McAllen, February 05, 2018

On Thursday, February 1st, the Luxury Marketing Club presented their first educational seminar with the Mexico and the RGV business themes at Dave and Buster’s with our new General Consul, Eduardo Bernal Martinez as the keynote speaker. The program started featuring the NAFTA topic and how important it is for the Valley to create more cohesiveness among our RGV cities. Consul Bernal Martinez also emphasized his desire to reach to those municipalities who have a sincere interest in doing business with Mexico.

One of the features for NAFTA were some negative consequences with the absence of the treaty such as:

1. The United States would pay around $6 billion USD in taxes in Mexico.
2. Could lose market against NAFTA competitors in Mexico such as Japan and Canada.
3. It would affect economically the state of Texas as well as their labor mainly in the Rio Grande Valley due to the enormous amount of commercial transactions that take place on the border.
4. Customs districts would stop processing more than $425 billion in trade, we are talking about $1.16 billion per day
5. It would reduce the economic resistance in energy matters in the face of oil price changes.

In summary, the growth and economic stability of the state of Texas and especially the Rio Grande Valley would be jeopardized. Lic. Isabel Vargas, Marketing Sub Director globally for Notimex presented “The revolution” transition of traditional mass media to the digital media.Demonstrating the new technological generation in communications in Mexico now dominated globally with digital media. Lic. Vargas also said that Consequences of Digital Change brought access to the Internet with the possibility for:

• Access to information in a more immediate way.
• The emergence of a new press that faces difficulties in being more vulnerable in terms of its veracity, rigor, and clarity in putting opportunity and scoop as values of digital transformation.
• The media saw an opportunity to offer content from a much more attractive and interactive visual perspective that requires opening new channels and serving new audiences.

“Lic. Vargas who handles national and international accounts at Notimex brings a new conduit of communications resources and the best communications bridge between the Luxury Marketing Club, RGV, and Mexico” said, Olivia Garza, who is the office manager at the Luxury Marketing Club memberships program. Notimex is the official Mexico News Bureau globally reaching over 2.0 million people daily. Mr. Joseph Romero de Velasco, Executive Director for the club emphasized his RGV report for marketing presenting his experience since he arrived in McAllen in the fall of 2015 from Dallas. One comment was that most ad agencies in the Valley provide “Prescription with no Dr. Consultation” to their clients; “Most creative is handled by the media due to deals and packages” diluting the power of advertising, “Spanish is handled too informally ignoring the difference between Educational to Persuasive” and the lack of integrated marketing with actual ad campaigns.