives, as well as programs that help close the education and health gap for multicultural communities.
Our Story“”LaVERDAD helped us tremendously. We called upon them to support a new product launch. One week after our initial meeting, we conducted a full ethnic consumer immersion in-home study attended by product development, brand mangers, sales, and our marketing research experts, followed by two full days of qualitative Hispanic and African American focus groups just one week after the immersions. Their work, attention to our needs, and turnaround time has been fantastic!”
Rob S., Mr. Clean Brand
Founded in 2003 by a former Army Special Forces Officer (Green Beret) and Global Manager with The Procter and Gamble Company, LaVERDAD is an award winning business as well as an Hispanic and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB), that has become one of the most recognized names bringing consumer insights and marketing strategies to Fortune 1,000 companies, nonprofits, and governmental agencies.
Our headquarters are in Cincinnati, OH and we operate throughout the U.S. We’re a highly diverse and qualified team in the fields of marketing, research, market analysis, creative design, public relations and advertising.
Since our formation, LaVERDAD has conducted campaigns with every major consumer segment in the US, as well as initiatives around the world. Based on changes in market dynamics in 2009 LaVERDAD started to undertake a global growth strategy focused on the emerging BRIC (Brasil, Russia, India & China) nations.
Serving a Global Economy
In terms of global economics, BRIC is a grouping acronym that refers to the countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, which are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development. It is typically rendered as “the BRICs” or “the BRIC countries” or “the BRIC economies” or alternatively as the “Big Four.”
The BRIC nations, which account today for about 40% of the world’s population and 40% of the world’s annual gross domestic product (GDP), are set to become the global growth locomotive. Collectively, they are expected to outperform the world as a whole, as well as major industrialized economies over the next two years.
Some countries, such as China and India, will expand even more robustly than the bloc on average. This is particularly relevant, given that China has just taken from Japan the title of the second largest economy. In that sense, China’s 10% growth is all but remarkable compared to Japan’s 2% rate over the next two years. Driven by a vibrant domestic demand, the expansion in the BRIC markets will be so buoyant that, by 2014, these countries will account for as much as 61% of the overall growth in the world’s output.
We believe that demonstrating a growth strategy entails more than just demonstrating how our revenue will grow. The growth strategy of our business plan is about proving to others that we have a plan for bringing our product (service) to new customers and new markets, and even introducing new products.
Fortune 500 clients rely on LaVERDAD as the partner of choice to help identify actionable “TRUTHS” about consumers and the marketplace, and then trust us to take actions to create marketing campaigns that lead to measurable results.
Our mission is to help clients effectively plan and execute marketing programs to win with domestic and global multicultural consumers.
LaVERDAD does this by developing the right strategy to raise brand awareness, use the right applied research methodology to capture actionable and data-based insights, and then take action with clients to create campaigns that produce measurable results.
We believe a diverse team will outperform a homogeneous team every time, that’s why we are DIVERSE BY DESIGN.
To demonstrate, the list of countries that LaVERDAD team members come from includes Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, England, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, USA & Venezuela.
Our client portfolio is impressive for any agency, but even more so for an organically grown business that is now over twelve years old. We’ve helped develop dozens of billion dollar brands and serve clients such as Toyota, Cintas, Wal-Mart, Fifth Third Bank, Allstate, Children’s Hospital, Mercy Health, and brands such as Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Crest, Vicks, Pepto Bismol, Mr. Clean, SunnyD, Dawn, Gillette, Oral B, Old Spice and Olay.
Of particular note, we deploy proprietary marketing innovation that has increased speed to market for several global brands, contributing over $250 million dollars in incremental revenue potential. Going forward, our vision is to be the agency of choice in helping clients win by leveraging big data and customer insights to develop marketing and PR campaigns that guarantee measurable results.
What can we do for you?
Marketing
Media
Public Relations
Research
The Most Creative Ideas
What’s our secret weapon?
Do you want your public relations or marketing initiative to resonate with customers? We’ve helped businesses in diverse industries meet their challenges and successfully launch or reintroduce products, and conduct grassroots marketing, media and PR campaigns ranging from health and beauty to financial services, food and beverage to pharmaceuticals and home care. Our secret weapon.. the truth!
Our Approach
We work with clients to create marketing strategies that best serve their customer segments with the right message, using the right channel for the right products or services.
We’ll help you:
Understand your customers as they exist in the real world, such as diverse groups of consumers with diverse cultures from numerous countries of origin and levels of acculturation.
Develop creative and innovative branding and marketing messages aimed at getting the proper message across to the right audience delivering the greatest impact.
Discover opportunities for product development and globalization by understanding which products and services generate the greatest ROI.
We will help you create a Go2Market Strategy in a way that develops your marketing, promotions and public relations messaging strategy specifically for your market. We will deliver actionable results that will help identify and target customer segments and create effective branding and messaging so that customers will identify with your brand and be inspired to action.
Testimonial