Business

The 2012 Top 50 Most Valuable Latam brands total $135.7 billion in value, each are leaders in their country markets, often serve multiple local country markets, and some operate globally. Latam’s largest markets, Brazil and Mexico, produce the greatest number of high-value brands, but smaller economies also are well represented.

MAGNA GLOBAL forecasts media owners advertising revenues to grow by +3.1% in 2013. This is 1.4% less than our previous forecast published in June 2012 (+4.5%). The revision is mostly caused by a slow-down in economic growth and continued economic uncertainty in Europe and the US, as well as the cautionary marketing spend that took place in the second half of this year.

ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad expenditure will grow 4.1% in 2013, reaching US$518 billion by the end of the year. As has been the case since the economic downturn began in 2007, this growth will be led by developing markets, which we forecast to grow by 8% on average in 2013, while developed markets grow by just 2%, weighed down by the eurozone crisis.

A major analysis of world public opinion was released today by Ipsos— one of the world’s largest market and opinion research companies. The report, titled “Ipsos Global @dvisory: The Economic Pulse of the World” is based on 18,713 recent interviews in 24 countries around the world. The report examines citizens’ assessment of current state of their country’s economy for a total global perspective.

Most consumer commerce transactions still take place offline, in physical stores, yet ecommerce makes deeper inroads every year. Similarly, the majority of online purchases still occur on the desktop, but smartphone and tablet commerce are assuming greater prominence.

High levels of economic uncertainty are affecting business and shifting opinions among mid-market executives, according to findings in Deloitte’s “Mid-market perspectives: America’s economic engine- why entrepreneurs matter.” Specifically, only 59 percent of executives surveyed ranked the United States as the most accommodating country for entrepreneurs – a 32 percent drop from how those same executives said they felt in past years.

In the third quarter of 2012, against the backdrop of continuing economic uncertainty and the looming fiscal cliff, PwC US’s Private Company Trendsetter Barometer survey found that private companies increased their projected revenue growth rate for the next 12 months, up from 8.3 percent to 8.6 percent. The increase was driven by private companies that sell solely in the United States.

Despite dire predictions about the pharmaceutical industry’s future, some pharma companies will reinvent themselves, and according to Pharma 2020: From vision to decision, a new report issued by PwC, the industry is on the cusp of a golden era of renewed productivity and prosperity. However, its success is not guaranteed.

Even while marketers have taken strongly to digital advertising, they haven’t abandoned traditional media by any means—TV still takes the largest share of ad dollars in the US, and its percentage of the total isn’t slipping. But with the measurability inherent in online ads, confidence in their efficacy is generally high.

Innovation as a topic gets lots of hype, but how does innovation really happen in today’s organizations? Get the facts from a recent Oracle-sponsored study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, “Cultivating Business-Led Innovation.”

National brands are betting big on local marketing with 91% surveyed expecting to spend more or the same on local marketing in 2013 as they did in 2012. Digital tactics will play an important role across the board for national brand marketing planning, with 67.5% surveyed reporting digital marketing as extremely or very important to national brand success. National brands ranked Mobile, Local Blogs, and Online Customer Reviews as their top three priorities for local digital tactics they are not currently using and would like to implement in 2013.