Razorfish, the digital advertising agency owned by Microsoft, is opening offices in Brazil and Argentina. The launch of a Brazilian office is scheduled this year, while an Argentinian unit will be opened in 2010.
“We believe that Argentina and the rest of the region, present great opportunities to grow the business”, Joseph Crump, Group Vice President, Strategy & Planning at Razorfish, noted at the Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad which took place last week in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
“In Argentina brands spend less than 2% of their budgets in digital media, while in the U.S. the average lies at 6%”. To Crump an appropriate average would be around 10%.
Crump added that while in the many U.S., European and Asian markets the average expenditure of major companies per Internet users lies at $118, this ratio only amounts to $21 in Latin America. “If you take into account the penetration of digital media per household in Latin America, Latin America spends 50% less than the rest of the world”.
According to Crump Latin American agencies and brands are “trapped” in old media, which avoids growth to happen. “However, since digital penetration in households grows very fast, change is inevitable”, Crump concluded.
Sacha Xavier, until recently Group Media Director of Avenue A- Razorfish in NYC, was the keynote speaker at last Years’ Hispanic Digital and Print Media Conference, which is anually organized by Portada (this year on September 24, 2009, read here).