In this week’s LATAM RoundUp: Ve Interactive reveals numbers and plans for their operations in Brazil, with 15 new hires this year; Boo-box adapts to HTML5 and this change is IAB Brasil’s focus this month; and an opinion piece by Camilla Fonseca, senior client services specialists, comScore, advocating for a better understanding of mobile metrics in LATAM.

Ve Interactive aims to double operations in Brazil

2015 was not hit by the economic situation of Brazil, at least for Ve Interactive. The British company hired 15 new staff and still has to fill in five positions this year.

Part of Ve Interactive’s expansion plan in Latin America, the company is in a positive year after a 196% growth in 2014. This year, the operations have increased by 64% and accumulated 400 clients — a number that they want to double until December. “Ve Interactive is in a full expansion mode worldwide, and Brazil is one of the key markets for that. We are completely convinced by the potential of the country in this sector”, says Juliana Custódio, general manager, Ve Interactive LATAM. She says that her objective is to double the size of the company in 2015, commenting on the staff training. In the past months, part of the team went to England to learn with the members of the HQ, and Brazilian offices received people from London to disseminate knowledge across the company.

She also emphasises that the strategy is to bring more senior people to Latin America, aiming to hire experienced names in the market. Additionally, the solutions are being rolled out to LATAM, so that the local operations do not stay behind global deployments. In the past 12 months, they released two applications in Brazil.

Boo-box adapts to HTML5

On September 2, the Brazilian company focused on social media and data-driven campaigns Boo-box announced that their platform is fully adapted to HTML5. The change was adopted by all major internet browsers recently and it is the focus of IAB Brazil's work in September.

According to Boo-box, their were adapted before the browsers’ update. The company also emphasised the best usability they should provide from now on to mobile campaigns. “HTML5 is a format which allows the users a more agile experience, because the content is loaded fast. It also helps to save battery of their devices”, commented Marco Gomes, founder and innovation director, Boo-box.

Mobile: Does LATAM have reliable metrics?

In an opinion piece for IAB Brazil, Camilla Fonseca, senior client services specialists, comScore LATAM, questions the insecurity of the market in the region when investing in mobile. Fonseca, who is also a member of the metrics committee, sees some caution in marketers behaviours because of the lack of understanding of mobile metrics.

She writes that every day she faces questions like, "What about mobile, are there really metrics? Are they reliable?". Her answer is: YES, of course.

“There are metrics out there for quite a while. The main thing is to understand how much people are willing to face this new challenge. There is no time anymore to wait before investing in mobile. We are ‘behind’, considering other markets which are as big as Brazil. Yet, although it sounds surprising, there are still some players, the ‘big ones’, confessing that they have to understand their metrics better. There are several ‘Brazils’ inside the Brazilian market, my friend.”

She emphasises that in Brazil, for example, news content consumption has more unique visitors in mobile than in desktops. Additionally, content to children has already more time of consumption in mobile than in laptops or desktops. She writes that it is mandatory that marketers do something about it, as soon as they can, but most importantly, aware of mobile metrics to understand how to deal with this new paradigm.

The full text can be read in IAB Brasil’s website (in Portuguese).