We were lucky to catch up with Jenniffer Firpo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jenniffer, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have been in the Advertising industry for over a decade now, and the one thing I noticed was the lack of empathy in the industry towards their customers. Therefore I got an opportunity with an existing client to create a pitch video, from concept development, to production to editing. My boss at the time allowed me to put together a team for the production part due to my advertising background, however for the editing he wanted to handle it in-house. Meanwhile, we didn’t have any skilled staff to provide the quality of service required for this particular project. Everything up to the editing phase went smoothly, but everything went south when my client thought a college student was handling the project. I decided to confront my boss and be honest with my client explaining the situation. The solution I came up with is to hire a professional editor to then save the day, but most likely to maintain my relationship with my client. At that moment, I realized that I didn’t want to get my name in the middle of such behavior, therefore after helping my client fix the problem and give them the high product they bought in return. Then I took the initiative to go on my own, create my very own creative agency and that is how JVsion Advertising was born. That client is still a client to this day!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

For reference, I’m an immigrant whose second language is English. Coming to the United States at the age of 20 left me with a disadvantage, a very strong Spanish accent. Although I graduated from a U.S. college with honors, the last job I had told me repeatedly that I wasn’t going to succeed in business because no one could understand me.
​
Here I am now working every day to prove them wrong!

Unfortunately, soon after, the 2020 pandemic affected my dreams. I was having a very hard time gaining clients. That said, while many would take this as a disadvantage or get discouraged, it made me work even harder to demonstrate what I am capable of.

I made the decision to offer my services online as well and convert my agency into a digital platform. Although many steps had to be taken, slowly and steadily I saw my experience and hard work pay off. I spent all my workdays getting new clients, researching for new prospects, building up strong relationships with my clients, learning as much as I could, and making sure I was delivering high-quality work.

Since then, I not only have a handful of impeccable clients, but I’ve also started helping people in my shoes. Those like you, like me, want guidance and assurance in overcoming the battle of starting a business and continuing their education either by validating their college credits or college degrees from back home to the US.

JVsion offers advertising services and manages projects for major companies such as Rockefellers, Marina Maher Communications, Wavemaker from Group M, Hogan Lovells, the Rockefeller Group, Footlocker, The Weather Channel, and more. I would like to emphasize that as a creative agency, some of the services that I offer are Advertising campaigns, Media Buying, videography (bread and butter), photography, animations, marketing planning, branding, social media management, interactive infographics, graphic design, the printing of marketing collateral, specialty printing (ex. promo items, window clings, etc.)… Our main focus for the Health, Financial, and Communications industries, is to create custom multicultural marketing campaigns to attract the Hispanic Community. You can learn more about this by visiting my website.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

At the beginning of developing my business, I wasn’t sure if I should focus on one service, rather than have all services included. I decided to go into the creative side of marketing, as it is where my creativity meets my passion.

I remember I attended a conference, where it showed the importance of attracting the Hispanic population and converting them as consumers. Little that I know, one of the biggest advertising agencies in the US and UK mentioned they do a couple of collaborations with 2 major Hispanic broadcast channels, and that was the only method they used to reach out to the Hispanic population. At that moment I noticed there was a huge gap still between the US industries (specifically Finance, Communications, and Health), and the Hispanic Community.

I decided to dig in and obtain more information regarding this situation, therefore I came up with the idea of creating customized marketing strategies to attract the Hispanic community the right way, by telling stories from their perspective.

My competition just translates whatever marketing efforts exist within their clients and calls it a day. Meanwhile, JVsion Advertising offers marketing solutions to break barriers and fill in the gap by segmenting this audience and attracting them via storytelling with creative marketing campaigns suitable per industry.

Even though I am a small business compared to my competitors, I still manage to work with big industries where I got the opportunity to showcase my talent by implementing this strategy that just mentioned.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe that my years of experience really pay off, but the key to building the reputation I’ve acquired in this industry has to be a mix of my honesty and quality delivery for each one of my clients, no matter how small or big they are. You see, I have always kept in mind that educating my clients towards providing the right solution to their problems and telling them what they need to hear, has given me a differentiator among others. Another thing that I would like to mention is that I spent a lot of time helping others by giving back to the community, doing volunteer work and educating my audience by going live on Fridays at “Coffee with Jenn” on all social media platforms. In fact, I also founded an organization to help immigrants validate their college credits, or college degrees to the US, and by providing them english learning opportunities in the industry they’re in, therefore continuing their education and professional path.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jvsionadvertising.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jvsionad/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jvsion
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jvsion-ad/
• Twitter: https://x.com/JVsionAd
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6OLQVnJhpNm1O8nLH8-K9g

Image Credits

JVsion Advertising, One Pathway, Inc., and Jenniffer Firpo.