Festival of Media Latam sat down with one of its clients judges, Adrian Rios – former HSBC and Airbnb clients and soon to be starting the Pharma sector – to chat about what’s happening in media in Latin America and what he believes will help the sector evolve over the next 12 months. He also highlights how he is a big fan of Mercado Libre, Dove and Cerveza Victoria’s work.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity for media over the next 12 months?
The biggest opportunity for media over the next 12 months is to move beyond channel optimisation and towards true business optimisation.
For years, the industry has become very efficient at optimising individual metrics such as reach, clicks, engagement or CPA. The next challenge is understanding how all media investments work together across the customer journey and how they contribute to broader business outcomes.
The brands that will have the greatest advantage will be those that connect brand building and performance, combining stronger first-party data, smarter measurement and more integrated media strategies. The opportunity is not simply to spend more efficiently, but to build media ecosystems where every channel has a clear role while working towards a shared business objective.
2. How are brands leveraging AI in smarter ways to create more impactful campaigns?
For me, the campaigns setting new benchmarks are not necessarily those using the most technology or generating the most impressions. They are the ones that demonstrate a clear connection between a strong human insight, a distinctive creative idea and measurable business impact.
In Mexico, I find Mercado Libre’s work particularly interesting. Campaigns such as The Secret of TV as a Driver of Digital Traffic challenge the traditional idea that brand and performance media should operate separately. I believe this is an important benchmark for our industry: using channels not in isolation, but understanding the role each one can play within a connected ecosystem to create measurable business outcomes.
I also believe Cerveza Victoria has done remarkable work by building campaigns around culture rather than simply using cultural moments as communication platforms. A ti, ¿quién te espera? is a good example of how a strong human insight can turn media into participation, creating emotional relevance, conversation and organic amplification around one of Mexico’s most meaningful cultural moments.
At a regional level, Dove continues to be a strong example of how a clear brand purpose can remain relevant while evolving its execution across different markets and consumer behaviours. Its recent work in Latin America demonstrates that long-term brand building and effectiveness do not have to compete with each other when the idea is grounded in a genuine understanding of people.
These examples represent, in different ways, what I believe modern media should aim for: moving beyond isolated impressions and channel metrics to create work that connects culture, creativity, consumer behaviour and measurable business impact
There is still time to enter the Festival of Media Latam Awards. Just contact liam.wilson@festivalofmedia.com for an extension and check out the categories.
