Today, an interview with the CEO & Founder of Vicaria Multicultural Agency: Priscila Martinez.
Priscila Martinez is a marketing, creative communications, and public relations professional based in Los Angeles. She is CEO and founder of three award-winning, global creative communications agencies, The Brand Agency, Vicaria Multicultural Agency, and 1795 Communications. She is an expert in the entertainment, fashion, beauty and lifestyle sectors and has serviced a variety of luxury and consumer clients in those spaces. Her firms and the campaigns they represent have won numerous prestigious awards like Best Branding and Communications Firm, CES Innovation Award, and Best PR Firm in the West Coast. Martinez’s expertise has been featured in outlets like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and AdWeek.
1. What is Vicaria Multicultural Agency’s mission and vision?
Vicaria Multicultural Agency was born out of observations ex C-Suite communications execs had when they surveyed the current multicultural landscape. Multicultural talent and consumers alike were being significantly underserved. The lack of diversity in decision-making rooms made it so that niche media outlets and audiences were overlooked when forming campaigns. Vicaria Multicultural Agency seeks to bring multicultural sensitivities to the spotlight by connecting our clients to the network we’ve built as industry professionals. As a multicultural Communications and Public Relations shop, Vicaria Multicultural Agency acts as a turnkey solution for general market brands hoping to reach niche audiences. We can plug and play into existing strategies, amplifying them with multicultural media and talent or ideate along with clients to create one-of-a-kind campaigns that move the needle.
2. Why was creating an agency dedicated to multicultural talent important to you?
Multicultural audiences and talent are often overlooked or treated as an afterthought when it comes to big campaigns. Our demographics are changing and so are consumer voices. We recognized the need for an agency that provides turnkey solutions for larger brands that either don’t have those sensibilities in-house or that have yet to get their feet wet in the multicultural space. We recognized the need for authentic voices championing niche audiences, and we decided to bring attention (and a solution!) to this hole in the Communications marketplace.
3. What kind of clients is Vicaria Multicultural Agency looking to service?
Our client list straddles a broad spectrum of companies and personalities. From household name brands and publicly traded companies, to international pop icons and everything in between. We look to service entities that want to use their marketing power to put out good, authentic work that touches underserved communities in a meaningful way.
4. What has been your favorite project so far?
Natti Natasha is one of our Vicaria darlings. Not only is she a pleasure to work with, but she is also an astute businesswoman who has a clear vision of where she wants her personal brand to go. Our first mandate was presenting her to general market media in an organic way. We chose NYFW (the last one before the pandemic actually) as our playground and started a general market media campaign. Our efforts secured her coverage in top tier national publications like Forbes, Entertainment Tonight, , Billboard Magazine, and WWD who named her as “fashion week’s top celebrity with the highest media impact.,” Our bespoke strategy developed her brand in the US and had big fashion houses knocking on her door for lucrative collaborations.
5. How would you describe Vicaria Multicultural Agency’s company culture?
We are incredibly buttoned up and corporate, but also scrappy. At Vicaria Multicultural Agency, we value passion and collaboration. We don’t subscribe to the large agency model where there is internal competition. Our team constantly strives for the same goal: we want to put out great work that touches underserved communities in an authentic way.
6. How has Vicaria responded to the impact of Covid-19?
Despite a rollercoaster of a year, Vicaria Multicultural Agency adapted. A lot of us come from first generation immigrant families and unexpected hardship comes with the territory. We roll with the punches and reference our larger mission to continue putting one foot in front of the other. We are proud to boast that our team flourished under the dire circumstances and we signed some of our biggest clients during the global pandemic.
7. Where do you see the future of multicultural pr?
With a fast-growing multicultural demographic throughout the U.S., brands must learn to adopt quickly. They risk their livelihood if they don’t seek out diverse audiences with authentic strategies. We hope shops like ours, full of hard-working individuals who want to make a difference, continue cropping up as the need for multicultural sensitivities continues to rise.