The weekly LATAM RoundUp brings the following stories: Teads and MediaMath announce a partnership in video focusing on Latin America; Brazilian ad agencies have 11% of their revenue coming from digital campaigns; the alliance formed by Zoomin.TV with the Brazilian mobile advertising company Hands; comments about the local market by Luciana Burger, manager director, comScore Brazil; and a brief analysis of the programmatic video market by Riza Soares, general manager, Smartclip Brazil.

MediaMath joins efforts with another company in Brazil: Teads

MediaMath and Teads announced a partnership in Latin America in order to offer premium video inventory in the region, combining their platforms. The offer will put together MediaMath's Terminal One Marketing Operating System and Teads’ inventory via open exchange and private marketplace.

According to the companies, Teads’ inventory includes more than 500 websites around the world — including Forbes, El Mundo, Grupo Expansión, Terra, El Tiempo, and Estadão in Latin America. Advertisers can filter and negotiate the campaigns according to price, location, and format.

Eric Tourtel, vice-president, Teads LATAM, emphasises that the joint effort is a response for a growing local demand for videos and programmatic media.

Brazilian agencies: only 11% of revenue comes from digital

Earlier last week, the National Federation of Advertising Agencies (Fenapro) in Brazil revealed the latest research with data from 747 agencies in the country. Even though web services have increased 70% in the last year, representing 77% of the activities of the sector, digital services — including digital content — represent only 11% of the agencies’ total revenues.

It’s important to mention that most of the digital market in Brazil is developed in the Southeast and South regions, where cities like Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are located. The work included 14 of the 26 Brazilian states.

The research also revealed that only 31% of the surveyed agencies forecast an increase in their revenue in 2015, whereas 34% expect to keep the number steady when compared to 2014, and 36% admit the revenue is likely to decrease.

The material was produced in a partnership with Sinapros, the syndicate that represents the sector.

Another video partnership in the region

The Brazilian mobile ad company Hands announced a deal with Zoomin.TV aiming to create solutions and opportunities in mobile video platforms. The deal also establishes exclusivity to Hands in selling Zoomin.TV’s inventory in the country.

Latest from comScore shows that Zoomin.TV has the sixth biggest online video audience in Brazil. The company claims 18 million unique visitors and 180 million monthly views.

João Carvalho, CEO, Hands, emphasises that the company will develop special projects for brands, such as branded content and branded channels. According to him, next year’s main focus, related to the partnership, is to produce mobile initiatives focusing the Olympic games. For Zoomin.TV, the main interest with the deal is to increase scale and reach of their mobile video solutions, says Paulo Leal, country manager.

comScore: Brazil has 94.3 million online active users

For the first time, comScore revealed detailed numbers about the 94.3 million Brazilian active online users and their platforms. There are 78.6 million desktop users, 53.6 million smartphone users and 10.7 million people who use tablets.

Even though the time spent online via mobile devices has been increasing in Brazil, the non-mobile access has not dropped.

How to interpret this data? According to Luciana Burger (pictured right), manager director, comScore Brazil, mobile represents the first online access to a part of the population. This means that there is a part of the audience that had its first contact with the digital universe via smartphones or tablets.

The advantage of programmatic media, in this scenario, is to better deliver campaigns calculating a better frequency to the users. “This is harder with direct sales. Programmatic has been helping planning media, but planning teams will have more difficulties than ever”, says Burger, referring to the diversity of the audience in Brazil.

Smartclip: aiming at smart TVs, programmatic should grow from 5% to 30%

"We see an exponential growth in programmatic. Currently, programmatic video represents 5% of our revenue and we expect that number to reach 30% in the end of 2016", reveals Riza Soares (pictured below), general manager, Smartclip Brazil, in an interview to ExchangeWire Brazil. The company started automated trading six months ago, when connecting SmartX, their SSP platform, to a network of websites and partners' DSP, such as MediaMath, Turn, DBM.

In Brazil, the video advertising market is still concentrated in apps which do not sell ad spaces, such as Netflix. "We have YouTube and some publishers like UOL, Terra, ESPN and others starting to launch apps with advertising, such as Globo Play. Record [a Brazilian broadcast company] will start its Record Play soon, and SBT [another broadcast company] should follow the same path", says Soares. She expects them to create opportunities for programmatic media and to boost the online on-demand audience in general.

She highlights the growth of smart TV sales in Brazil as a great opportunity for the company in the local market during the coming years. Yet, three challenges are clear: scale, advertising stock, and technology. A recent survey made locally by the company found out that 73% of the audience remember the advertising pieces they saw on Smart TVs; 57% of the audience interact with ads in the platform; and 47% speak to colleagues about products, and even buy items, after seeing ads in an on-demand environment.