The Mexico Forum for Advertising and Media, organized by Portada, began shortly after 8 a.m. at the Intercontinental Hotel in Mexico City. Following is a brief summary.
Marcos Baer, Publisher of Portada, opened the forum before a nearly full house and talked about global trends in marketing and media, displaying information on Mexican advertising spending compared to other world economies, including those of BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
2012: Elections, media saturation and a war of words.
At 8:30 a.m., Carlos Vaca, CEO of BBDO, gave a speech on what lies ahead for the Mexican advertising market in 2012, emphasizing the negative impact that political ads will bring during the upcoming election campaign. "The elections will bring a high degree of media saturation and with it a cruel war of words and discrediting messages. Instead of talking up each candidate’s good points, they’ll be engaging in negative attacks on each other," he said.
Besides politics, he also predicted that the Olympics will be an influential factor in the minds of consumers.
Among other information presented, to be published here soon, Vaca highlighted the low level of advertising spending in the country: "Only 0.5% of GDP is spent on advertising, which is ridiculous and needs to be addressed."
Continued migration of advertising budgets to digital platforms
At 9:00 a.m., the "CUSTOMERS/BIG BRANDS: What’s Ahead for 2012?" panel was held, moderated by Lidia Rubí of Grupo Lala. Panelists included Lucía Carrerón of Audi and Rodrigo Luis Piñeiro of CMR.
Both panelists agreed on the need for migrating efforts to new platforms, in order to better connect with consumers.
"Every year we have been moving some of our print budgets to online…the money we are moving will also find its way to BTL activities," said Lucia Carreón. We sponsor many sports events such as golf, polo and lately also some soccer."
Similarly, CMR (Mexican Restaurant Corporation) is migrating monies to where the company can connect better with consumers. In this regard, Rodrigo Luis Piñeiro said that "we used to do a lot of investing in local media (print and radio), but now we’re also taking a look at film and migrating to digital media… We're going to go to where we have the consumer’s full attention."
Internet: An essential platform for reaching the Mexican middle class
At 10:15 a.m., the "INTERACTIVE WORLD: How to reach the emerging Mexican middle class via digital media," panel was held, moderated by Pablo Pozo, Director of Marketing, IAB Mexico. Panelists included Mario Nissan, VP of Flock Advertising, Santiago Durán, Director of Carat Digital, and Xepus Ginebra, Commercial Director of MPG.
According to Pablo Pozo: "We expect to close the year with 40.4 million Internet users." Of these, about 26.2 million fall into the C, D and E socioeconomic classes.
For Mario Nissan, the figures speak for themselves: "The question is not whether we should be there— these people represent almost 75% of all Internet users."
Similarly, Santiago Durán agreed with the importance to stop thinking only in terms of TV advertising and start creating good campaigns for new digital and mobile platforms. "All homes have a color TV, but the second device is the mobile phone," which Durán opines many are using to navigate the web and access social networks.
Xepus Ginebra stressed the perception that television is no longer top banana, showing advertising spending studies for 2011, where all media posted ad growth except television, which fell 2%. Still, Ginebra said that "the Internet does not have to always be the recipe for putting in or taking out [advertising]. One has to know how to use it and for what purpose. Digital does not have to be the destination. People are attracted to emotions, not channels."
The vast majority of the evaluation sheets completed by attendees gave the Forum good or outstanding marks. The next Portada Mexico Forum will take place in October 2012.
The Mexico Forum for Advertising and Media was the first event held by Portada in that country. Over the next few days, we will be publishing more detailed coverage on our presentations and panels.
