Peru's advertising agencies transition to internal, digital development

Peru's advertising agencies have become more independent, creating their own work compared with efforts in previous years in which local creative workers for the most part adapted or translated work done elsewhere. 

“Things have changed and now Peru can shine in Cannes with its own light, with very Peruvian campaigns,” Jean Paul Goachet, digital advertising director at Fahrenheit DDB, said in a telephone interview with Latin Business Daily.

Adapting to the local market, those advertising campaigns prepared in other more developed markets were the norm in the past -- particularly at the strategy level, he said. “We have to admit that this used to happen.” 

The increased reliance on internal talent is just one of the changes in the Peruvian advertising industry, while another big change the industry is adopting is the increased use of digital technologies.

Unlike many traditional advertising agencies, which in recent years have opted for just complementing their teams with “the hiring of a person with a digital profile,” newer agencies like Fahrenheit have managed to win awards by taking a more integrated approach faster, he added.

“Our solution was very different. We built an entire multidisciplinary team with programmers,” Goachet said.

Thanks to those efforts, Fahrenheit, with only about six years in the advertising market and a greater flexibility, has managed to attract several big clients including BBVA Continental bank, mobile telephone operator Movistar, shopping center operator Real Plaza, health insurer Oncosalud, hospital Clinica Delgado, and cement manufacturer Cemento Andino.

Goachet, who has 12 years experience in digital advertising, said the agency began to boost its digital advertising capacity in October 2013. “It became in a short time one of the top agencies in Peru," Goachet said. "It does not have a long history like Mayo, Circus or Leo Burnett.”

In a short time, Fahrenheit founders Ricardo Chadwick and Alberto Goachet managed to generate interest and won several awards, including Lions, which Jean Paul Goachet said are normally won only through time.

The bigger Peruvian advertising agencies are still making efforts to develop digital advertising resources, which are seeing fast growth in Peru with annual revenues of $82 million. The annual growth in digital ad spending in Peru has been around 30 percent, according to industry experts.