Latino Imagineers Change the Face of Television

A progressive 3D animation studio has pledged to help mainstream media and American corporations connect with the fast-growing and prosperous Hispanic community. Cilantro Animation Studios, a harmonious mix of Pablo Picasso and Bill Gates types, was founded when its leaders saw a social and financial need to correct misunderstandings between mainstream boardrooms and barrios.

Cilantro executives hope to satisfy a deep and growing hunger for acculturated Latino entertainment. To meet this need they are developing TV programs, commercials and cinematic ventures that expand the reach of popular yet melodramatic telenovelas, while also improving on the English-language content that is translated into Spanish, often with mixed results.

“The Spanish market has been lumped into a big bucket, and that doesn’t serve the market properly. We’re in an age where we have to listen and analyze more carefully what the audience says. Before they give you their money and their attention, they want to know you went the extra step. Who’s your audience, what is their age, what are they consuming, what are they watching, what technology are they using, where do they come from historically? If you don’t know that, you won’t be able to stay connected to your customers and your audience and grow your business, especially now that we face a multiple platform industry,” says Salvatore Cavalieri, president and CEO of Cilantro Animation Studios in Boca Raton, Florida.

Cavalieri and co-founders Katty Arzola, senior vice president of marketing and public relations, and Francisco Sinta, vice president of sales and strategic alliances, all bring impressive resumes to the enterprise. Their combined experience includes award-winning stints in marketing, real estate, sales, animated presentations, public speaking and engineering. And they share the belief that corporations often fail to tap the juggernaut Hispanic economy – $1.2 trillion by 2011, says The Washington Post – for one simple reason: inaccurate assumptions.

The Cilantro team says marketing problems begin when corporations assume that all Hispanics have roots in the Mexican culture. The fact is Latinos hail from many nations – Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, and many more – with distinctly different customs, expressions and sensitivities. For this reason, cultural generalizations simply won’t work and don’t serve anyone: not the Hispanic community that welcomes inclusion, and not businesses with legitimate products and services who through unfortunate misunderstandings fail to expand their brands.

The founders say Cilantro Animation is well prepared to help correct the perceptual problem because they all hail from different Latino nations – Cavalieri was born in Venezuela; Sinta, Mexico; Arzola, Peru – yet each has been educated in the United States. Also, they are all fluent in English, Spanish and Spanglish. And the rest of Cilantro’s staff members represent a wide range of educational backgrounds and Latino-American cultures – a veritable encyclopedia of Hispanic customs and mores.

Cavalieri’s vision for Cilantro Animation is greatly influenced by Walt Disney and his gang of imagineers. As a boy, while visiting Disney World with his father, Cavalieri was hypnotized by the Disney characters and inspired to create his own animated world that would one day come to life on movie and television screens. But his dream differed from Disney’s in one big way: He would people his stories with walking, talking representatives of the diverse Hispanic-American community.
“We have to know who our clients are. But it’s very important that we know ourselves first. If we don’t know who we are, how can we communicate properly, how can we tell your story? To succeed, you have to know the target very well. That’s where the tone and structure of the animation is going to be based,” he said.

Today, Cilantro Animation Studios uses high-tech software and motion capture technologies to create unique 3D animated characters and concepts for the entertainment and advertising industries. The Cilantro team has also created a proprietary FTP file exchange application – the CyberLoader – that is set up to upload and download up to 50GB, eradicating the frustration of attachments and e-mail limitations. These advancements make it possible for the Cilantro staff to create commercials, movies and television programs, that are specifically targeted to the needs and appetites of the growing and diverse Hispanic audience in the United States.
If that sounds ambitious, consider that Cilantro Animation is only the latest incarnation of Cavalieri, an entrepreneurial Renaissance man. Before co-founding his studio, he worked for Motorola, Inc., where he lead a team of import specialists and provided both compliance and operational support to manufacturing and distribution facilities. Later, he became president and CEO of Mijas Investments, LLC, a firm specializing in real estate acquisition and renovations. There his passion for animation was reinforced when he used 3D technology to create building blue prints that emphasized the crucial role aesthetics play in making a property appealing.

Arzola says reaching Hispanics is particularly difficult because of the different levels of acculturation. “Hispanic is much more than a language, it’s a culture. You can be very Hispanic in your culture and not know any Spanish. That’s the problem. Corporations can speak to these people in English and still miss the target, because they’re not hitting the mark culturally.”

Arzola is the recipient of multiple awards for outstanding achievements in marketing, real estate, and community leadership. In 2005, she was named one of Florida’s Top 100 real estate agents, and in 2006 she received the Platinum Award from Re/Max, a top honor recognizing rapidly excelling professionals of the worldwide team. She was also the recipient of the Spirit Award in recognition of her leadership, dedication and contributions to Progress Software.

Sinta is equally accomplished. Before Cilantro Animation he was the direct-marketing manager for the multicultural market intelligence space called Geoscape International. During his tenure he helped various advertising agencies, list brokers, list managers, call centers and end customers understand and target the Hispanic Market. He also led business development efforts for BabytoBee.com and Hispanos Unidos, both divisions of Morex Marketing Group.


Sinta knows from experience how complex outreach efforts can be. And he is well versed in the independently derived data that can help guide corporations. For example, statistics show that in Greater San Antonio more than half of the 2.3 million residents are Hispanic. However, since the group has been present in this Texan city for generations, seventy-five percent is acculturated. Which begs the question, how should corporations speak to them? Should they use English? Spanish with a touch of English? Or Spanglish?

“These are challenges. And not just in San Antonio, but in other communities like Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. You have to ask, what is the culturally relevant message? And how will you deliver it? Is Spanglish OK with everyone? I would tend to say yes. But corporations can’t just assume every acculturated generation will behave in the same way. So the real challenge becomes segmenting these groups and addressing their specific needs,” Sinta says.

Sinta adds that Cilantro Animation programming provides the opportunity for mainstream television networks and other corporations to connect with Hispanics in new, effective ways. “We’re breaking through by showing interactions that actually happen between the mainstream populous and Hispanics at various grades of acculturation. We have the expertise to guide networks before a full production is rolled out.”

Cavalieri, Sinta and Arzola concede that challenges abound for all concerned. But when developing a campaign for corporations or creating a TV show, getting it right the first time may mean avoiding the unpleasant blunder that reveals a corporation’s cultural ignorance. That’s why they are going the extra mile and developing acculturated characters. By doing so, Cavalieri said, “We are transcending conventional thinking and reaching beyond stereotypes.”

Cavalieri added, “We believe the right mix of sophisticated technology, folklore and excellent storytelling will benefit corporations and consumers alike. After all, we may have our differences, but we’re all in this together.”


For more information about Cilantro Animation Studios visit http://www.cilantroanimation.com/ ; email info@cilantroanimation.com ; or write Cilantro Animation Studios, 1200 North Federal Highway, Suite 200, Boca Raton, Florida, 33432; Or Phone/Fax (866)741-6075.