In two days at the Festival of Media LatAm 2015 we have glimpsed some of the cutting-edge work being carried out in the region. M&M Global picks out some of the highlights from day two.
1. Bacardi has a new marketing strategy
Bacardi’s newly-appointed North America CMO Mauricio Vergara opened day two of Festival of Media LatAm 2015 with a claim that the “time of talking to consumers” has passed.
With new agencies (BBDO and OMD), and a fresh marketing strategy for its rum master-brand (celebrating those with the “cojones” to take centre stage), Vergara urged those in the room to take a more collaborative approach to communications.
2. Latinas are capable of greatness
Latina Magazine founder Christy Haubegger has plenty of support in the audience when she said she was excited to be entering into what she felt was “the era of the Latina”.
Being interviewed by MediaLink president and chief operating officer Wenda Harris, Haubegger said that social media had allowed Latinas a place to tell their stories and to see their real lives reflected. “I think it’s a very good time to be who we are right now,” she said.
3. Ad blocking should be seen as an opportunity
Truffle Pig, the content joint venture between WPP, Snapchat and Daily Mail, was represented by its CEO Alexander Jutkowitz – who shocked some attendees by describing ad blocking as the “greatest marketing opportunity being presented today”.
He added: “What is the market place telling us? They want the content to be great, so that they want to consume it. We’re going to partner with ad blockers. Ad blocking is another word for curation, as far as I am concerned.”
4. Some consumers have tattoos of hamburgers
One of the most divisive sessions saw Burger King, David the Agency and Crane.tv join forces to outline a content-led campaign offering consumers with Big Mac tattoos (yes, these people do exist) the chance to get them ‘flame-grilled’ by celebrity tattoo artist Ami James.
The audience questioned BK’s senior vice president, global brand management, Fernando Machado, on whether he wanted the campaign to lead to any burger sales. “Usually I do – or nuggets, I’m good with nuggets,” quipped Machado. “In this specific case, it did sell burgers.”
5. The viewer numbers for online influencers are crazy
The Festival of Media LatAm assembled some of the most influential names in the world of, erm, influencers to find out what they offer to brands and audiences.
Dominic Smales, a UK-based agent who started Gleam Futures six years ago and has a roster of 27 stars (including FOMLA-attendee Joe Sugg), said he expects his talent to accrue 3.5 billion views just this year. But Jayson Fittipaldi from Nobox argued that a lot of brands had struggled with the challenges of using influencers well.
6. Not everyone knows what the Turing Test is
Despite the abundance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) movies and TV shows at the moment, not everyone is familiar will also the issues being debated around AI.
PHD looked to bring some clarity with a gameshow-style session based around its ‘Sentience’ book, hosted by the agency’s LatAm regional managing director Alejandro Clabiorne. Informative and fun – just like all TV quiz shows.
7. You can create digital butterflies with AR technology
The final session of the day brought together PepsiCo Latin America CMO Ricardo Arias-Nath with Ariff Quli, COO at Blippar, to show how brands can use cutting-edge technology to get ahead.
And the product demonstration did not disappoint: one of the delegates was invited on stage to draw on the template of a butterfly which, when observed through a smartphone camera on the Blippar app, arose from the page and flew off into the distance. Very cool.
