The Ibero-American Advertising Industry Characterized from a Meta-Study of the Advertisements Awarded at Festivals

Abstract

In this paper, festivals and advertising awards are the object of study in order to characterize advertising, with two goals: on one hand, to validate the use of the information registered in international advertising festivals, ads and awards as a good object of study in which to measure the quality production of advertising agencies and countries; and, on the other, to exemplify this object of study by analyzing the Ibero-American context. We develop a methodology based on a documentary and descriptive analysis of the awards (6921 analyzed awards) received by Ibero-American agencies (692 analyzed agencies) in 24 Ibero-American and international advertising festivals in 2012 and 2013. e paper brings a new dimension and perspective: the visibility that agencies and countries have in a key competition space in the sector and in a region as a whole, on which there is no information, Ibero-America, with particular emphasis on the leadership of Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, and Colombia. It also reveals a very uneven scenario in the distribution of awards per country: the existence of a reduced elite group of agencies—mostly multinational companies—with a high impact on the system. Such disparity between awards and the agencies monopolize them is consistent with Bradford's mathematical model. Accordingly, the investigation describes an unequal reality of advertising in Ibero-America of great interest to be explored in future studies.