As Managing Director of Publicis Commerce in Spain and Portugal, JoséLuis Ferrero is one of the leading figures in the implementation of RCS (RichCommunication Services) as the next big business communication channel. Among his responsibilities, Ferrero leads strategies and innovative projects in retail media, e-retail, artificial intelligence, and digital transformation for brands and retailers within this corporation, which is one of the largest advertising groups in the world.
To date, Spain leads the European adoption of RCS with 479 million messages sent in 2024. In this interview, the expert explains the opportunities this communication channel offers and how brands can benefit from it globally, regardless of their size or sector.
Whatis happening in Spain with RCS that is not happening in other countries?
Spain benefits from having very innovative retailers like Mercadona, El CorteInglés, or, more recently, Wow. On the other hand, we are positioned as abridge between Europe and America, which allows us to see the best of all worlds. We are also the entry point to Europe for Chinese brands like Aliexpress, Temu, Shein, or TikTok Shop, which opened its first market inEurope here after the UK and the US. This means that both retailers and agencies, as well as brands, are more open to testing new solutions.
For now, the projections are ambitious: more than 1.4 billion RCS messages are expected to be sent in Spain in 2025, reaching 28.7 billion by2030. The retail sector leads usage, followed by finance and technology, confirming the versatility of this tool.
The numbers speak for themselves: Spanish digital marketing agencies consider RCS the natural evolution of SMS, highlighting its enriched and interactive messaging that allows sending images, videos, buttons, carousels, and calls to action directly to the native messaging inbox. This enables user experiences comparable to the most popular instant messaging apps, with a98% open rate.
In this context, is it correct to describe RCS as the evolution of SMS?
We don’t like to see it as just the evolution of SMS, but rather as the next step in brand communication. SMSis dead and it’s not coming back. People are used to WhatsApp. To me, RCS truly represents the opportunity to use direct messaging within the context of marketing and business.
But is there room for more options beyond WhatsApp Business?
While WhatsApp Business is widely used by companies to communicate with their customers, it was originally designed for interaction between end users. RCS, on the other hand, is a solution developed from the start with a focus on business use. That’s why it natively incorporates key features such as identity verification and high security standards, managed directly by Google. It also offers far greater creative and platform capabilities, making it a particularly business-friendly option.
When you talk to brands about RCS, don’t they say they don’t need it because they already have WhatsApp Business?
WhatsApp Business is a widely used tool for communication between companies and consumers. RCS, by contrast, was specifically designed for corporate environments, allowing it to offer features such as identity verification, greater control over campaign management, and more robust security standards aligned with the current challenges of conversational marketing.
Although RCS is still in an early adoption stage, its value proposition directly addresses many of today’s brand needs: it offers official sender verification, end-to-end encryption, and a secure environment for communications. RCS enables a unified dash board, structured management of customer journeys and communication processes, as well as ultra-personalized and creative messaging.
From the perspective of digital agencies, we see RCS as a key tool in brands’ digital transformation. It’s effective both in performance marketing strategies—such as lead generation and driving sales—and in branding and loyalty initiatives. It also allows for advanced content segmentation and personalization based on user history, location, or behavior.
Do you have any specific cases to share?
I have two interesting cases. The first involves a well-known automotive brand that recently sent out global internal communications to explore how to implement RCS in their respective markets.
The second case is a collaboration between Carmencita, the Spanish spice brand with over 100 years of history, and designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada.They launched a special edition salt and pepper shaker designed by Agatha. The challenge was to communicate this strategic brand shift directly to their communities' smartphones, natively entering with an RCS message that included a video and a presentation of the collaboration.
Whatwere the results?
The message was sent to all customers of the online store, and we got very positive sales metrics. It was an innovative way to communicate, very alignedwith the brand's values: 100 years of tradition transformed into innovation anda WOW effect for its customers. The best way to reach customers was not only onCarrefour shelves or the website but also directly on their smartphones with enriched video content.
This Carmencita Especias campaign for the launch of the "Carmencita by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada" line has become a reference case in the sector, demonstrating how RCS allows for closer, more creative, and dynamic user experiences. The case was featured in our "Commerce &Friends" program as an example of how the channel can generate more direct and authentic relationships with audiences.
At Publicis, you developed an AI called Alan. Why create your own solution instead of using ChatGPT or others?
Publicis Groupe’s proprietary solution, Alan (Autonomous Learning AI Network),is an AI focused on retail marketing that also includes the ability to create scalable creatives adapted for RCS. We have trained an AI that doesn’t lead or automate anything but becomes the best assistant to the expert Publicis team.We believe in human leadership in both AI and RCS.
ALAN is dedicated to revolutionizing eRetail and Retail Media management. This solution integrates various AI model technologies, advanced analytics, and machine learning capabilities. It is designed to optimize decision-making, speed up operations, and personalize marketing strategies for brands in digital environments and marketplaces like Amazon, Carrefour, and many more.
Our vision is that AI makes life easier for talent, but a tool like this is worthless without the right talent. In fact, we represent our AI as a baby, and you don’t leave babies alone. While other companies bet on automation andno human supervision, we bet on human leadership. Everything we create is done one by one, with human supervision and approval.
What results has Alan achieved?
Alan has allowed us to become a center of excellence in the use of AI for retail marketing from Spain, serving clients all over the world. Alanunderstands how the algorithms of Mercado Libre, Falabella, Amazon, Walmart...any ecommerce platform work.
Based on that understanding and the brand's presence on that platform, we propose optimized content. We improved product discoverability by 20% and the conversion rate by 10%. With RCS, Alan determines which formats to generate and provides productivity to create creatives for Google, Meta, TikTok, RCS—allat scale and almost instantly.
Alan's integration with RCS is especially powerful: it can analyze and segment the ideal audience for RCS campaigns, personalize messages, and automate follow-up using AI applied to retail. This enables processing large omnichannel data volumes, boosting hyper-personalization, and dynamically adapting messages based on user consumption habits and context. Machine learning algorithms analyze responses in real time, optimizing segmentation, content, and campaign cycles.
Iunderstand you are working with Plusmo on everything related to RCS…
Yes, in fact, we entered the RCS space with the support of Plusmo, because after evaluating different technologies and solutions on the market, we saw that the Plusmo team has the most experience and knowledge about RCS technology. They also have an expert technical and support team that allows us to provide the level of service we want for our clients.
How has the experience between Publicis and Plusmo been?
The combination of technology and expertise along with the development of the right team guarantees that the projects we implement are successful. We’ve been working together for seven months, and so far, we’ve carried out projects that have had very good results. So, we hope there will be many more projects—and very big ones—soon.
Whatare your expectations for the growth of RCS?
Right now, RCS is the great unknown, but my expectation is that in three years, at least one in five campaigns will also include an RCS component. Twenty percent of campaigns will include RCS. Why? Because both retailers and brands are starting to generate their first-party data, and when they do so in theform of a CRM, the best way to activate it is through RCS messages.
Isit a costly investment? Is it accessible to SMEs?
Absolutely. It has a low unit cost and low technological requirements. It is accessible to anyone; if they have a customer database, they can reach.
Aren’twe at risk of bombarding users with RCS messages?
I don’t consider it intrusive. My experience as a user so far, receiving messages from Leroy Merlin and others, has not felt intrusive at all. Moreover,RCS is the perfect complement to email marketing. An email marketing and RCS strategy running in parallel is the perfect storm to engage the consumer and bring them closer to the brand.
The data supports this vision: RCS is widely used for promotional campaigns, verification codes and reminders, customer satisfaction management through RCS surveys, and post-sale follow-up, all without the need for external apps. Its native integration into most devices simplifies development and speeds up campaign deployment, also making it easier to measure metrics and optimize in real time.
The important thing is to give the customer the option to choose how they want us to communicate with them. Whatever method the user chooses will be the one they prefer, and that will make them perceive us as much closer and more precise in our communication.
Whatdo you recommend to Latin American brands that don’t yet know this technology?
I follow the 80-20 rule: 80% of the budget for what you know works and is mainstream, and 20% to carefully try out new things. With the 80-20 rule, 80%goes to traditional media and established strategies, and 20% to test RCS, AI, and other innovations.
I wouldn’t wait for it to fully mature. I always like to try new things.You can test, realize it’s not the right moment, but you’ll already know how it works, and when the time comes, you can accelerate. It’s like an iceberg: the small tip you see took years to form, but all the prior work allows it to emerge solid.
Any thing else you’d like to add about RCS?
For me, RCS complements customer management and loyalty strategies, and will be implemented in any company with a CRM, a customer base, a loyalty strategy, anda desire to have one-to-many and one-to-one conversations with its users. The future of business communication lies in giving the user control over how they want to be contacted, and RCS is a key piece in that puzzle.
It’s important to note that although RCS adoption poses challenges, such as the need for training and adaptation of creative and technical teams to fully exploit its conversational and interactive potential, for digital marketing agencies, RCS should today be the most innovative and promising channel for mobile business communication.
