Because more than half of consumers born between 1996 and 2012, known as "Generation Z" or "Centennials", are immune to traditional advertising and television, brands and companies should focus on communicating with this group through digital channels, such as social networks and influencers.
Positioning a brand, product or service is currently a challenge for advertising agencies and companies, as they must overcome the challenge of communicating effectively with younger consumers.
Understanding the socio-demographic characteristics of the ideal client, as well as knowing their interests, desires, motivations and challenges, is fundamental for reaching the consumers of this new commercial normality in the digital environment.
The health crisis, quarantines and social distancing measures in the countries of the region, forced individuals and companies to accelerate the adoption of new technologies, which caused the digital to become the center of all interactions.
Reduction in advertising and marketing budgets in companies and an increase in the preference for investment in television campaigns are part of the changes that are being reported in the context of the new commercial reality.
Radical changes in the ways people relate to each other, new consumer habits and the home confinement decreed by the pandemic have led to a transformation in the advertising sector.
With the reduction of advertising budgets, companies must invest in advertising on social networks, which must be complemented by organic traffic derived from content created on digital platforms.
The outbreak of covid-19 transformed the ways in which Central American consumers behave, as quarantines and measures of restriction and social isolation decreed by governments, generated abrupt changes in purchasing habits and product search.
Personal care items, vehicle accessories, food and beverages are some of the products most demanded by consumers, who have migrated to digital platforms to make their purchases.
In the current scenario of confinement due to the health crisis in the region, consumers have disappeared from physical stores and have migrated to digital platforms to buy their products.
Fostering innovation when selling or buying real estate is a need that real estate brokers in general have identified among their clients, which they seek to satisfy through digital sales platforms.
According to the vendors' experience, the advantage of digital platforms is that they have the ability to store large volumes of information in an orderly and detailed way, which can also be consulted by potential customers immediately.
Added to the small level of influence that social networks have on consumer purchasing decisions there is also the ever latent danger posed by situations where communication can seriously damage the company's image.
According to a recent survey by Gallup Inc. published by The Wall Street Journal "... a clear majority of Americans say that social media has no effect on their purchasing decisions.
Of all the advertising spending in mass media in the region, Nicaragua's share is 8%.
Guatemala's is 28%, Costa Rica's 22% and Honduras' is 16%.
Despite this reduced participation, the Nicaraguan media market has grown by 15% over the last two years, said Cesar Espinosa, CEO of Cem Communications and president of the Nicaraguan Organization of Advertising Agencies (ONAP), during an interview with Humberto Galo for Laprensa.com.ni.
"Of all the people who see a banner on the Internet, only 1 percent click. But the remaining 99 also made contact with the advertisement, and although they didn’t access it, they still received the message."
The advantage internet advertising has over traditional media, is that it is possible to objectively measure its impact, by counting the clicks that tell us that the reader is interested and needs more information about the product, service or brand on offer.
Advertising expenditure is abandoning traditional media, especially print newspapers and magazines, and instead turning to digital media, where results are concrete and objective, and where there is a superior return on investment.
A report published by eMarketer gives clear conclusions: The share of digital media in the advertising pie is growing at the expense of print media, in line with changes in the patterns of consumer behaviour change, which are not being reported in mainstream media, people are spending more time in front of screens connected to the Internet, where they enjoy more and better information, and interact with advertisers.
Measuring results is essential in order to check whether your online communication strategy is successful and profitable.
Accurately defining goals for internet investments and then measuring and analyzing the results of the traffic that company’s web sites record is vital in ensuring the success of that investment.
Gustavo Arias Retana's article in Elfinancierocr.com explains that "within the planning that a company must do to get the most out of its web space, it is essential to define the methods used to measure results. Today, that situation is easier because there are many low cost, or no cost, tools which allow you to have control over traffic on web sites and create profiles of social networking followers."
In the first quarter of the year spending on digital advertising reached $7.3 billion in the U.S.
The digitization of information on the Internet is making great strides, and an example of this is the exponential growth of scheduled advertising in digital media.
This latest comes from the analysis by Price Waterhouse Coopers and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) who released results of the income report
In 2009 spending on traditional media advertising grew by 18.5%. In 2010 it increased by only 2.1%, confirming that consumers have started to abandon ship.
Only television and radio appear to be safe from the unstoppable advance of digital media on consumer preference. Print media is suffering most from this change in trends.
As internet penetration in homes and businesses increases, consumers are changing their information consumption habits, and spending more time in front of the PC or with their phone in hand, rather than reading newspapers and print magazines.
Major Internet companies create new scenarios in order to build a brand.
While media debates on the payment model or blind faith in graphic advertising formats suitable for branding, a battle is taking place in advertising results.
Brands want to participate not necessarily spending money on advertising platforms but through internal 2.0 communication experts.