The Digital Marketing Blog

Tomy Lorsch just sent me this link to the PR Web, SMX and OME get together to organize event in Latam:

 http://partageznouvelles.com/releases/2007/8/prweb547796.htm
 Has anybody used the PR Web service? Do you recommend it?
I’ve been following it for quite a while but I haven’t tried it yet.
 

On a previous post I have told you that during AMDIA 20^th anniversary there will be a three day congress with a very varied program of direct and interactive marketing specialists.
 A little more than a week from the event the last keynote speaker for the second day was confirmed: MYSPACE, that two months ago launched their Latin American Version, they will probably be speaking about social network

 Lets remember that MySpace is the first social network of the World, followed by Orkut (number 1 in Brazil), HI5 (first social network outside US) and Facebook (second in USA, growing almos three more times in the last 12 months and obtaining 50% of traffic of  MySpace).
 During the second day, the second edition of MKTG20.com will take place and it morning version we will have a great program with speakers form Second Life Brazil, MySpace Latin America, Yahoo, Google and MSN:
 In the case of Second Life Brazil and MySpace, it is the first time that they agents from those companies are presenting in Argentina.

 More information on the site of the event, www.directoaresultados.org.ar

 I hope I can write more before the event, I was missing for a couple of days due to happy reasons.

 
 See you there…
 

Yesterday from 9am to 7pm in the Sheraton in Santiago the 3rd International Online Advertising Seminar took place, organized by Interactive Media Association (AMI), now renamed IAB.cl

 There were approximately 400 people that attended the conference from the excellent program that AMI prepared this year.

 Sponsors, congratulations to all news media.

 Unfortunately I was unable to attend to all the presentations because I was looking after the Directa Network, Performa and inZearch stands. This year’s news was the amount of stands compared to that of the event AMI organized in 2006. I counted more than 15 stands: Buscape, Mercadolibre, Salo, Google, MSN, Rockandpop, Amarillas.cl, Terra, Mixplay and I was surprised to see coverage from almost all the digital news media networks, EMOL, Canal13, LaNación, among others. This is still unusual in Argentina and did not take place in such massive manner in the Adtech, where big players like Google, MSN, Yahoo and all the adnetworks dominate the place.

 
Notes about what I saw at the presentations

 It is worth mentioning the closing of Joakim Borgstrom form Wieden + Kennedy with a memorable presentation about online creativity that was very useful to think about creating advertising that can involve the consumer in an emotional way. Joakim left concepts such as KANSEI or the art of incorporation emotion and feelings to the designing process.

 Some interesting things from the creativity panel such the mea culpa of Santiago Puigari from Grey who assumed that “we the agencies, contribute to the delay of Internet growth” like Martin Osorio stated at the same event last year “we, the central media, don’t understand the Internet… we welcome these type of events and we welcome cases of success”. We welcome the mea culpa!

 From the presentation of IAB Spain I wrote down some stats:

 45% of Spanish investment is bought under the pricing per click mode (144m of 310m annual euros)

 40% of Internet penetration (like Chile and the double of the average in Latin America)

 12 hours per week connected to Internet compared to 18 to TV (we have little to go)

 In UK 58% of online investment goes to search engine and online represents 12% of the pie! (vs. 4,5% in Spain, vs. 2% Latam)

 There are 22 IABs in Europe with 2500 members, more than 100 per country.

 Well, the attendees seemed to be happy, who I could notice were from agencies and media and direct advertisers in a much smaller amount. There was room for networking and recruiting in the coffee breaks, a flawless lunch and great facilities… congratulation Yerka and team!

 MORE INFO: I heard great reviews about this Juan Camus presentation that I couldn’t attend
 

After our post on Friday, Mariano de la Vega sent us some words from Cannes (thanks Mariano!)

 I wouldn’t say that Argentina hasn’t obtained anything when it got two shortlists and both shortlist are the same idea played on two different ways (banner and viral video.

 Only great ideas reach the shortlist, but getting to an award, excellence in execution was expected, I can show you excellent executions (automotive) that have not reach the shortlist because they couldn’t find great ideas on them.

 It has been a very demanding jury on this edition and as proof you just need to compare the awards from 2006 with the ones on 2007, where less awards were given. I am very happy with the level and where a standard was set for the future, I think that the last period 2006/2007 has been very productive for the industry in our region that has been growing, but also around the world.

 Beyond countries, borders, agencies and networks I believe that Cannes is about celebrating the best ideas and executions without thinking about its origin. This is what makes the festival big. Awards are not given: the excellent is distinguished among the best.

 I have seen people from countries that are more developed than our region, celebrating getting into the shortlist. It was really difficult getting into the shortlist.

 I think we have to take advantage of Argentinean creatives and make the clients invest on big executions and not seeing the media only as a source when there is not budget, brief or strategy.

 This space is evolving not because of technology but because of the people that is using it. We have to understand that besides being an integrating media of other media it is a media to distribute content.

 The viral video grandprix  shows how a customer and an agency had the guts to choose to broadcast a spot that could have been done for TV, however the strategic decision was: instead of looking for the consumer I will let them come to us, choose to see us and  choose to spread the message with a relevant concept to the audience, inspiring and full of insight.

 The grandprix that won, diesel (far far Sweden) shows that it’s not a question of technology application, but that success is based on an identification of the user and the originality approaching the website.

 Maybe this is the beginning of the end of corporate sites that try to speak to the user from there own core without establishing a real conversation with the consumer.

 Lets not forget that people do not visit a website just for its good design or because they click on a link. People visit a website when there is something valuable for their own interest.

 To sum up what this Cannes edition leave us as a lesson is the value of simple original ideas that come from and insight and that they involve the user building it and spreading the message.

 In this order: Idea and execution.

MORE INFO

 Agencia Interactiva del año: AFRICA PROPAGANDA from Brasil.

 Premios IAB Argentina

On Monday June 18 I was at SES Latino 2007, at Intercontinental Hotel in Miami Florida. The event was very well organized: the booth coordination, breakfast, lunch and the excellent buffer that was offered after the end of the first day of the event, time that we took advantage for networking
There were more than 400 people at the opening talk that offered Gonzalo Alonso, General Manger of Google for Latin America
There was a mixed audience, companies from USA and Latin America focused on the Latin America market living in USA and in Latin America. There were also representative of  micro startups and small and medium companies, mainly Latin. A very repeated comment was that this year there are more latin speakers from big companies, what affected positively the conference assistance, because the audience could feel what the speakers were explaining about their successful cases, what could be reflected or used in their own companies. 
In reference to the presentations, panel format was used composed by several speakers and a coordinator. With this system we could enjoy the different point of views that were offered by the experts on different topics. Another thing to highlight was the content arrangement, the talks were divided in two rooms, one for SEM beginners and the second for people advanced in the subject.
I was present at two talks: the first oriented on how to develop a site with the accurate architecture to be visible to the eyes of search engines, where Francis Petty (former deremate.com and currently an on-line Marketing Manager at La Nacion) revealed some of his secrets when Optimizing a site.

-Francis Petty, Online Marketing Manager, LaNacion S.A.
-Barbara C. Coll, CEO, WebMama.com Inc.
And the second were they talked about Project management  where they focused that SEM is not only making a sponsor link campaign. It was emphasized that the success of a search engine campaign is the combination of buying sponsors, having an optimized site and mainly having a multidisciplinary team that focus on each stage of the campaign, developing, optimizing and deeply analyzing what happens after the click.

Speakers
-Frank Watson, Head Search Marketing, FXCM
-Alexi Huntley, Anthropologist/Marketing Director, Naturegate
-Paul D. Saffery, Managing Director, SilverDisc Chile
-Martín Gallone, Marketing Manager for Argentina, MercadoLibre (a success)

 

Mas Fotos

 

We won’t be resting this week and additional to the CACE event there will be a breakfast organized by the digital chapter of AMDIA about an already talked about topic: BEHAVIORAL TARGETING.

The speaker will be the world’s top advertiser and Latin America top advertiser together with Directa Network.

Speakers:
 David Waage, IAC Interactive.
Daniel Rabinovich, Software Development Director, Mercadolibre.
Luciana Seclén, COO Directa Network.
 More info:
 The event will take place at UP on Thursday May 17th from 9am to 11am, Larrea 1079 , 2^nd Floor
 AMDIA Members Free, other AR$50
Register at 4373-3030 or at emarketing at amdia.org.ar
See you there…

You can start registering for IAB Argentina Awards until March 8^th inclusive. The ceremony will be held at Radioset in Puerto Madero on March 28^th.  IAB members, which are around 70, will vote counting a vote per member. A finalist and a winner per month will be selected. From those twelve winners and as a Grand Prix a honourable jury of creative of the offline world will vote the winner of the year. 

There already are 60 pieces registered and there are a lot of pieces to be registered form the main interactive agencies which are members and non member of IAB. For search marketing, due to the prize being given to creativity and not to results, at Inzearch we uploaded our institutional campaign of the end of the year greeting that invited people to look for their name at search engines and click to view the card.

This year promises to be the one of the best ideas and creativities and a greater amount of registered people.

Have you uploaded your campaign yet?
www.iabargentina.com.ar/mejorescampanas2006
Next time the winners list…. 

This year inZearch will be present at Ojobuscador 2007, the second edition of the congress specialized in search engine marketing that is organized among others by Tomy, an Argentinean living in Madrid, who I met last month at OME (Online Marketing España), where Digital Ventures was present as a sponsor and where Damian Voltes participated as a speaker on the first day.

The topics were really promising, there were two days and more than 30 speakers, among them Ismael El Qudsi from MSN, who AMDIA invited to Buenos Aires the last October for the first edition of MKTG2.0.

My impression at OME was that in the level of search marketing we don’t have anything to envy them in the sense of knowledge of the tools and best practices but we do have to envy the level of average investment. A big client invests an average of 50.000 euros monthly on search engines, being the leaders advertisers from the tourist industry, electronic commerce and classified ads online.

Beside the huge distance between us, the comparison is to confront the online advertising investment from Spain and the amount of users vs. for example Argentina. 270 million of euros with 16 million of users connected in Spain vs. 15 million of dollars according to IAB with 12 million of users in Argentina.

Next week I will write about the local version of this event that will be taking place probably next September.