In today’s Digital Powerhouses series we feature Adsmovil, the mobile advertising network in Spanish with regional reach in Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic market. Adsmovil just celebrated its first year of business and announced that more than 100 customers have already used the network.
(Read the article in Spanish here: Mundo Interactivo Latino: Bastiones digitales – Adsmovil)
Alberto Pardo Campo (pictured), CEO of Adsmovil, talks to Portada about the development of mobile advertising in Latin America, the company’s goals for this year, its customers, and other topics.
At a glance
Markets: Latin America and U.S. Hispanic
Offices: Miami, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia. The company also has sales reps in Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Central America.
Main clients: Claro, Samsung, Sprite, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Banco Galicia, BBVA, Visa, Diners, UP, Nextel, Movistar, GM, Pampers, Budweiser, Google, Elite, L’Oreal, JB, Ford, Bimbo, VTR, Toyota, Kia, and Sab Miller.
Reach:
The Adsmovil network gets 1 billion impressions per month and consists of several major mobile portals in Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic market, and also carries the most widely used mobile applications in the region, including Angry Birds, Friend Chat, Shazam , Ubermedia,and Tank Hero. Green Lantern campaign for Angrey Birds app.
Portada: What are your goals for this year? Are you planning to expand to other countries in the Latin American market?
Alberto Pardo Campo: "We have a very clear and ambitious goal, which is to triple our 2011 sales. We plan to do this by solidifying our presence in Mexico and opening offices in Miami and Brazil. In this way, we’ll be focusing our efforts on three of the most important markets. We see Miami as a growing market, given the amount of companies that do pan-regional buys out of there, and it also has a U.S. Hispanic market that is constantly growing."
Portada: Do you create pan-regional campaigns? How do you adapt the content for these?
Alberto Pardo Campo: "Yes, we’ve done several pan-regional campaigns. One example is our Coca-Cola campaign, with the launch of the 125th anniversary app for nine countries as well as for Google, which was used to generate downloads of one of their applications for Blackberry. We did not have to adapt the content because the application was the same for all countries.But for other campaigns, content can beeasily adapted if needed by creating landing pages for each country and segmenting campaigns to users by country. This is technologically possible."
Portada: Do your advertisers prefer to advertise locally or pan-regionally? What is the ratio?
Alberto Pardo Campo: "At present, the reality is there are more local campaigns than regional ones, with about80% of them being local campaigns. The first reason is that mobile advertising is new, and most brands are just becoming acquainted with the medium. As advertisers become more familiarized with mobile ads, regional campaigns will surely follow. We are very optimistic that in 2012 a significant percentage of our campaigns will be regional as more and more advertisers bet on mobile advertising."
Portada: What is your perspective on the development of mobile advertising market in the region?
Alberto Pardo Campo: "We believe that 2012 will be a decisive yearmarking real growth in that market. We’re also convinced that several new companies will be born in this sector, along with others arising from other Latin American markets. This will surely create a more competitive scenario and drive growth in the market. If we look at what’s been happening in other markets such as the U.S., then 2011 was a record year in every way for this industry."
Portada: What does mobile offer as an advertising platform?
Alberto Pardo Campo: "Mobile devices offer many advertising opportunities depending on the brand’s strategic marketing goals. Unlike other advertising media, they generate an immediate response from the user. Geolocation can be used for campaigns that want to pinpoint the location of the user; "click to call" campaigns allow the user to automatically connect to the advertiser's call center;other mobile campaigns drive traffic to the advertiser’s site or increase the number of followers on social networks (Click to Capture Facebook fans /Twitter Followers), can generate video displays for a brand (Click top lay video), encourage the download of brand applications (Click to Install App), and increase databases or generate leads (Click to Capture Opt-In Information). These are all examples of mobile advertising campaigns we’ve already been doing."
Portada: What are the main differences you’ve noted between the Latin American market and the U.S. Hispanic market?
Alberto Pardo Campo: Alberto Pardo Field: "Hispanics in the U.S. are the largest ethnic group of smartphone buyers in the United States. This means that any brand that wants to target U.S. Hispanics will surely consider mobile advertising a solid strategy. In Latin America, we are still learning about the medium and we are still in the experimental stage, with Smartphone penetration still significantly lower than among U.S. Hispanics. Campaigns targeted to the Hispanic market are more focused on direct response, such as click to call, or georeferencing, while in Latin America the focus is geared more towards branding campaigns."
