SEM is a Tool, Not a Divining Rod

Here’s a taste of what I heard at ad:tech Miami’s The State of Search in Latin America.

How do you think search fits into the marketing mix?

“Research suggests AdWords placement impacts brand recognition,” said commercial director Andreas Huettner of Google in Brazil.

Do you think LatAm is behind [in terms of search marketing’s maturity]?

“We are definitely behind. Which is why we were on an evangelization mission.”

The Google director’s “evangelization” comment sparked a condescending panel-wide lament about how “traditional marketers” just don’t get search and are reluctant to try it.

These men talked of traditional marketing like it was some backwater village ritual. And, like overzealous missionaries, they failed to see the logical fallacies in their brave new religion.

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Hispanic Acculturation an Important Element in Marketing Toolbox

The ad:tech conference in Miami this week provided some great insights on U.S. Hispanic acculturation. Felipe Korzenny, Professor of Hispanic Marketing at Florida State University, John Gallegos, CEO of Grupo Gallegos, and Natasha Funk, Director of Research for Terra Networks US, discussed the topic during the ad:tech session “Hispanic Audience Segmentation: The Complexities of Acculturation.”

Felipe Korzenny provides an excellent definition of acculturation in his book Hispanic Marketing: “the process by which individuals acquire a second culture in addition to their first culture.”

In a Multiplatform World, Brands Must Be Present, Relevant

Multiplatform marketing is about saturating the consumer’s world with the brand’s message.

As noted by GM’s Jaime de Valle, the old advertising adage “Fish where the fish are” has been flipped 180 degrees. Consumers are now the fishers, casting hooks to find the products, services, and brands they need, when and where they need them.

It is the marketer’s prerogative to swim where consumers are fishing, to be present and relevant at every touch point and tipping point in the decision-making process.

This is where the multiplatform approach becomes necessary.

In a world replete with marketing messages, the most competitive brands must use traditional media to place themselves before consumers before the decision becomes a priority. They must be present and relevant when research begins online. They must provide channels for response, interaction, and dialogue through nascent but omnipresent platforms such as mobile and social media. And they must send a consistent, persuasive message all the way to the point of sale.

Hispanic Mobile Marketing Filled With Txting and Testing

The ad:tech Miami panel on mobile marketing for Hispanic cultures in North America kicked off with a tasty amuse bouche of Universal Truths About Mobile, courtesy Jose Villa, CEO of digital ad shop Sensis:

1. Mobile and SMS texting are part of life.
2. Mobile marketing must be permission-based.
3. Mobile is not the Internet, but the user experience is improving.
4. Mobile marketing programs should be tested and optimized starting now.
5. Mobile initiatives must be integrated with other media campaigns.
6. Mobile campaigns, at least right now, need to be simple.

Some may suggest the above statements are, in the spirit of Hooters’ tagline, painfully obvious yet delightfully apparent.

Still, that’s what universal truths need to be, no? What goes up must come down and all that. And once the above statements are taken as obvious and apparent facts of multichannel marketing, then we can all start getting somewhere, mobile-ly speaking.

Digital Marketing Strategy—are you a modern agency?

In every panel, there always seems to be one person who dominates the conversation, mentioning great ideas that the rest expand on. At “The Modern Agency” seminar, that person was John Santiago, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Media 8 Digital Marketing. The main indication he was in charge? He dropped the word “agnostic” about a half-dozen times at the beginning and by the end everyone else on the panel was trying to work it into their comments.

I was interested in this session for two reasons. First of all, any lecture that is based on “introducing” new concepts to traditional marketers always has a great audience dynamic that I can’t help but observe. Case in point: when discussing the integration of digital media John stated “There isn’t going to be a ‘Traditional Media Buyer” and a ‘Online Media Buyer’ at your agency in a year—it’s just going to be ‘Media Buyer’.” Half the audience started to clap while the others recoiled in nervous shock.

Agencies take note: Hispanic Cutting Edge Creative

Best way to kick off a discussion about cutting edge creative? Play YouTube’s “dramatic chipmunk” clip—which is exactly what Luis Miguel Messianu, Chief Creative Officer with Alma DDB did to prove his point that content is everything and the modern audience is like nothing we’ve seen (or been part of?) before.

There’s huge focus in all of the workshops at ad:tech Miami on convincing agencies and clients that digital media is the way to go.  Of course, the Cutting Edge Creative: Hispanic seminar was no exception. After playing the chipmunk clip, Luis explained its popularity with a consumer term I haven’t heard before but was thrilled to learn about: Swarm Behaviour.

Brands Discuss Representation in a Digital World

In the session entitled Brand Nation: Leading US Marketers Discuss Best Practices moderated by Real Branding Senior VP Susan MacDermid with panelists P&G Director of Interactive Innovations Ted McConnell, ESPNdeportes senior Director Carlos Caban and Coke Media and Interactive Integrated Communications Director Karna Crawford, the notion of best practices for brands was discussed.

Learning LatAm By Osmosis: Three Different Sermons for the Price of One!

Each ad:tech Miami session I’ve seen follows the same painful format: a moderator introduces himself, then steps aside as each panelist gives a mini-presentation.

It’s like watching antsy children read book reports out loud. But unlike their grade school counterparts, each presenter stretches his time allotment as long as possible.

This afternoon I livetweeted Social Media and Consumer Generated Content in Latin America: Exploring the Value Proposition.

Here’s a synopsis of what each panelist had to say, taking into account these three operating generalities:

- Latin Americans (LatAm) are social people. Possibly more social than the rest of the world. (This struck me as more of a cultural conceit than a verifiable fact, but nobody in the audience contested the stance. Possibly because they were all either of Latin origin, or very eager to cozy up to those of Latin origin.)

- User-centricity is the new fetish. Each panelist cited his company’s user focus at outset. (Anton Chalbaud, pictured at left, emphasized Sonico’s user-centricity by attesting to his company’s “INSANE” focus on real people.) Gone are the days when a quick buck, whatever the means, was a virtue.

- Mastering the elusive art of interactive media, especially digital, is considered crucial to taming the LatAm audience. (Especially now.) As Lucas Morea put it, “The audience is receptive.” Marketers should teach users how to create and publish content.

Now. On to the meat of the matter.

Why Buy A Dog But Do The Barking Yourself?

Latin America Media Strategy and Planning, a session held Wed. afternoon at miami ad:tech, moderated by Bruno Almeida (Managing Director for US Media Consulting), kickstarted a barrage of great comments regarding the current state of online media buying/selling.

Panelists included Guilderme Gomide (CEO and Founder of Midia Digital), Juan David Pinzon (Founder and CEO of Ariadna), Denise Colella (VP International of Rich Media) and Ignacio Roizman (Managing Partner of Jumbo Exchange). They represented both the agency side as well as the publisher side, giving us an insight into the different perspectives each brings to the table when discussing current strategies/trends in online media.

Press Room Faux Pas

Open power outlets are rare, and rarer still in the press room. Never, ever monopolize an outlet to charge your computer and cell phone at the same time—while you, Considerate Guy, attend sessions.

It’s evil.

Mobile Marketing in Latin America: Be Patient

The state of Latin American mobile marketing is incredibly complex, with brands clamoring to use a marketing medium that few truly understand and mobile experts such as yesterday’s panelists struggling to find the best ways to deliver content, integrate the media, and monetize the platform across a geographic territory that is anything but hegemonous.

The session on Latin American mobile also revealed many of the key differences between mobile marketing and technology in that territory and North American markets.

What to know from the Online Video Workshop

First big question: Is content still king? Unanimous panel agreement that it’s no longer the most important aspect of a media strategy. What is crucial is the user and the user’s experience. The internet allows so much more than TV currently does, such as interactivity and participation with the content. Pedro Rolla, Media Director at Terra Latin America adds that without the users, content is not important—people want to be able to spread something they’ve watched and enjoyed by posting it on a blog.

Borja Perez, VP, Market Development of Telemundo, Yahoo! Telemundo Alliance Leader makes a great point when he states that it’s in the best interest of networks and other content creators to make their product available online. Because users will do this anyway and, as he put it “I’d hate to have 16 million people watching my [high-production value] show on YouTube, that’s a bad user experience.”

The User-Centric Approach To SEM & eCommerce

With Search Engine Marketing and eCommerce both being large segments of any corporate interactive arsenal, miami ad:tech featured a session moderated by Tamara Barber from Forrester Research entitled: “The Art of Persuasion: The New Laws of eCommerce Marketing.” Included in the panel were Matt Spengler (Media Executive for Revenue Science), Ignacio Vidaguren (VP of Business Dev. for Mercado Libre) and Colleen Aranda (Manager of Interactive Advertising for Continental Airlines).

Key topics for the talk were User Research, Setting Appropriate ROI Goals & Objectives and the importance of Usability Testing.

Metrics and The Rise of Participation Marketing

“This is the sexiest ad:tech crowd I’ve ever seen!” And with that remark started the introductory address by miami ad:tech moderator Cynthia Nelson, CEO of Todobeb√©, Inc, for a session entitled “Digital Insights: Reaching The Hispanic Community.”

Now that the crowd was paying attention, she quickly moved on to introduce herself and the two panelists for this session’s talk, Natasha Funk (Director of Research, Terra Network) & Adam Chandler (Executive Director, US Sales, Yahoo! Partner Network). Natasha would be speaking about the metrics discovered through a recent, yet-to-be-released study while Adam would be touching upon various methods that his company has used to better engage their hispanic consumers.

Creating Value for Hispanic User Generated Content

Not to sound trite, but I’d like to steal a line from US Weekly to summarize today’s ‘Social Networking and Consumer Generated Content in the Hispanic Market: Has a Value Proposition Emerged?’ roundtable: Hispanics! Just like us!

While the session started with Zia Daniell Wigder, VP and Senior Analyst, Jupiter Research, presenting chart after chart of stats revealing that Hispanics are consistently over-indexing non-Hispanics in terms of online social networking usage, the rest of the panel was spent discussing reasons for engaging in social media and methods used to do so. And guess what? There’s no fundamental difference between how Hispanic and non-Hispanic people take part in all things online.

Potentially Useful Data on Latin American Internet Culture

From ad:tech Miami’s “Latin American Consumer Habits and Online Behavior” panel. Information was provided by CEO Fabia Juliasz of ibope/NetRatings.

Percentage of internet penetration:

- Brazil, 22 percent (42 million internet users)

- Mexico, 22 percent (22.7 million users)

- Argentina, 26 percent (10.3 million users)

- Chile, 41 percent (6.7 million users)

Use varies by age, location, cost of resources and economic status. According to Juliasz, the trick is to target them locally.

Latin America consists mostly of verdant land and small communities. Cities are heavily concentrated and burdened by technology demand. This means most people in those cities can get online, but how they do it depends on what they can afford.

Where users are too poor to use a computer at home, most will use public access spaces. Free wifi and internet cafes proliferate Brazilian and Peruvian cities.

Hispanic and Latin American Acquisitions Examined

In the ad:tech session entitled “The Internet Economy: Start-ups, Bubbles, and Buyouts,” moderated by Milbank Roy Co. LLC Managing Director Pierre-Georges Roy with panelists Global Mind CEO Marcello Montefiore, Internet Media Services Founder and CEO Gaston Taratuta, Fox Networks VP of Global Business Development Damiam Voltes and Publicitas VP of Digital Media Paul Meyer, the key takeaways were specialization and Brazil.