Juan Maqueda
• CEO at LatamOne •
Welcome to this interview with Juan Maqueda, the leader of LatamOne, a major marketing and advertising agency. With a wealth of experience in the industry, Juan has successfully managed and delivered numerous creative projects that have helped his clients achieve their marketing objectives.
In this interview for the eBook “The Influence of Travel Video Marketing”, we'll be delving into some of Juan's insights and perspectives on various aspects of marketing and advertising, including the challenges of starting a new creative project, the importance of video in outlining a tourism marketing strategy, and the role of storytelling in creating a connection between a destination and the audience.
We'll also explore Juan's experiences in pushing the limits of innovation in his projects and how he continues to drive forward-thinking approaches to marketing and advertising.
Can you please share a little about your experience, professional career, and how it feels to work at LatamOne?
My career in the world of advertising and communication began more than 35 years ago, my origin comes from the side of advertising production, and at this point we can talk about endless needs that a brand or a product has to offer. Time to launch or promote a brand, such as graphic production, or musical or sporting events, artistic installations in the middle of a city or create moments of contact or irruption in the thought moments intended to surprise the client.
LatamOne is a story that was born in 2006, in Costa Rica, where the agency was founded and from there it begins a tour of America to reach today to be in 5 cities with a team of more than 40 people.
What are the biggest challenges you face when starting a new creative project at LatamOne?
Several, where you have to combined such as time, message and creativity, and finally the effectiveness and its execution.
Time, because you don’t usually have all the time necessary to investigate, analyze and achieve the best possible synthesis, time is a tyrant and this pressure makes sensitivity to the subject accelerate and sharpen in order to achieve the best synthesis.
The Message and Creativity, because they are the heart of our work, and it is the first step, but not the last, where one makes an idea tangible and presents the message, with the great challenge that today involves different audiences and on such different communication channels.
Finally, we have the effectiveness and its execution, because could be an excellent idea, but if we fail in the execution, all the effectiveness goes to the garbage can, which is why at LatamOne we specialize in providing comprehensive solutions, because we do not like to leave anything loose in the process.
"Creativity is the most human thing we have, and technology has not yet been able to emulate this gift. Having said this, without creativity, we will never be able to convey the feelings of what it means to travel."
While Costa Rica is their regional hub, LatamOne also expanded to Argentina, Miami, and Asunción.
What, in your view, are the most fundamental steps to delivering an effective strategy for a tourism destination?
Start with a good and detailed diagnosis, considering all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the destination may have. This analysis is fundamental nowadays with a super competitive world and with a multiplicity of similar destinations.
How has the use of technology and digitalization affected tourism promotion?
Deeply, although we still have destinations that have not known how to take advantage of this content and information revolution, technology and the multiple digital ecosystems in all their versions, OTA’s, social networks, tourist apps, blogs, video portals, have brought us closer in a way seen the visitor and the destinations. And here we have to be very clear, thanks to digitization, we make the choice of our next trip a long time before clicking on the ticket payment icon.
What is the role of video in outlining a tourism marketing strategy? Do you consider it an important tool?
I dare to say that video is a strategic content resource that should be used, promoted and stimulated; and at this point we are going to add that the great video revolution comes from the hand of digital users, they are the ones who generate and share the most content, managing to attract audiences from all over the world, with them we must work, select the best “ambassadors ” and stimulate their productions.
How important is storytelling to connect tourism brands and potential audiences/visitors?
Audiences and visitors are looking for stories and experiences, a message that is different from what was usually used in the past, they no longer consume commercials or advertising campaigns, they do not want to buy a product or a destination, they want to live it from the moment they see content, that is why we see the rise of product placement or city placement in documentaries and fictions on TV and cinema. The great challenge of this strategy is to manage to enter a story in a natural way, without the viewer feeling that we want to sell them something...
What drives you to push innovation limits in your marketing campaigns?
Discovering new ways of communicating and interacting with the public, because the market seeks broader results and measurable ones, where the key is to have your own audiences to talk to, and this requires constant analysis and knowledge of their habits and behaviors.
In your opinion, what is the importance of creativity for tourism marketing?
Creativity is the most human thing we have, and technology has not yet been able to emulate this gift. Having said this, without creativity, we will never be able to convey the feelings of what it means to travel.
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