Connectivity In Guyana.
And what it means for investors, advertisers, and how to make sense of the rapid rate of growth ( I don’t answer these, but I do explore them!)
As I’ve mentioned in my introduction, I’m from Guyana. A small country that was once a British colony sits next to Venezuela, Brazil, and Suriname with roughly a million people living in it.
The setup
According to datareportal.com, The internet penetrates roughly 55% of the population, so on average roughly 430,000 people have access to the internet, however 646,000 people have mobile connectivity.
For example, various forms of cost-effectiveadvertising has been increasingly popular. Direct Text advertising, radio, OOH all are much more popular given the national reach.
However, all of this is changing as internet and social media penetration is increasing within the local population, and foreign investment on a rise, the landscape of digital media is seeing a very unique evolution.
The anchors
As with any growth, there has to be a few consistencies to support the change. Such things are widespread access to computers, the technological learning curve, and effective digital citizens management (data and connection centers to manage).
Why am I getting this detailed? To understand the widespread impact of how contrasting the changes are, it’s important to understand the total cost and magnitude of growth that has to occur for digital advertising to be even considered.
This isn’t something that can be curated overnight and delivered, but it is something that has been tried and systematically organized to be integrated into societies easily- the concept of digital media, curating subcultures, and advertising contextually to personas within a small society.
One company that’s catering to this movement is Inet Guyana, who recently released a case study of setting up infrastructure to support the basic wifi access to remote areas. This alone is a huge step into getting to proprietary data collection for contextual advertising.
The big picture
With a projected GDP growth of 86%, which is 14 times more the growth of China’s trajectory as reported livemint,digital advertising will become even more relevant as companies try to capture more information to inform their business decisions.
The infrastructure is there, it’s just a matter of creating an intuitive environment for the population to get acclimated to the data and internet pipeline. With this in mind, a subculture and soon technological integration within social sentiment will be created.
I’m adamant about that social sentiment area, since technology within the population has become so advanced within the last ten years. Before, you’d have to line up for 45 minutes to an hour to pay your bills.
As of 2020, a system known as MMG (Mobile Money Guyana) allows you to set up bill pay through your phone credit, utilizing it as a mobile bank. This was in 2020.
That should give you an idea of how long of a way we have to go. I’m a huge fan of cultural intent, but for the first time I’m seeing my friends and their friends and relatives integrating technology into their own lives. It’s fun to watch, but the uncertainty of where it’s heading is interesting as well.
What does it mean?
I wish I could answer this. I know for a fact that the shift is an opportune window for investors and companies to set up their own proprietary system to measure and capitalize on this new subculture, however it’s even more important for advertisers.
Even today in first world countries, we’re always measuring sentiment, public perception and social listening, but for a country where a viral facebook post reaches the full online population, it’s a little more difficult to measure such a small, saturated target.
The access to information is of the utmost important, and whoever get there first gets to control and influence the narrative. Advertisers, companies, investors not only have the ability to create their mark now, but also have heavy influence over the trajectory of where it goes too.
Think of how the metaverse is right now; some understand it, most don’t, companies are seeing it as the next big thing- that’s how digital marketing and media right now is in Guyana.
There are agencies that manage social media and display ads, but when it comes to social micro-communties and catching exactly how splintered the society is, while a never before seen rate of change in both the country and infracture is ongoing results in a very dynamic and four dimensional approach to catching the train at the right station.
