One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Communications in Latin America

Companies continue to invest and strengthen their value proposition in Latin America, believing the long-term potential of the region outweighs recent lackluster economic growth. Looking at Latin America holistically, the population is close to 600 million people with a combined GDP of more than $5.5 trillion dollars — that’s three times India’s GDP and about half of China’s.

No brand is impervious to economic pressure, however companies doing business in Latin America are developing exceptional resilience and flexibility in their practices to reach consumers more effectively. As a result, companies expect their Latin American PR and marketing partners at all levels to be equally resilient and flexible to help them get the most out of their efforts and dollars. Achieving economies of scale and efficiencies aren’t only nice-to-haves, they are must-haves.

So, how do companies doing business in Latin America maximize efficiencies in marketing and PR, especially when faced with challenging circumstances like tighter resources, leaner teams and internal pressures to make the numbers?

For starters, Latin America should not be treated as a homogeneous block. A ‘one size fits all’ approach can’t truly fit all 19 countries. A delicate balance must be achieved between what’s globally consistent, regionally appropriate and locally relevant (click to tweet).

At its core, the key to achieving maximum marketing and communications efficiencies in Latin America ultimately revolve around these four principles:

1. Strategic and message consistency regionally and locally

2. Framework, focus and direction for regional and local players

3. Shorter lead time in sharing ideas and best practices

4. Integrated measurement and insights

Although this may sound a bit complex, and difficult to achieve, true success is much more likely to occur when these four tenets become second nature and act as the foundation of your regional communications strategy.