In this week’s LATAM RoundUp brings a strong statement by Sandro Alex, congressman in Brazil, who claims that programmatic media supports cybercrime; the Brazilian delegates' visit to London aiming to learn with the British digital market; Tremor Video launches operations in Brazil; and the development of an unified metric combining online and offline audiences.

“Programmatic media supports cybercrime."

That is the quote by Sandro Alex, from Socialist Popular Party (PPS-PR) in Brazil, in a speech last Thursday (8 October) when debating a local investigation about cybercrime.

Alex mentioned numbers by Motion Pictures Association, claiming that the automated media trading in illegal webpages, which distribute movies without authorisation, is harmful for the creative industry in general. According to the congressman, this represents a crime that raises up to BRL$500,000 (approximately £80,000) to pirate websites.

The problem is that the congressman listed names of airline companies, banks, and even official federal government advertisements as financial supporters of piracy, once they have been investing in programmatic. He said that advertisers support illegal activities when they agree to place their campaigns in such pages – regardless if they are aware of it or not, because ad tech companies do not differentiate the activities of the websites in which the ad would be displayed.

Edinho Silva, communication minister, Brazilian government, was participating in this meeting and defended himself saying he was not aware of how the official Brazilian brand was used on the web. He agreed in leading activities to investigate and punish pirate websites, as well as give information to the official investigation.

Silva also compromised in taking down the ad investment in such websites and lead an internal meeting to improve the methods of keeping up with the online presence of the government’s brand.

What can Brazil learn with the UK?

IAB Brazil promoted a week of activities in the UK, which ends on the 16th of October, in London. The institution is also working with the Brazilian embassy in London to drive business relationships and social meetings.

Dozens of leaders of local ad tech companies, marketers and other related companies are in London and will attend several events, including IAB Engage this Thursday. The main goal of the Brazilian delegates is to get insights about how the British market grew the ad spend from 15% to 50% in the last seven years.

Tremor Video debuts in South America

Anchored in comScore’s data of a rising video market in Brazil — where video consumption exceeds the average time spent and overall penetration among the digital population of all Latin American countries — Tremor Video announced the international expansion to the country. Rafael Pallarés, based in Sao Paulo offices, will be the responsible for building and growing relationships with publishers, trading desks and platform providers.

Previously in his career, Pallarés has worked for Antecipo, a digital company founded by Aunica, and was responsible for developing relationships with premier publishers such as Globo, R7 and Terra. He also worked for Terra Networks based in New York.

Tremor Video’s move follows a recent expansion into the Asia-Pacific market with the acquisition of TVN, a Australian-based programmatic video company.

Unified metric for offline and online media

Brazilian media companies announced a single metric that will unify multi-platform publication, combining audiences in print and digital media. The metric was developed in a joint effort by the local audience auditing institution, IVC, comScore and the National Newspapers Association (ANJ).

The methodology to establish these metrics takes into account the digital data curated by comScore, as well as the Ipsos’ General Media Study. According to the institutions, countries like Spain and England are already using similar techniques to better measure their audience.