The discussion about the creation of a network of Latin Americans working in Social Marketing began around 2014, when one Brazilian and one Colombian virtually met as part of their role serving the iSMA. The Brazilian Hamilton Coimbra Carvalho (@PublicHamilton) joined in 2014 the iSMA’s Board of Directors as Regional Representative for South America and the Caribbean. Besides taking part in collective decisions, he recently took up the role of communicating with new members of the iSMA and he was also part of the planning committee of the World Social Marketing Conference 2017 (#WSMC2017). Right after starting his appointment at the iSMA, he created a Google e-mail group to build a database of people from Latin America and the Caribbean interested in social marketing. After this, Carvalho started discussing with the Colombian Nathaly Aya Pastrana the idea of creating a social marketing association for Latin Americans.
At the WSMC2017, Ms. Ponce and Ms. Aya Pastrana informally met with other delegates from Latin America, The World Social Marketing Conference 2017 served as a venue to expose to the public the interest of creating a new association that represents the different cultures, values, identities and context characteristics of people from Latin American countries. The working group of the new to be association thanks the representatives from the iSMA, the ESMA, the AASM and of the SMANA who have offered their support in the process of building the regional association. |