Graham Gregory Bozell Inc. (GGB, ) is a new marketing company that will work with corporate clients interested in reaching the African-American consumer market. They will specialize in entertainment, cultural and sports projects and are a partnership of sports/entertainment entrepreneur Stedman Graham; merchant bankers, Gregory & Hoenemeyer; and global marketing communications firm Bozell, Jacobs, Kenyon & Eckhardt's biggest subsidiary, Bozell Worldwide, the 11th largest ad agency in the U.S. Fueling its launch, GGB already has major projects in active development that involve such icons as Oprah Winfrey, Harry Belafonte and The United Negro College Fund. GGB was created to establish a state-of-the-art marketing resource for event, lifestyle and cause-related marketing and will offer its clients marketing programs, strategic/business planning, financing and creative services from its offices in New York City and Chicago. "GGB represents the nexus between the African-American grass-roots community and the Fortune 500," says Stedman Graham, GGB's president & CEO.

!Exito! Spanish language newspaper, owned by the Chicago Tribune, will present the Second Annual Chicago Hispanic Market Conference on Wednesday, November 6 at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business located at 450 North Cityfront Plaza Drive. The day-long conference will feature presentations by Dan Versches of Anheuser-Busch; Monica Gadsby, Vice President, Hispanic Unit, Leo Burnett; and Peter Roslow, President, Roslow Research Group among others. Sponsors for the event include Anheuser-Busch, WTAQ/La Mexicana 1300 AM, Shell Oil Products and the Chicago Tribune. The conference is organized under the direction of !Exito!, the premier source of news and information for Chicago's Hispanic community, with celebrity reviews, consumer information and sports in a weekly publication that celebrates community and cultural pride.

TelAc,Inc., a leading provider of multi-lingual telemarketing services, launched its first omnibus research study in the Asian market, surveying awareness and usage habits, via telephone calls conducted in-language to Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese), Korean and Vietnamese speaking households. The survey measures and cross references usage of services such as telecommunications, banking & financial services, insurance and health care and usage of computers and other products. The survey also measures media usage and key demographics. Results can be viewed immediately at the TelAc web site at www.telac.com. This survey, of particular interest to ethnic ad agencies, consultants and corporations interested in marketing in-language to ethnic households, kicks off TelAc's offering of full service research fielding and analysis capabilities for both the Asian and Hispanic markets.

Black Santas, black cherubs and treetop angels are a few of the seasonal items available in Blackberry stores, located in NYC's Macy's Herald Square and Arlington, VA's Pentagon City mall. Co-owner Diane White, a Harvard MBA, saw an untapped market when a friend had trouble finding a black doll, and then turned a chance meeting with Alan Questrom, chairman of Federated Stores into an opportunity to sell ethnic products with crossover appeal in volume. She estimates that 85% of her Macy's customers are African-American, confirming her belief that mainstream stores are an important venue for Afrocentric merchandise. White and her mother and co-owner, Dorothy, won the National Retail Federation's 1996 Small Store Of The Year Award. Currently seeking investment capital, she will open a national chain of Afrocentric lifestyle stores in the top 10 U.S. black metros. Her merchandise is also available through Spiegel's E Style catalogue, Spiegel's joint venture with Ebony magazine.

Eric Fullilove joins a distinguished but short list of African-Americans who are published science fiction authors with the October release of his novel "Circle of One" by Bantam. Mr Fullilove's eclectic background (MIT graduate, CPA) and work experience (finance manager at CBS, COO of an AIDS services organization, entrepreneur) helped him craft an unusual plot for his thriller. "Circle of One" concerns Jenny Sixa, a telepath who earns a living catching glimpses of killers from the last thoughts of their victims. Only she knows that she's seen her own name in the fading thoughts of three dead women. The title refers to Jenny's penchant for diagramming cases -- evidence, suspects, clues -- until by process of elimination she is left with a circle of one that includes only the name of the killer. Noted Sci-Fi author Kevin J. Anderson said, "Razor-edged details, wicked violence and garish colors give Circle of One a voice and style all its own."

Who wrote "Never Can Say Goodbye" for The Jackson Five? What is Heavy D's real name? These are but two of the questions posed in an interactive hip hop R&B trivia contest at www.loosecannon.com, the web site of Loose Cannon Records, which, until recently, was funded and distributed by Polygram. Lisa Cortes, the new soul visionary who founded the label, was the first African-American female president ever of a Polygram imprint. The roster includes R&B, rap, reggae, folk music, psychedelic soul, pop and hip hop as well as reissues of recordings by Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx. "My own cultural package is a diverse one," said Cortes. "My father is South American and my mother is African-American. The same myriad of voices is reflected in the diversity of the artists I chose." The web site, produced by Bella Vena Inc. of Brooklyn, has received visitors from all over the world and has been recognized by Microsoft for its design and content. The trivia contest has generated tremendous traffic with women making up at least half of the entries and high scorers.

Recognizing the Cultural Mosaic of the US Mosaica, the multicultural marketing division of The Chapman Agency/Y&R, was founded in 1993 to create marketing communications in recognition and appreciation of the strength and diversity of the cultural mosaic that comprises the United States. Mosaica's strength is in providing cross-cultural marketing, not just translation services, to provide highly quantifiable, results-based communications including market planning, research, creative development and execution, media plannning & buying, production, telemarketing and results analysis to reach the general market and the following Asian segments: Chinese, Filipino, Asian-Indian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. The current client list includes AT&T, the United States Postal Service and Chase.

The Genard Group, Inc. is an established executive search and recruitment firm specializing in the areas of human resource, communication, finance and other disciplines. In addition, Ms. Yolanda Genard, President, has created the Professional Hispanic Resume Databank to assist corporate clients in the fast changing marketplace to meet and increase their diverse workforce. With Ms. Genard's culmination of years spent networking, she has become a key resource for major corporate, government and not-for-profit clients.

Founded in 1985, the National Hispanic Business Group is an organization of Hispanic-owned businesses dedicated to the economic and entrepreneurial advancement of the Hispanic community. NHBG members include many of the well-established names on the Hispanic Business 500, list published annually by Hispanic Business Magazine, as well as Hispanic businesses in the early stages of development. A major activity focus of NHBG is to bring the capabilities of its members to the attention of Fortune 500 companies and large government purchasing agencies. Many NHBG members have gained access to contracts as a result of NHBG's Access Enhancement Program. Mentoring is another NHBG activity. Monthly networking meetings provide a forum for idea sharing and problem solving among members. Older, more established businesses are encouraged to provide business leads and the capabilities of newer members are disseminated among the membership.

Paul Sladkus International (PSI), a full-service multicultural marketing/advertising organization, announces the first national conference to explore opportunities to market directly to over 200 million Americans connected to their European background. Along with a keynote address by Jackie Morey, Dir, Multicultural Mktg Communications, AT&T, corporate, advertising, media, promotion, event and direct marketing executives will share their experiences and suggest opportunities on how to increase business from the European-American market. Participants will receive the European volume of the landmark National Multicultural Research Study of 31 ethnic groups that PSI/St. John's University and the United Nations recently completed. Sprint, the US Postal Service and Delta Airlines sponsored the study which surveyed African-, Asian-, Hispanic-, European- and Middle-Eastern Americans.

The Coral Communications Group's Nueva Onda (New Wave) series of audiocassettes in Spanish has two audiences, the large Hispanic market and native Anglo speakers in the US who would like to practice their Spanish. For the Hispanophile, the list of 27 titles features bookcassettes in Spanish that include Latin America's best known authors and poets, cookbooks in Spanish and self help titles. Most notable in the collection are works by Jose Marti, Ruben Dario, Julio Ramon Ribeyro as well as Edgar Allan Poe and Hans Christian Andersen, as read by professional actors who are native Spanish speakers. Each tape is $14.95 with a discount for 3 or 6 tapes. Of utmost utility to those listening to practice their second language are the transcripts, available at $3.95. Listening to a tape of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is always a treat but when your Spanish is good enough to understand "Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas," you'll know you've really made it.

Donna Chaiet, President of Prepare, Inc., along with her sister, Karen Chasen, both lawyers, are partners in Prepare, offering classes in metro New York and Los Angeles. Employees and executives, students, travelers, moms and daughters, all train in verbal strategies, mental readiness, physical skills and improved awareness. The unique training method allows students to practice "breaking the freeze response" and, channeling their adrenalized state, to deliver full force, full contact, knock out blows to vulnerable areas in dynamic interactive role playing with a padded mock assailant. Corporate clients, (including Time Warner, PepsiCo, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sony,) report that employees feel empowered to respond in challenging situations and that classes help build teamwork and enhance communication in the workplace. Prepare, Inc. corporate classes are offered as an employee benefit, at meetings and conferences, as well as companion programming to communication skills training, sexual harassment programs and risk assessment.

The first nationally-televised Kwanzaa special will air thanks to the advertising sales of the African Heritage Network. The Kwanzaa special, a salute to African-Americans who exemplify the traditional African values of family, community responsibility, commerce and self-improvement will air December 26 on FOX at 8:30 pm. The African Heritage Network is also celebrating its 3rd season of airing top rated films featuring African-Americans on its Primetime Series. The 1997 PRIMETIME season includes broadcast premiere titles such as "Once Upon A Time When We Were Colored" (February,) "Mo' Better Blues" (May,) "Soul Of The Game" (September) and "Crooklyn" (Nov). President/CEO Frank Mercado-Valdes, age 34, has been in the television syndication business for over 10 years with the production of his very own brain child, the Miss Collegiate African-American pageant and S.T.O.M.P., a fraternity/sorority step competition. The 1997 season is the 5th anniversary of the African Heritage Network and includes two movie packages, AHN's Movie Of The Month Series and AHN's Primetime Network.