L.A. Agency Has Plenty of Trouble Trying to Double

It looked like double trouble for Ferrer/Ad America Inc.

The Los Angeles office of the Latino ad agency had created a series of commercials for Ralphs and Giant supermarkets that were to feature Latino identical twins. After all, the slogan in the ad is: We’re family. But the agency seemed to hit a brick wall. It checked several casting houses, but it couldn’t locate even one set of Latino identical twins. “It never occured to us that this might be a casting problem,” said Carl Kravetz, general manager of Ferrer/Ad America. “But we knew if we didn’t come up with the twins, the whole campaign was in big trouble.”

So, a casting call advertisement was placed on KLVE-FM (107.5), a Spanish-language radio station. As a result, the agency found not one set of Latino identical twins--but 18 sets. It picked two Los Angeles dancers, Cynthia and Sylvia Morales. “As it turns out, the two women have both done commercials individually, but never together,” said Kravetz. “Would you believe they had separate agents?”