The largest impact COVID-19 had on Infoglobo was to speed up its digital transformation. Any goals the company had for 2023- 2024 are now goals for 2020 or 2021.

“The impact of this crisis on both consumer and advertiser habits has forced us to speed our transformation into a media tech company,” Infoglobo CEO Frederic Kachar said. 

Kachar shared his company’s advertising action plan to take advantage of the traffic surge and combat the COVID-related advertising losses:

• Turn live events into streaming: The company hosted live debates about major issues that affected the country which were very well attended (digitally). While events were previously free for attendees and paid for by sponsors, the company plans to test new models that include charging attendees themselves. There is also a potential to turn top-performing articles into Webinars or other digital events, all of which can be connected to advertising and sponsors. 
• Adapt projects to digital: The company turned a report on Brazil’s logistics infrastructure into a livestream lecture and podcasts. Not only did the audience surpass expectations, it was easier to explain the concerning points about the infrastructure in Brazil, which is a complex subject. The company is also publishing a lot of stories on how local retailers are dealing with the crisis and is speeding up development of branded content for advertisers. As many ad partners are engaging in philanthropic efforts during this time, Infoglobo found a way to cover this both in editorial and branded content. Other publishers could also look at opportunities to create new digital products that could be supported with advertising, branded content, and/or sponsorship. 
• Accelerate digital sales: Leveraging its investments with Google, the company decided to develop multi-platform media solutions with specific advertisers to use Google as the data management platform (DMP). 
• Content production for other platforms: Hired by Google in Brazil to produce content, the company creates 150 pieces of content per month for its Web stories format. Twitter has also hired the company to produce videos it sells to advertisers. 
• Reduce costs by reducing magazine frequency: Some titles are going bi-monthly, and some are going digital-only to reduce costs during the lockdown. 

Thanks to this action plan, Infoglobo has been able to increase its digital ad revenue by 28%. 

This is a case study from INMA’s July 2020 report The “New Abnormal” of Media Advertising, free to INMA members.

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