Features
Creative Artists Agency Launches CAA Latino
Creative Artists Agency (CAA) has announced the creation of CAA Latino, to formalize what the agency described as its “longstanding efforts to support and amplify Latino and Hispanic representation across media and entertainment.”
The team of CAA Latino is led by Rudy Lopez Negrete (latin music and brand partnership agent); Toby Borg (head of global client strategy); Marielena Acevedo and Erik Toral (global client strategy executives); Dania Echeverri and Camila Seta (CAA brand consulting executives); and André Vargas (CAA’s chief data officer).
Plus, “more than 30 colleagues across the agency’s businesses and offices will be key contributors to CAA Latino’s work,” according to the press release announcing the launch of CAA Latino.
“Building upon the agency’s success with existing clients, CAA Latino’s agency-wide, cross-department work will create and maximize new revenue and business opportunities for Latino and Hispanic clients across music, film, television, endorsements, sports, business development, and more,” according to a press release announcing the launch,” it continues.
A joint comment from Negrete and Borg reads, “Latino and Hispanic talent and creators have a large and ever-growing impact on culture globally. CAA Latino supercharges the company’s integrated and collaborative model of service, building upon years of success championing the underrepresented Latino and Hispanic communities. Our top priorities are to change how the diverse community is depicted on screen, give greater voice to the work of Latino and Hispanic artists and storytellers, and drive new revenue for clients.”
CAA offered some stats showing that “Latinos account for the fastest-growing portion of U.S. GDP and are the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the country. Latin music has recently reached an all-time high share of total music revenue. Over the last 20 years, $85 billion dollars has been generated at the worldwide box office by films with Latino talent in at least one of the top five roles. Hispanic viewers surpass non-Hispanic fans across major sporting events like the Super Bowl.”
“Yet,” the statement continues, “the community remains overlooked by companies that do not recognize Latinos as a priority demographic, resulting in continued underrepresentation, or misrepresentation, in film and television, news, book publishing, and beyond.”
The agency cites the Latino Donor Collaborative’s 2022 Latino Representation in Media Report, which found that the Latino community’s representation in media has decreased year over year. “Despite Latino talent and content succeeding domestically and internationally, Latinos last year represented only 3.1% of lead actors in U.S. shows, 2.1% of co-lead/ensemble actors, 1.5% of television showrunners, and 1.3% of directors,” the report found.
By its own admission, “CAA continues to prioritize and invest in a wide range of efforts and initiatives that advance opportunities for underrepresented communities within the agency and beyond. These include a slate of custom talent development programs, corporate partnerships and collaborations, expansive data and research capabilities, and cultural consulting services across a range of narrative, marketing, and corporate projects.”
Some recent examples highlighted by CAA to show its commitment to those underrepresented:
- CAA’s Full Story Initiative in April 2022, a partnership with UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers (CSS) to examine “the business impact of Authentically Inclusive Representation (AIR) in film.”
The study found “that films with higher AIR scores perform better at the box office and generate more favorable critic and audience reviews. Based on the research outcomes, CAA and CSS collaborated with partners across studios, networks, and production companies to develop a robust set of industry-wide, call-to-action recommendations.”
- a 2020 report released by CAA on the demand for television content featuring diverse on-screen talent. The study revealed “that diverse debuts had grown to surpass non-diverse titles since 2017, and that demand for diverse debuts in the Top 100 had doubled to surpass non-diverse titles for the first time in 2019.”
- a 2018 partnership with tech-forward company Shift7 “to examine the correlation between female-led films and box office success, as well as the box office implications of films that pass the Bechdel Test, a measure of the representation of women in film, television, and other works of fiction.”
The data gained from top-grossing U.S. films released between Jan. 2014, and Dec. 2017, showed “that female-led films outperformed male-led films at all budget levels.”
- the CAA Motion Picture Cast Diversity Index of 2017, which determined the correlative factors of diverse casting, diverse audiences, and box office success, and their broader implications on the business case for diversity in motion picture programming.
“The research found when measuring the domestic opening weekend box office, at every budget level, a cast that is at least 30 percent non-white outperforms a release that is not,” according to CAA.