GlobalCom’s market barometer: Argentina

This week, the GCPR-Blog team talked to Luciana Bugni, Associated Director of Espósito Marketing in Buenos Aires, partner of the international GlobalCom PR Network.*

Which industries/markets are booming at the moment in Argentina?

I consider it to be important to briefly contextualize this answer: 2011 is an election year in Argentina, traditionally the uncertainty created by this caused some slowdown in investments and economic growth. Globally, the crisis of European countries also was felt in some sectors of our country.

Beyond this political- economic context, in recent years the government has promoted the development of local industry, experiencing significant growth in technology, automotive, energy and tourism.

What makes Argentina currently so interesting for this industry?

Generally speaking, Argentina is a country that offers an excellent cost-benefit ratio for industrial development because it has skilled human resources at very convenient and high productivity. It is also a large market and diversified in their tastes, which opens a big world of opportunities for many industries.

For the technology industry, beyond the above, Argentina is particularly attractive because of its modern infrastructure, one of the best in the region.

In the case of the energy industry, the natural resources of the country make the difference: Argentina is in the 6th place worldwide between countries with available mineral resources and oil and gas self-sufficient. Natural resources are also essential to provide a complete and varied tourist proposal, which coexist in the same geography, desert landscapes, snow-capped mountains, glaciers and large cities.

Finally, for the automotive industry, it is remarkable that Argentina is member of Mercosur, which results in tax benefits for industries. Also, the government -as part of its plan of promoting the development of the local industry- implements lots of tax benefits for all industries.

Why should companies from these industries start doing Public Relations in Argentina?

I believe there is a fundamental reason for these industries to develop a communication plan and PR: differentiation from the other market players. Growth opportunities are available for all companies in the industry, creating more competition and the need to stand in front of the eyes of current and potential customers.

Against this background, public relations become an important tool to reach a solid market position and increase the visibility.

At Espósito Marketing, although we had been working in projects of different industries, we specialize in marketing, communication and PR -fundamentally- for technology companies. We currently work for companies such as Sybase, Dassault Sytemes, LANDesk, Emerson Network Power, Novatech, Druidics and others.

It is also interesting to highlight the concentration we are experiencing in communication management: firms tend to centralize their public relations and communications for the entire region into a single agency. So, located in Argentina, we are able to develop the communication of our accounts in various countries of the region like Chile and Brazil, even México, which results in a better optimized budget and benefits in logistics and administration. Whenever a local presence is needed we cooperate with our GlobalCom partner agencies in the specific regions.

* The series is based on phone or face-to-face interviews and written input, therefore please excuse language mistakes which might reflect foreign language influences.