NO ONE TO MONKEY WITH: THE PINK APE MEDIA STORY

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Love him or hate him, there's one thing that can't be denied.

If you are a local resident trying to run for office, one of the most effective promoters of local candidates has been Rodrigo Moreno, who founded Pink Ape Media in 2006, some 15 years ago.

We first met Moreno in the mid-1990s when the late Henry Sanchez started the Crossroads Weekly and needed a layout person to work the Adobe PageMaker program. At the time, Moreno was a layout artist with El Bravo Newspaper in Matamoros and did jobs on the side. After a while, he was laying out Sanchez's weekly on a regular basis.

Since then, he branched out into political races in both Mexico and on this side of the Rio Grande. On this side, he has tangled with established ad agencies like Breeden-McCumber and other Rio Grande Valley firms from as far away as Hidalgo County.

And in the last City of Brownsville Commission elections, Pink Ape managed both eventual winners – Pedro Cardenas and Roy de los Santos – making it five out of five (four commissioners and a mayor) this year in the winning column. In fact, the firm managed Mayor Trey Mendez's campaign and subsequent runoff race bringing in the winner. 

But what started out a simple ad agency has evolved into a full-fledged video and movie production company. He and his associates have been winners of local and national awards including his Chief Creative Officer who won Best First Time Director by the London Independent Film Awards. He was also awarded the Best Screenplay Writer by Reel East Texas Film Festival.

But it is in local politics that the firm has made its major impact. Moreno and his staff have had a hand in managing and helping to win campaigns for candidates including 12 Brownsville City Commissioner races, 10 at the Brownsville Independent School District, 4 at Texas Southmost College District, five at the Brownsville Navigation District, two Cameron County judges, four Texas State Representatives,  one Texas Senator and numerous State District judges.

They say that the old days of politicking has changed as new technology is adapted to campaigns. 

“In the old days they used to concentrate on what they called DDD’s or DD’s (people that voted in the last two or three Democratic Party primary elections)," their Facebook page states. 

"But this is a mistake that should be avoided. It is the profile of the voter who determines for us if he or she will be interested in voting in the election and not his or her voting record.”

Toward that end, they utilize new technology and combine it with old proven methods of GOTV (get out the votes) efforts. And they say that they have developed a computer system that integrates, messaging, phone banking, social media (including Twitter) with hard-working efforts like block walking and canvassing. Pink Ape utilizes a team of data engineers who analyze information, pick the right profile of voters, and creates a universe of people on which to focus in the the campaign.

And while some of the info they are now using is considered proprietary, they can only say that they have been working on improving their IT system and feeding their database with more profile information. New features will be added and will introduce a new tool to help candidates keep track of their social media and branding.

Politics has become a year-round industry in the Rio Grande Valley and grooming has started of potential candidates running for the upcoming primaries, TSC, Port, and BISD elections.

It's been a long time since the layout artist from El Bravo arrived on this side of the river, but winning candidates would agree on the effectiveness of their work. The Pink Ape has evolved into a Silver Back of local ad agencies and no one to monkey with.