GroupM’s César Recalde: Retail media and connectivity are two big trends driving digital marketing in LatAm

The Cannes Lions Festival for GroupM is the ideal scenario to connect with clients in a context that fosters innovation and global vision. César Recalde, CEO of Latin America for GroupM, explained that the event served as a unique opportunity to establish relationships; understand the landscape; share experiences; develop innovative ideas; have inspiring conversations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing many aspects of our lives, and the communications industry is no exception. However, cautions Cesar, creativity and strategic thinking are inherently human skills that cannot be replaced by machines.

AI can be a powerful tool for boosting efficiency and productivity in repetitive or data-intensive tasks. For example, AI can be used to automate media planning, reporting and audience segmentation. This frees up time for creative professionals to focus on what they do best: coming up with innovative concepts, developing engaging campaigns and connecting with audiences on an emotional level, Cesar details.

“It has nothing to do with working in a market like Mexico or in a market like Argentina, because there are many points of view and many connotations that I think need a vision and a human thinking behind. And I believe that artificial intelligence will be something that will help us to work in a much different way, but there will always be that human thinking behind, that strategic component that I really think will be irreplaceable at this time”, he points out.

Retail media and connectivity are two major trends driving digital marketing in Latin America. In Mexico, GroupM recently introduced its Connect TV solution, Advanced TV, an addressable TV service that allows advertisers to target households with relevant TV ads across multiple TV channels, pay TV platforms and set-top boxes, a range of video-on-demand services, over-the-top providers and video game consoles.

And retail media is another “game changer,” where they have all the FMCG brands looking at converging their needs with e-commerce.

“But one of the things that has surprised me positively is that in Latin America, especially in retail media, we have nothing to envy, especially the developments that are being made at the level of the region with the things we are seeing. What happens is that from a technology point of view, not in all markets we can implement Connected TV and we are doing it now in Mexico and little by little we will go hand in hand with the partners we have in technology to launch Connected TV, but I think it is the confirmation that these are the two big trends today, at this time”.