InPulse pioneers Digital Marketing in Uruguay

“So, what is it that you do?” It’s very common question for those who work in digital agencies today. In Uruguay, the first digital agencies saw an opportunity abroad: the US, México, Asia, and some countries in Latin America. The Uruguayan client is not ready to dive into the digital world (at least some aren’t), while outside the advertisers were going for digital-only campaigns or as part of a communication strategy. InPulse Digital is one of those cases. Since 1998, its founder Diego Prusky has been living in the US, where he created the agency. InPulse has its offices in Uruguay, but has very few local clients. Prusky decided to target the Latin market outside Uruguay, so he needed people that, on top of knowing about software and technology, spoke Spanish as their native language. The main clients: Universal Music Latino, Warner Music Latina, Sony Music, BIC, E! Online Latino trust InPulse as specialists in the entertainment industry since 2002. “The world had changed with internet, and record companies knew nothing about online marketing. That led me to the conclusion that what they needs was not someone to make them a website, because anyone can do that. What they needed was someone that would develop a strategy for them in this new environment” – Diego Prusky In Uruguay, advertising investment was key for the country’s first digital steps to be taken abroad. As recently as 2008, only 2% of the investment was destined for the digital realm. In 2013, the figure tripled to 6.2%, but is still well below the regional average. The biggest challenge is that the investment curve does not match the growth in internet penetrations, which is over 60% in Uruguay as well as Argentina. Another important factor is the finite Uruguayan market. Online advertising investment is roughly around 12.5 million, while in Perú for example, y reaches 40 million dollars a year. Even though it is hard to predict how long it will take, the prediction for the coming years is for this gap to even out as advertisers begin to realize the ROI benefits of including digital marketing in their communication budgets.