As is the case in many large markets, the role international advertisers (clients and agencies based outside of Brazil) play is relatively small compared to the overall size of the market. Portada, estimates that international advertisers buying into Brazil both panregionally (lumping the Brazilian buy with other Latin American countries as well as single country, amounts to approximately $150 million a year. Cable and digital media are the main media used by international advertisers. International clients and agencies are catered through mostly Florida based media placement firms, including IMS Corporate, Multimedia USA, Publicitas and US Media Consulting.
These agencies buy media in Miami based Latin American cable networks (e.g. Sony Pictures Television, Disney, Turner, Discovery, DirecTV Latin America and rep firm Olecom), digital media companies (e.g. Yahoo, MSN and Terra) as well as newspaper consortiums like Grupo Diarios America (GDA) and Periódicos Asociados Latinoamericanos (PAL) and outdoor advertising firms. All these media properties have a substantial presence in Brazil and use their South Florida presence to sell international agencies and clients into the Brazilian market.
Publicitas' media portfolio in Brazil includes Editorial Abril and O’Globo newspaper through the GDA Group. IMS represents different media properties including the Folha Group (Brazil), a holding group that owns UOL: the largest internet portal in Brazil. Last year The Wall Street Journal chose US Media Consulting to be its only representative for Florida, Mexico and the Caribbean markets. US Media Consulting manages pan-regional buys made from Florida into the Spanish/Portuguese version of the newspaper.
Fernando Mariano, president of Orlando based Multimedia, tells Portada that his company recently bought a one year program in Brazilian media to support Quatar Airlines for its launch of its new international des-Tination to São Paulo. Mariano sees Banks, Airlines, Destinations and Convention Centers as the strongest ad-categories for international advertisers investing in Brazil.
As corporations include Brazil in their growth plans they are more likely to establish an in-country presence and hire a local agency. However, many international agencies still support their local Brazilian subsidiaries by advising multinational companies on a “consultant-strategic role” says Virginie Haemmerli, International Group Account Director at OMD, in New York. This happens when the Brazilian market is included in Latin American – panregional buys. This is the case of General Electric and Pepsi, both OMD New York City based accounts, Visa (San Francisco) as well as Johnson & Johnson.
Other Latin American countries are also important decision making points for buying into Brazilian media. Enrique Tron, Communication Channels Director at Unilever Mexico, tells Portada that Unilever has three Regional hubs. “Each of these hubs markets a set of Unilever brands panregionally. One hub is in Mexico City, which I lead. The brands we market include Knorr, the Ice Cream Business unit and Soy Beverages. The second regional hub is managed by Maria Luisa Lopez out of Brazil. Maria Luisa oversees brands such as Hellmann’s mayonnaise and home care brands. The third hub is in Argentina and has strong personal care brand component. This hub is led by Ezequiel Jones. These three hubs work together and provide local market intelligence.”
Brazilian largest magazine publisher Editora Abril was founded in 1950 by Victor Civita. Its titiles include Veja, Nova, the Brazilian Editions of Cosmopolitan, InStyle, Playboy, National Geographic, Men’s Health as well as business magazine Exame, Info PME and voces/sa. It also owns the Brazilian MTV and cable company TVA. To address the needs of the emerging Brazilian middle class Abril recently launched Maxim, and home Improvement magazine Mia Casa. It also introduced women’s magazine Lola as well as men’s magazine Alpha (fashion, lifestyle).
Strong Digital Growth
The Brazilian online market has been growing at a very high rate, both in advertising volume and in sophistication. Ricardo Mariani, International Advertising Manager at Editora Abril tells Portada that in only two years digital revenues of Editora Abril have increased from 1% to 10% of total revenues to $70 million in 2010. Pedro Cabral, the Chairman of Isobar Global (Aegis Media Group) and founder of digital agency Agencia Click which was bought by Aegis in 2007, tells Portada that he expects the Brazilian digital display and search market to grow at double digit rate over the next few years. It is precisely the access to the Internet of the emerging middle class (Class C) that is increasing the appeal of digital media to marketers and advertisers. Over the past three years, more than 45 million Brazilians who now belong to the new middle class began to access the Internet. Carat Mexico, which recently won the pan-regional account for Electronic Arts (EA), the world’s largest distributor and producer of video games, sees Brazil as one of its core markets along with Mexico and Mexico, tells Portada that digital will be the main media in EA’s strategy.
