This chapter analyzes how a country context shapes advertising creativity. To do so, the chapter explores the situation of the advertising industry in Colombia (South America), a country recognized by the social focus of its advertisement. The chapter presents an overview of Colombia's socioeconomic situation, the internal conflict development, and the effects of the evolution of COVID-19. Then, a description of the country's advertising industry, media investments over the last years, and effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will follow. The chapter comprises a case study analysis employing two Colombian award-winning advertising campaigns to understand how the country's context has influenced the advertising is developed. The chapter concludes by summarizing the key learnings of the analyzed cases and by presenting suggestions on possible academic research in the country's context.
TopOverview Of Colombia
Colombia is a medium-sized country, with 440,831 square miles, located in the northern portion of the South American continent. It borders Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The country's location on the Ecuadorian line provides tropical weather and grants important fauna and flora biodiversity. The country is known for being the second most biodiverse in the world, with 51,330 species registered in the country, after Brazil. Colombia is the third-most populous country in Latin America, after Mexico and Brazil, with over 50 million inhabitants and about 81.6% living in urban areas. The country's population age average is 31.5, and its literacy is over 95% (DANE, 2020). Most of the population follows a Christian-related religion (90%).
The World Bank positions Colombia as an upper-middle-income economy (World Bank, 2020). The 2020 GDP reached USD$ 271,547 billion. The primary sector of the economy represented 12.9% of GDP. Coffee, bananas, flowers, sugar cane, cattle, and rice make up the main agricultural products, while the primary mining and energy resources include coal, oil, natural gas, iron ore, ferronickel, and gold. The secondary sector contributed 17.6% of GDP. Textiles, chemicals, metallurgy, cement, cartons, plastic resins, and beverages stand out in the industrial sector. The tertiary sector accounted for 69.5% of GDP, emphasizing services, especially tourism (Mincomercio, 2021). Before the pandemic, Colombia had a stable GDP growth of around 4 to 6% (DANE, 2021). This situation led to an important reduction in the unemployment rate, decreasing from 18% in 2010 to 9.6% in 2019, as well as a decrease in the population below the monetary poverty line (US$ 5.5/day) from 40.7% to 27% in the same period. However, economic prosperity did not equally benefit all groups within the population. The GINI index has been around 0.5 for the last ten years (World bank, 2021). This situation puts Colombia among the Latin American countries with the highest level of inequality.