Grupo Ghersy Comunicaciones Integradas: Advertising in the digital era

Caracas Daily Journal (Luis M. Garcia A.): For Alfredo Ghersy, Executive President of the Grupo Ghersy Comunicaciones Integradas, one of the most respected advertising agencies in Venezuela, the main advantages of the digital media in relation to other media like radio, printed media, movies and television; is how the message is received.

It is due to the reciprocity and the interactivity that these media generate in the user; thus being the Internet one of its best proponents.

In this matter Ghersy comments: "in an interactive media like the Internet, you have the possibility to choose what, when and how you want to see it. That gives more power to choose to that user that reads that particular promotional message, which it did not occur in the well-known traditional mass media where the information is unidirectional, and where the audience takes on a passive role; quite different to the active character that assumes people when they peruse a digital media like this one."

As far as the expansion of the digital media as an advertising tool in Venezuela, the Internet is, without doubt, one of the promotional vehicles with the highest growth among the existing ones in the market, according to many specialists in the matter of comparative media rating. However, Alfredo Ghersy is of the opinion that, albeit its great popularity and advantages that the digital media offers within the advertising world in our country, it has been underutilized, and its true potential has not yet been maximized.

For this advertising world expert, one of the causes why the power of the Internet in the advertising world has been underestimated many times, it has more to do with a deficient management of the media as such, than to a problem of media efficiency. One of the great problems that the Internet has had is that it has not been fully utilized. Many use it to post pop-ups, among other elements, using the traditional criteria of uninterrupted advertising; thus believing that with that type of strategies they will wake up the web browser interest, and that is a mistake.

"The best way to maximize the efficiency of advertising within the so-called digital web can be achieved through the creation of communities, by investing in social networks or by placing contents to generate controversy within a virtual environment; thus generating an atmosphere of dialog and participation. These are some of the strategies that, at a marketing level, have shown to be successful within an interactive space such as the Internet," he concludes.

Even though the power and influence of digital media cannot be denied in the advertising environment in this country as in the rest of the world, it is also true that it still has a long way to go as far as maximizing the advantages it offers inside the virtual media.

Although in time we may see new strategies and methods aimed at extracting the maximum potential, what will always mark digital advertising will be its permanence for many years as an alternative media of infinite possibilities.