The 22nd Annual Marketing Congress took place on April 26 and 27. Ericka Espino and Gustavo Acuña tell us their impressions.
In digital, the most important thing is to be constantly updating our knowledge. Ericka Espino, CEO of MAKE, and Gustavo Acuña, Director of Operations, attended the 22nd Annual Marketing Congress of Peru, organized by Seminarium. Therefore, in this article they highlight the most relevant topics of the event.
1. Let’s discuss the Peruvian context.
In 2022, Peru did not have the highest growth in Latin America. The projection for 2023 and 2024 is between 2 and 2.5% GDP growth. Diego Macera, Director of the Peruvian Institute of Economics, points out that “Confidence has not been reactivated since April 2021, this has been reflected in the deceleration of private investment”.
There is a trend towards individualizing consumption decisions.
Diego Macera
On the other hand, it is important to highlight that Peruvians are reinventing themselves and moving forward. Currently there is a new middle class, online purchases are surpassing traditional ones. There is a tendency to individualize consumption decisions; before, this was only something that was the responsibility of women and mothers.However, each person is forming his or her own opinion,” says Rolando Arellano, CEO of Arellano Consultoría para Crecer.
2. On innovation and its relationship to marketing.
The presentation that stayed in our minds the most was that of Giuseppe Stigliano, the Global CEO of Spring Studios. He explained that innovation must be continuous. To achieve this, he gave 5 tips:
- Change the traditional: In a world that changes permanently, staying flat does not work. Flexibility is necessary.
- Stop pursuing omnichannel: It is impossible and unsustainable to achieve it. It is better to go from omnichannel to opticanal (using the optimal channels for the company, management, and customers).
- Do not confuse KPIs with metrics. The KPI allows us to follow the traceability of the strategy, metrics give us data, we must choose the relevant ones.
- Do not try to play alone, it is important to surround ourselves and create an ecosystem.
- Put marketing at the center of the business. Marketing is about being in contact with the market, listening to information, and working with partners.
During the second day of the presentation, Stigliano provided some definitions for marketers in a post-digital world:
- Premise 1: Knowledge emphasizes theory and the gathering of information and ideas. It can be well documented and shared. You can learn it and you can teach it.
- Premise 2: Experience emphasizes practice, or the application of knowledge over an extended period of time, in order to reinforce understanding of a topic or a specific task.
3. The importance of branding
During the panel discussion on branding, the following conclusions were reached:
- Branding must be built constantly.
- It is important that there is coherence, all points of contact with the customer must be taken into account.
- In brand design, everything enters through the eyes, the mind and the heart.
- Performance only happens when a brand is worked on. In this way, we will be firmer for the launches.
Another important point is loyalty, Carlos Payares points out that “Experience is important, people forget the ads but not how they were made to feel”.
According to Carlos, loyalty is fundamental and we must increase it together with market penetration.
4. Conclusions of the Annual Marketing Congress
- We must admit that change is the only constant in recent years and therefore, it is necessary to be flexible and adapt quickly, constantly updating our value proposition, according to what our customers demand.
- It is also important to admit that Marketing is about people and this implies considering the emotional factor and how the context impacts as well.
- In times where diversity and sustainability are becoming more important for people, especially the younger generations, companies and brands need to pay attention and act in that sense as well.
- Technology, artificial intelligence and innovations must be harnessed to understand more about our customers and our capabilities to generate greater value with greater speed.
