Across Latin America, smartphones and mobile broadband subscribers are growing at a high rate and have in turn driven the mobile strategies of wireless operators. Today, Brazil is No. 5 in the world in number of Internet users and is second to China in growth of 3G subscribers year-over-year.
“The mobile Web is exploding in Brazil, helped with the increase of prepaid data, which is cheaper than going to cyber cafes and also more private,” noted Google’s head of mobile advertising for Latam, Peter Fernandez (check out video interview), during the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in São Paulo.
People are changing their lifestyle and how they consume information. Companies, as well as advertising agencies, carriers and applications developers have to understand that and move forward to provide these new customers what they demand.
“Now, 6% of shopping searches in Brazil are coming from mobile. It’s a 700% growth compared to the past year, and eight times faster than desktops,” noted Fernandez.
Although the potential of mobile advertising is huge, its development will be driven by how players take advantage of it. “We are all consumers, receptors and producers of content. But we still don’t know how to put together real and virtual, and we also don’t know how to tell good stories in this platform,” said Luiz Lara, CEO of the Brazilian Association of Advertising Agencies and president at Lew’s Lara.
During a panel about mobile myths, executives agreed that there is a lack of knowledge about mobile marketing. They mentioned cases where clients of advertising agencies are still reluctant to dive into mobile campaigns. “There’s still prejudice. In many cases, we have to step back and explain about digital benefits when going online with Facebook or Twitter,” said Marcelo Castelo, director and partner at F.Biz.
Another myth that was noted was related to smartphones, as speakers pointed out that these devices are no longer priced at a premium. “They are not an elite product anymore. I believe that this change will be even faster than IDC or Gartner predict,” said Angel Aldana, alliances manager for Latam at Research In Motion.
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