In short
Uncensored CMO Podcast Summary
Episode Title
No GUT no glory; from startup to Cannes Lions agency of the year in 5 years - Anselmo Ramos
Episode Description
Anselmo Ramos, co-founder and Creative Chairman of GUT, shares insights on building a creative agency and what it takes to achieve notable success, including winning multiple Cannes Lions awards. He reflects on his journey from Ogilvy to founding GUT and discusses strategies for fostering creativity in advertising.
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Key Points and Insights
Background of Anselmo Ramos
- Early Inspiration: Anselmo describes himself as an "ad nerd," influenced by his creative family background and education that emphasized artistic expression.
- Career Journey: He co-founded DAVID agency before establishing GUT in 2018, aiming to become a leading agency for major global brands.
Founding of GUT
- Agency Objectives: GUT's goal is to cater to "brave clients" looking for bold, long-term brand building.
- Independent Agency: Anselmo emphasizes the freedom and creativity that comes with being an independent agency, contrasting it with his previous experience at Ogilvy.
Creative Philosophy and Approach
- Creativity as a Driver: Anselmo believes in the strong connection between creativity and business results. He references the importance of "big ideas" in advertising.
- Proactive Ideas: The agency focuses on generating ideas that resonate emotionally with consumers, arguing that the best advertising evokes feelings rather than relying solely on rational messaging.
Winning Strategies
- Bravery Scale: GUT developed a "bravery scale" to help clients progress in their creative ambitions, encouraging them to take calculated risks.
- Client Relationships: Emphasizes the importance of partnerships with clients who share a vision for bold campaigns and are open to creative ideas.
Cannes Lions Success
- Achievements: GUT won multiple awards, including Independent Agency of the Year, marking a significant milestone in their five-year journey.
- Team Culture: Anselmo stresses that the agency's success is rooted in a strong, collaborative internal culture focused on love and passion for advertising.
Lessons Learned
- Client Education: GUT employs reverse RFIs to assess client compatibility and encourages clients to think creatively.
- Culture Design: The importance of a well-defined culture, where creativity thrives and employees are inspired, is a key factor in scaling the agency.
- Emotional Connection: Strategies to evoke strong emotions in advertising lead to better reception and effectiveness of campaigns.
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Notable Quotes
- "If you know the brand, you are briefed already."
- "Bravery is not binary; it's a daily conscious choice."
- "Love is our engine; if you really love the business, it shows."
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Critical Reflections
- Marketing Evolution: Anselmo discusses the shift in marketing towards emotional storytelling and humor, which he believes is often lacking in current advertising.
- Industry Challenges: He acknowledges that many CMOs face internal pressures that limit creativity and boldness in their campaigns.
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Conclusion The episode encapsulates Anselmo Ramos's journey in the advertising industry, highlighting how creative bravery and strong client relationships can lead to significant agency success. His insights provide valuable lessons for marketers aiming to foster creativity in their work and build impactful brands.
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Timestamps for Reference
- 00:00:00 - Start
- 00:01:04 - Anselmo's ad nerd background
- 00:03:12 - Favorite Ogilvy quotes
- 00:07:38 - Highlights from Ogilvy
- 00:17:20 - Founding DAVID Agency
- 00:18:43 - Launching GUT
- 00:30:30 - Characteristics of a great CMO
- 01:02:06 - Agency expansion
For full insights and to listen to the episode, visit [Uncensored CMO](https://uncensoredcmo.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28Welcome back everybody to Uncensored CMO. they have gone on sale of the agency. This was recorded just before and I wanted to catch up with Anselmo to find out what is it like creating a creative agency, winning so many can lines, how to do creative really well. They've worked on some of the biggest campaigns on the planet, worked for companies like Burger King, Stella Artois and many more. This is a great episode. Anselmo is a real ad nerd. It comes across in everything he does. He loves his craft and he's got so much practical advice about how to make great creativity that works. You'll enjoy this one.
1:00It's a great episode with Anselmo Ramos. Welcome to the show, Anselmo. Thanks for having me. Let's go back to the beginning. You described yourself as an ad nerd. So how did it come about? What inspired you about advertising and why would you describe yourself as a nerd? Yeah, I think I became an ad nerd as a consequence of my childhood. I was born and raised in Sao Paulo and it was a very creative environment, my family. My dad was a mechanical engineer, but he would do oil painting in the weekends. And my mom is a piano teacher, you know, and she's still a piano, she's 80 and she still teaches the piano.
1:37And then they sent me to a German school, Rudolf Steiner. It's a Waldorf pedagogy. And it's just a very creative environment. You know, I had no grades up until high school, zero grades, yeah. And it was just, you know, every class was about painting, drawing, sculpting, acting, gardening, knitting. I know how to knit, you know. John, I can knit a sweater for you if you want. This is great, yeah. Uncensored CMOs. We would do like a bright yellow uncensored sweater. Yes, it's great. I know how to knit, you know. And I, you know, when it was time to choose my profession, you know, I wanted to do something that I could express my creativity, you know.
2:21I also love brands in general, you know, branding. So it was a natural choice. And I remember when I found out my dad's collection of Mad Magazine, you know, and for me, it was like, oh, my God, you know, I read them all and I would send them ideas and I'm still waiting for their answer. They never replied. So yeah, advertising just was the natural choice for me because since I was a kid, I always liked to show ideas to other people and see their reaction, you know. So I would draw something and show people and I would write something and show everyone. And every time they liked it, I was, oh my God, I need that validation, you know.
3:07And in a way, I'm still looking for that validation, but now, you know, just making ads. Now we'll come on to Gus and I'm very excited to hear about how all that came around and what you're doing at the moment with the agency. But take us back a little bit to your Ogilvy for many years, Chief Creative Officer. How was that and what inspired you about Ogilvy? And have you got a favorite Ogilvy quote, for example? When I came back to Brazil after 12 years abroad, it was 2007. It was a big job to change Ogilvy Brazil. It was a very profitable agency. I think it was top five revenue-wise in the Ogilvy network, but it was number 47 in creativity.
3:46So we had to change that culture. And the thing that we did, we basically reminded everyone about who David Ogilvy was. Because it wasn't just the name at the door. He was the founder. He said a lot of great things. So the job wasn't about creating a culture from scratch. It was about just reminding everyone about all the great things that David Ogbev said. And he said so many things, right? Even other agencies use his quotes. But, you know, for instance, he said, the best ideas are usually, they usually come as a joke. You know, it's a great quote. And, you know, in our industry is so serious right now, right?
4:29A lot of the work, if you go to Canada and you watch everything, a lot of the work are very serious and it's about purpose. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think we could have a little more fun, you know? So that's a great quote. Another one that he said was, unless your campaign has a big idea, you'll be just like a ship, you know, passing in the night. No one will see it, right? And it's so true, you know? Basically, everything he said is very timeless because the problem with 95 % of ads is there's no big idea, you know, and you don't feel anything. Ironically, it's more true than when he wrote it probably, isn't it?
5:07As in, you know, there's less humor than there used to be. There's probably fewer big ideas. It's more tactical, less of the sort of long running big ideas that, you know, last for decades. Yeah. And here's the thing, right? If you think about the internet, the internet is very stupid, you know, the memes and the humor. right and and brands tend to be very serious and and i really feel that brands should take themselves less seriously because the internet is just you know it's fun this is very stupid i mean very basically if you look at what kind of works on social media and what gets the most clicks and likes it's pretty much humor right yeah yeah it's memes you know i mean one of the as a um uh as a client of course one of the quotes i like is if it doesn't sell it isn't creative Totally.
5:50And like, so important that creativity is there to make a difference in terms of your business. And that's something that can be forgotten often in a relationship. Yeah, I know it's a great quote because, you know, a lot of times clients don't see the link between creativity and results or bravery and results, right? But I think that, I think the best marketers, they see that link, you know, like how bravery can lead to results. he also said another one that are like the consumer is not a moron she's your wife that's very David Ogilvie and I think that's true consumers are very smart sometimes we dump down with stuff and we think that consumers are not smart, they are really smart you can really do smart stuff, they will get it and we operate in such a bubble, don't we, as well we forget who the customer actually is very often And I think, you know, I love Cannes, but I think some of the danger with Cannes is that we celebrate the things that we want to celebrate.
6:52We forget, actually, the people out there that really matter. Exactly. They are the ones that need to like it before Cannes jury, you know? Yeah, exactly. Now, one other quote I was going to run by you, which I thought was great, is talent is the most likely to be found amongst the dissidents, nonconformists, and rebels. Yeah. That's pretty cool, isn't it? I love that one. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. It's true. sometimes and you know that happens i got we have some really talented people but usually they're the difficult ones yes yeah and um yeah talent comes with a price it does because they care don't they they want to make a difference they want to kind of challenge how things are done and they've got a vision they're very stubborn yeah and sometimes they're paying their ass they just want to do great work you know and um yeah so it comes with that passion you know it comes with that at nerdness yeah yeah definitely so as you look back at your time at ogilvy um what what stands out as the what are you most proud of from that that time in your career i'm really proud about the change that we were able to do in five years so we went from number 47 to number one and then in 2013 we became agency of the year in can and that was a first for any ogilvy office ever and it was amazing right and we were doing work for unilever coca-cola a lot of great brands and um the work that i'm most proud about is real beauty sketches you know it's there is a before and after about that work and and it was just great when that happened everything changed afterwards you know a lot of clients would come to us saying give me a real beauty sketches like you know like you like you you know it works like that right but it was great and i think the last one behind that work was the importance of embracing uncertainty you know just embrace uncertainty because we had no idea if that would work or not we have no idea but we had to do it the only way to find out is by actually doing it right now that's quite interesting because most clients need certainty don't they and this is a really interesting thing about the client agency relationship is you talk about bravery of course yeah and what most clients need is to avoid risk of something going wrong.
8:59So how did you get kind of, how do you get the support to do something unexpected? Well, when we presented Real Beauty Sketches to Steve Miles and Fernando Machado, they were the two clients. That meeting was basically them asking us, but how do you know if it's going to work? And my answer was, I don't know. I just kept repeating, I don't know. You know, and they were like, so you don't know if this is going to work? And I said, no, I don't. And the only way to find out is by actually doing it. And you're a dove, you have money, you can do it. We think it's gonna work based on what we know about women's nature, which is not a lot, but we think it's gonna work, but this is a social experiment.
9:43So it is an experiment. So the only way to find out is by actually doing it. And you need to be ready to, if it works, use it. If it doesn't work, just trash it, right? And they were brave enough to understand that that was the nature of the idea and they decided to do it, you know? So we shot it and it worked. And then we said, oh my God, it worked. This is amazing, right? But again, you have to be willing to lose control. The problem is that a lot of marketers, they wanna control everything, you know, the KPIs and they wanna make sure it's gonna work. But some of the best ideas, from my experience, you have the feeling of uncertainty.
10:26You don't know what's going to happen because if you know everything, that means that it has been done before. There's already a playbook. And the best idea is when you look at a fresh idea, you go, I don't even know how to start. I don't know what to do. I don't know who to call. And that's a great feeling because it means that it hasn't been done before. Yeah, it's funny actually because probably the most creative work I've done, In fact, it won two Cannes Lions. Just get that out there. But the interesting thing with that campaign is it came about because it was just pitched to me by the agency.
11:03It wasn't a response to a brief. They just came and said, we've got this amazing idea. We think there's a moment in time where we can do something that hasn't been done and you can own it. And if you wait too long for that moment to pass. So firstly, it was just about the, you know, because they understood the brand really well and we were working together very regularly. they had the permission just to come and pitch it. But the serendipity of it was, it was just at the end of our financial year. And the day before, finances said to me, you've got about 300 ,000 pounds in your budget. I did a media rebate and I hadn't expected it.
11:38It was more than I was expecting. And they said, if you don't spend it, we're going to have to give it back, right? So I was in a position where I was being pitched an idea and I had this money I wasn't expecting. So I said to the team, just do it. And, and, and I, in fact, in fact, I actually said, I don't even want to see it until it's on the television. That's amazing. And I, and I, and they were like, really? In fact, weirdly with this particular film, I said, when they presented the idea, I had goosebumps. I was like, that is so good. I mean, I can even just you talking about it. I can feel the kind of feel the magic in it.
12:11And the only thing I said to them in terms of feedback, it's quite amusing, is I said, at the end of the ad, I want you to add at least three seconds of nothing. and I'm like, well, why? You know, because I want every, I want the feeling you've created to stay before you go to the next ad. So actually, you know, I want you to build in just, you know, you can end up adding you pause. Usually that end pause is just like really quick, isn't it? And I said, actually, I want that to be at least three seconds because when you get a feeling, I want it to stay. I don't want it to go. And also, this is random feedback.
12:45I want you to take the brand out until the very end. And no client says that. I mean, we did slightly cheat. We had this very subtle product placement, but it was very authentically done and you kind of didn't really realize. But I said, I don't want the brand getting in the way of telling the story. I want the brand to be revealed as they feel that moment right at the end sort of thing. But what's interesting about the situation is I can only do that because I had the freedom of money I didn't expect. And therefore I wasn't going to sit all over them with KPIs. It must do this. It must be ready then.
13:17And also they were willing just to pitch the idea to me. And we've got that trust between us. And they were able to pitch the idea. And I was able to say, I trust you because you've already proven you can do it. That's amazing, John. I love that story. We do the same. We say something, you know, for us, if you know the brand, you are briefed already, right? If you know the brand positioning, the brand values and personality, the tone of manner, you are briefed. Of course, there will be official client briefs, right? a new product or a new service, a new something. They have to communicate. But we are always thinking, you know, because we're a bunch of ad nerds, everything we see, everything we watch, every trip we take, we're thinking, how can we use this for our brands?
14:04It's a very sad life, okay? But it's beyond our control. And then we just bring proactive ideas to our clients all the time, you know, What about this? What about that? And sometimes it gets to a point, the client tells us, please stop. It's too much. We don't have the money or the calendar to produce them all, but it's beyond our control. And sometimes the best ideas are exactly what you said. They're just one line that you send. Maybe it's a text message, maybe it's a phone call, or maybe just tell that idea over a drink, but it's just a very simple idea. It's just one line and you get it. You don't need a 200, you know, slide deck to present a great idea.
14:52I think that's what's fascinating about what you're saying because, you know, most clients work, have their own brand planning process, don't they? You know, they start with a strategy, they translate it into annual plan. That gets broken down into quarters and maybe even months. And then everyone's working on a cycle, aren't they? As in, you know, we're six months out or there's a big event. We're going to launch new products or every year we always advertise in June, you know. So, you know, your customers, your advertisers are typically working to a calendar, aren't they? So it's quite a change, isn't it, for them to go, we're actually going to dispense with the, you know, the calendar and we're going to work kind of continuously.
15:28Yeah, but I think that that's the modern advertising. You know, sometimes we call it hackvertising or reactvertising or festvertising. There are many names, but basically it's just like, you know, you come to the internet in a more humble way, you know, because we say the brand is the boss, but the internet is God. And brands tend to talk a lot about themselves, but nobody cares, you know, nobody wakes up and, oh, I'm dying to know what your brand has to say. People don't like advertising, but people like the internet, you know, and the internet is deciding what people is talking about. There's always a bigger conversation than your brand.
16:14When you understand that, you breathe in a different way. You become a little more humble. You understand that maybe you can adapt to the conversation, can join a conversation. You can react to something that's happening instead of trying to plan everything. so that's why you know i think modern marketers understand that the importance of losing control and setting aside a budget for proactive ideas that makes so much sense when we know well we're in a position now where lots of consumers are paying to avoid you totally exactly so you need to earn the rights to to get you know get you know get their attention um i can't remember the the quote was um oh i can't remember which famous person said this but it's like um maybe a burn back quote about you know creating a stage on which to perform you know and you've got to basically put on a play you know to convince them you know but whereas we act like a shooting lodge where we're going around trying to shoot the you know yeah shoot the consumer i need to look it up i can't quite the quite the phrase but it's almost like you're putting on a play and you have to earn the right to get the audience to pay you know pay attention to you totally which is super important I'd love to come back to a bit more about Guts and how you work.
17:23But just before we do, just fill in the gap between Ogilvy and – so you founded David, didn't you? Yes. Which I thought was clever because presumably the idea was from David Ogilvy. Yes, totally. Was it like the first name to the second name? So what was it like being a founder, going from being in a big agency, very successfully grown up to most creative? What was it like starting out effectively as a founder, right, for the first time? Yeah. The David idea was exactly that, right? Ogilvy was the last name and it's about tradition and the heritage of David Ogilvy. And our idea was, what if we start an agency using David Ogilvy's first name, right?
17:59And it's just when you tell someone, call me by the first name, it's more personal. And that was our pitch to Ogilvy and WPP. And they liked their idea and we started David, you know. And it was an amazing experience because we learned how to open an agency on their dime, right? So they put the money and they offered the back office, finance, HR, and all that. And all we had to do was to find clients and brands willing to work with us and talent. And so it was great. We were there for five years. It was an incredible experience. We learned a lot. We're very thankful. And after that, after five years, we just wanted to do something else, you know, a little more personal, 100 % independent instead of being associated with a holding company.
18:54And that's when we jumped. And that was only five and a half years ago, right? And we said, okay, let's do it everything again, right? All over again. But this time, just us, right? Self-funded. and we had the idea in can at the martinis table 57 that's when um gaston and i decided to open god and right there the name decision was very fast you know we said okay we need the name and then we remember that god was an option you know like five years ago we said remember god that was a great name oh so was it a potential name for david it was yeah and then we said okay that's a great name let's use that name and then right there I went to godaddy.com and I got got dot agency and I showed it to Gaston and then he got immediately worried oh my god this is happening yes it's happening you got the website now exactly we have a website so it's real now and then and then I spent the whole night reserving social media handles you know got Miami got you know Toronto got Mexico City got Sao Paulo, got London, got Tokyo, got Singapore.
20:09I got them all. And next day I show it to Gaston. He couldn't believe it. He was like, what? You know, what kind of partner I have? You know, this is crazy. And now we're using seven out of them. You know, we have seven offices, so we're using them. But that's the part of manifestation, right? From the very beginning, we were thinking really big. You know, we wanted to start an agency to be the best, you know the best independent agency in the world that was always our dream um but yeah it was um it was a different experience you know i took a second mortgage on my house i called my family i told my wife and my two daughters hey i'm leaving david i'm starting a new company you know i'm i'm gonna be without a salary for two years so it became a family thing what was the difference in feeling between i suppose david where you had as you say the corporate infrastructure support you and you could focus on being creative to then being responsible for an agency that was starting from scratch you don't have the infrastructure around you've got the financial risk that must have felt quite different it was amazing the feeling of freedom in the beginning was like i was like i can actually decide this without calling new york or london oh my God, that's great.
21:26You know? So we, we enjoyed our freedom and we were saying no to clients. You know, our first hire was Gise, our CFO. She's our global CFO today. She was our first hire. So she was sitting in front of me and I'll ask her, Gise, can I buy an espresso? And she'll say, yes, a single one, not a double, you know? And, and we learned so much, you know, because we had to decide everything, you know, what's going to be the bank for the agency, you know, and all the legal paperwork and talking to lawyers and all that. So we learned so much. There's a huge amount of operation, isn't there? I did private equity for a few years.
22:09And the thing that struck me was I'd gone from being a marketing director to being a shareholder in a small business. And 90 % of my time was not marketing. 90 % of my time was kind of like HR issues, bank loans equity in warehouse stock you know i mean i was in manufacturing so we had to deal with that supply chain as well but i was shocked at how much of it was just a physical running of something you know let alone doing the bit that i thought i was going to be doing yeah it's tough you know but sometimes people ask me anselmo what do i need to start an agency and i tell them well work 25 years non-stop build relationships based on great work then start your own agency you know Because I think the reason God has been growing so fast was basically because of relationships and reputation.
23:02And relationships not based on golf or boat. It's just based on great work. And that's it. If you have that, you can have an agency. Well, it's similar to Uncommon, isn't it? Over here, Niels, Lucy, and Natalie, they had huge experience already under their belts, didn't they? in terms of reputations, networks, relationships. And they brought strategy, client relationships, and creativity together. So yeah, you're right. It's kind of 25 years in the making, isn't it? Exactly. So it's not overnight. Nothing is overnight, right? But it's about building your creative reputation over time. Then everything else is a consequence.
23:38And what did you want the gut proposition to be? I mean, there are lots of agencies out there, lots of independent agencies. So why did you think this was going to be different? and how is it going to be different to what? I think our name says it all, right? So it's a brave agency for brave clients. We have three core values, courage, transparency, and intuition, right? So courage is about having the guts to do something that hasn't been done before. Transparency is about spitting your guts inside and out. And intuition is about following your gut, right? Following your intuition. And so from the very beginning, we had clarity about who we are and who we are not.
24:24Because strategy is about choices. And we always said in one line, we are a brave agency for brave clients. So we are not for everyone, right? We had a very clear mission. We want to become one of the most diverse, creative, and influential agencies in the world, which feels very uncomfortable to say that out loud. And that was it. But we had a very clear brand positioning, you know, because agencies, we sell brand positioning to our clients all the time. But a lot of agencies sometimes don't know who they are. You know, they don't have a brand position for themselves, you know. So we always treat a gut as a brand, you know, and it's our most important brand.
25:05So we have a brand book and we have a brand positioning, a brand personality, tone of manner. We have all that, you know. So we take that very seriously. who's your first client our first client in latin america was mercado livre and then it was tim hortons you know um our uh client in canada i got toronto you know it's um that was one of our first clients we started to work them project-based and then um they we they became our aor in toronto in the in so in those early days how do you go about kind of winning because obviously you needed to win quite a lot of new customers didn't you potentially yeah so how did you generate that generate the new customers in the early stages we just called everyone that we knew you know like hey remember me you know we had a period of no solicit right that we had to respect but after that yeah after that we just called everyone and um and we just asked for projects you know give us a shot give us a chance give us a project it's the part of asking i always tell people just ask whatever you want this is very powerful you know this and actually something you said as well um which really struck me was um the phrase indies help indies oh yeah yeah which is so true isn't it and and you know i think in corporate life it well i was gonna the alternative is corporates eat corporates isn't it because whenever i've been in corporate companies it is just everyone's trying to undermine and destroy everyone else whereas actually when you go and work in a small or an independent you know agency or business it's almost like everyone's very happy to collaborate even with their competition kind of thing you know because we're better together and we'll you know we've got more to gain by helping each other out it's very different indies very different feeling indies love helping indies right um i have a very good relationship with aaron from rethink you know we talk all the time we help each other like um neil's from common i met him in person a couple weeks ago um in london he's great and he came and he talked to the whole God network, you know, 500 people.
27:05And I was interviewing Niels, you know, that's so generous. And then even before we opened God, I remember I went to New York to meet Jerry Graff for the first time, right? He was a Barton Graff. And so I told him about my idea, you know, and I said, hey, what do you think? You know, should I do this? And he said, yes, I think I should totally do this. And I will help you, Anselmo, whatever you need, you just call me, okay? Because I've done this, I can help you. I remember I left at lunch with Jerry and I called Gaston. I said, Gaston, Jerry is saying that we should do this. So now there's no way back.
27:40We have to do it. Otherwise, I'm going to look really bad. You're on the hook now. Yeah, yeah. We have to do it. Yeah. What advice did he give you? He just told us to do it. He said, you know, if you have that feeling, you should follow that feeling. You know, you can totally do it. Because I think one of the challenges, and I apply this to myself as well, is we often talk ourselves out of doing something, don't we? Because we often think, well, it's risky, which it is. Maybe the timing is not right. Then maybe I'll wait until the timing is better. So I think so often with the challenges of these things, it's more in our own heads, isn't it, than anything else?
28:13Totally. The timing is never right. There's no right time. It's always the wrong time, you know. But if you really want to do it, you need to have a very strong feeling, right? But if you have that feeling, you just have to follow that feeling, right? you need to have that desire and then and you have to believe that's gonna work you have to because if you don't believe who will so it starts with you right so you have to dream big dreaming big and dreaming small cost the same so dream really big believe it's possible and then just go for it you know they have to execute right now going back to clients course you've had a few clients come back right so if we talk about Fernando Machado uh he's still a client isn't he now yes we're starting to work again um now he's at Notco so yeah we're starting to work on some projects with him yeah it's um it's the sixth brand that we are working together it's crazy it shows the importance doesn't it the personal relationship and trust between you know you and the client that well I often say to people actually don't follow brands follow people yes um I remember working on, quite a funny story, but I was working on a, when I was in my private equity, I didn't have very much money.
29:30I worked with this PR agency and we got on very well. And then they actually dropped me because they got a brief from a bigger drinks company, which was obviously worth more money. And so they said, we're really sorry, we have to retire you as an account kind of thing. I was really upset. I was like, well, you know, I was spending everything I had with you. I was backing you when you were tiny as an agency. You've now grown. And then the irony was, I then left and joined an even bigger company. And of course, if they'd stuck by me and followed me, they'd have ended up with a much bigger brief and they ended up taking.
30:01But following the person rather than the brand is so key. Every business is about people, but in our business, I think it's even more. It's a relationship business. And it's always about the person behind the brand. You know, sometimes people say, oh, what kind of brands do you like to work with? Well, it depends, you know, because if you have a great CMO, a great CMO can do great work with any brand. What makes a great CMO? A great CMO has a shared ambition with the agency. And a great CMO treats the agency as a partner, not a vendor. So it becomes a partnership where we all want the same things.
30:50We all want to create brand love long-term and do work that people talk about, evoke emotion, generate results, and all that. We all want the same things, right? And we become just one team. And usually a great CMO is open to agency, agency proactive idea and agency passion, right? And then, you know, everything else becomes a consequence of that. Because if you share an ambition and if you also talk about the kind of work we want to do together, right? You have a creative conversation about what's good and what's bad. then it's just a matter of executing. Also a great CMO just do things, you know, just says, yes, it's approved.
31:41You know, I always say that if one day I become CMO, I would just, I just would like to be known as the approver. I just approve things. Yes, do this. Yes, do that. You know, of course, it's very easy for me to say that. But I think the more you do, the better you get because you learn so much by doing it. And sometimes agencies and clients take forever to execute anything, like years, just having meetings and decks and feedback sessions, right? And I believe in executing. And I believe in test and learn, test and learn. The more you do, the better you get, you know, because nobody knows anything, right?
32:23And the internet is great at giving you feedback. You know, just put something out there and pray and see what happens. And the internet will tell you very quickly if they like it or not. So you learn. I think the interesting thing about what you said is you've probably described no more than about 5 % of CMOs in the world. Yeah. Because most CMOs are managing the politics in a big organization. They're managing the approval process, managing strategy. They're trying to play it safe. They're trying not to get fired. They've got constraints from global, from other departments. they're trying to sell into the sales team or keep the finance person happy.
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33:02It's quite a rare person you've described. So from your point of view, how do you ensure that you're going to work with the right kind of client that's going to be able to do the quick approvals, be creative, be brave? So I guess, how do you assess your clients really in terms of who you want to work with? Yeah, I think at the beginning of God, in the first couple of years of God, we were all about bravery, you know, and it was a bit too much. You know, we were like, sometimes we would get an RFI and we would send one back, right? We call that the reverse RFI. So, okay, you have some questions for us as an agency.
33:39We also have some questions for you as a client, right? Here are 20 questions. And the question would be something like, what's your favorite ad of all time? What kind of communications you want to do? What's your wildest creative ambition? Do you realize our name is God? And things like that. You know, it was a fun exercise. Sometimes client would answer them all and they would think, oh, this is funny. And sometimes clients wouldn't think that that's a great idea. They would go like, well, we're the ones asking the questions here. How dare you? So it was very, it was a very interesting tool to assess what kind of clients they would be, right?
34:17That was the beginning of God, you know, and then we kept saying we're a brave agency for brave clients, right? And then it got to a point that a lot of clients would not consider us at all because they thought that maybe we were too brave or they wouldn't see the link between bravery and results. And then, you know, we realized that we had to talk to, you know, in order to talk to more clients, you know, and help them to be open to work with God. We said, listen, bravery is not binary. There's no such thing as you are brave and you are not brave. Okay, bravery is a choice. It's a daily conscious choice.
34:59And then we created the bravery scale. The bravery scale is a tool to help clients to become more creative and their organizations to become more creative over time. Basically, it goes from zero to 10. And it's a scale, right? Zero is completely dominated by fear. And 10 is there's no other way to live. And five is sometimes brave, sometimes safe. And then it's a scale. and we have tips for each stage along the way. And we've had cases of clients that would join us and there were a two or a three and now there are seven or eight. And usually from all experience, it takes one year per stage, right?
35:46So as long as you are moving up on the bravery scale, it's fine, you know, because it's a process. It's very hard to change an organization over time. You know, it takes time. The problem is when you are going down the bravery scale. That's when we have to talk, you know, maybe we're not right for each other, you know. That's real. Well, big respect for doing that. Because I think it's, I mean, you know, it can sound a little bit arrogant, say we're going to do a reverse RFI on the client, but actually it's a really good thing to do because you're forcing the client to think, what do we actually want?
36:20And do we know what we're going to get? I remember asking Fernando when he was on the podcast going, you know, when you're applying for a new job, right, you know, you think about a new job, is there a risk that they're going to hire you? And he goes, you hire Fernando Machado, you get Fernando Machado. It's like, you know, it's fairly obvious from all the things I've done, what you're going to get kind of thing. And so you kind of reputation procedure, which I thought was a very good answer to the question. I think every agency out there should do a reverse RFI. Yeah. I really think that the whole industry should do it because, you know, it's like a date.
36:52we're both assessing each other to see if, you know, to see if there's chemistry and to see if this is going to be a great relationship, you know. The problem is that when it becomes one-sided, there's just one side choosing. And I think it should be both sides choosing. Makes a lot of sense. Neil said this thing actually when I had him on the show that if you haven't bought the work in the first six months, Oh, I love that. We'll put the price up 25%. I told Neil that I'm going to steal that. by join Niels. I'm going to steal that idea. And I think the whole industry should do that. Particularly with your always-on idea, right?
37:26If you're constantly coming up and people are putting their passion and energy into all these ideas, that would make loads of sense. I love that idea. Let's come on to some of the awards, shall we? Because congratulations. So this year, I think you were not only independent creative agency of the year at Cannes, but agency of the year and even independent network of the year. Is that right? Yeah, it was insane, John. It was a dream come true. Friday night in Cannes, I couldn't hold it. I was, you know, holding the award of Independent Network of the Year and I just started to cry, cry, crying in front of the whole industry because it was very emotional for us.
38:04We take this very seriously. And yeah, and ever since, you know, since June, we've been crying almost every day and we're still processing what happened there and, you know, all the learnings and what exactly we did together. In March, we took almost 500 people to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a gut event. You know, it was a crazy thing to do, very expensive and, you know, with crazy logistics. And it was the best thing, you know, we did. You know, and when we had all the seven offices together for three days, we had the gut band playing we had a soccer world cup you know the final was brazil and argentina of course you know brazil won in that case and um and it was so emotional you know to have everyone there and gaston and i we shared 25 lessons from the first five years you know and and it was a very emotional moment but but yeah this year um in can was just historical and it was magical you know very very hard to repeat what were the uh what were the biggest of those lessons or what are the ones that stick out the most one lesson is to have your priorities right and our priorities are people first, work second, clients last.
39:36And we say that to our clients. And the best clients understand exactly what we're saying. And what we're saying is, if your people are happy, inspired, nurtured, provoked, they're gonna do great work. And if they do great work, your clients will be happy. So it's a consequence, right? A lot of times agencies put work first, right? And then people suffer or they put clients first. They'll do whatever the client wants. But then, you know, that's not necessarily a good thing, you know. So, yeah, we have our priorities, like, you know, in a very clear way, you know. Yeah, that makes complete sense.
40:17So I love your first meeting with clients. So we're going to do an RFI on you. And we're going to remind you that you're actually third in our list of priorities. But I agree, it's surprising, isn't it? And it may sound a bit arrogant, but actually it has the client's interest at heart in that idea, doesn't it? Totally. And it shows a level of seriousness that you're taking the creative process and desire to do good work. So I think it's fantastic. The best clients understand what we're saying. Yeah, exactly. It's a very good way of filtering out the non-serious clients, actually. Because you're right, the right clients will actually respect and appreciate and get it immediately.
40:49They totally understand. It's a good way of weeding out the clients you don't want, really. Yeah. um so you won obviously won the the big accolade at can this year and you also add weak breakthrough agency of the year as well i noticed so congratulations on that what were some of the winners the grand prix winners this year that you that kind of stand out for you i know it's the collection now of uh of winners but what did what are you most proud of this year yeah this year was crazy we won three grand prix in three different categories and um we love the one for Peditos Yacht, you know, the cup delivery.
41:22That's my favorite, yeah. Total World Cup wins, that was... It's incredible. Yeah, just describe it for anyone listening. Yeah. How that works. It's a very simple idea. Peditos Yacht is a delivery app, right? And basically, we sent a push notification to the whole country saying, your order is on the way, right? And then people... Now, just context for everyone listening as well. This is just after the World Cup. Yes, exactly. Right after it, yeah. And Argentina of just one, right? Exactly. So we just sent a push notification to the whole country in Argentina saying, your order is on the way. And people got really pissed.
41:59Like, I didn't order anything. What the fuck is happening, Petit Rousia? This is not good. They got, it was basically a prank, right? In the entire country. And then after a while, we revealed that the order was actually the cup. Yes, of course. Because we linked the app, the Peridose app, with the flight carrying the cup. So when it says how far away is your order, you can track it. You can actually see where the World Cup was going. You can actually track the cup coming to Argentina. And then when people realized that that was the order, they loved it. They said, oh my God, that was amazing, Peridose.
42:40Thank you so much. So it was a prank. yeah you know and and it was a very simple idea it was a push notification idea you know cost was zero well exactly because it doesn't cost anything and you're using your own media right because they've got all these people's contact details and they're using a notification that you send to say your deliveries here it's like zero cost nothing and it was a proactive idea yeah right it was done in two days oh was it yeah we presented to the client well so this is literally straight after argentina won the world cup right and it wasn't and it wasn't a brief yeah you know it's a very good example of a proactive idea we said hey what if we do this right and yeah it was a great proactive idea from got buenos aires yeah you know just perfect that's very very clever the other one that we like a lot is the the stellar to our idea the r2 probability right?
43:32It's a great idea because basically in a lot of oil paintings, you see beer, right? You see glasses of beer portrayed on those paintings. And Stellar Toit is from 1366. And then we said, wait a minute, maybe it's related, right? Maybe some of this beer could be Stellar Toit. So what if we try to find if it's actually Stéle-et-Trois? And then using data, we analyzed each glass in terms of the type of glass, the color of the liquid, the distance between where the painting was generated and the brewery. So a lot of different data inputs. And then we created a percentage. you know okay so this painting by henroir has um 67 of artois probability and that was the idea right that's genius yeah yeah we like we like the line at the end of the case study that says we'll never know if van gogh painted a style to a but he probably did he probably did that's absolutely brilliant we're talking about orlando earlier in his book and it's it reminded me of that so much because he uses like art history to show how advertising has changed through generations so he's going to love this when he sees it i'm going to make sure you know to actually spot you know stellar and you're right though i'd never thought about it until i saw it but so many paintings are set in what would have been the pub you know or the bar or the yeah the social meeting house or where people got together to socialize that was so much part of the yeah the idea was there in front of us and and nobody did it so and and that's the beauty of when you see an idea like that go, I cannot believe that it hasn't been done before, you know, it's kind of obvious you know.
45:18Only obvious after you see it there, I mean again, when I saw it I'm like this is unusual, you know because you've got the music and the paintings coming, you know all the paintings over the years, it's beautifully done, so very very well done Thank you. Am I right in saying that anyone in your agency can answer any brief at any time as well? Because you talk about one line briefs don't you as being Yeah, yeah, we tend to share like what the brand is all about to all the creatives, right? Because we want everyone to deeply know the brand. So when they come up with a proactive idea, it's on brand.
45:54We don't want any client to tell us, oh, this is off brand. This is horrible. So we always try to talk about, okay, this is the brand, this is the brand personality, this is the brand positioning to all the creatives so they know that when they come up with an idea, it's gonna be 100 % on brand, you know, and it's gonna be driving business results, you know, because it's addressing something very concrete, you know, about the brand. And sometimes we write like a one-line brief, you know, it's just like a one line and that's the line, you know. So what was a really good example of a one-line brief that you've had?
46:31We have many, we have one-line briefs for almost every client. I think the most famous one in our careers is probably the one that we did for Burger King. Like when we wrote Play With Fire, you know, back in the day, because it was about flame grilling. And then we said, play with fire. And it was so simple, right? And any creative can understand that, right? Oh, okay. I'll just play with fire to communicate flame grilling, which by the way, will drive, you know, results. but we try to find that for all the clients, you know, because it just makes, you know, everything so simple. So looking out at other agencies, what do you admire the most at the moment if you were to look out and see outside of the agency?
47:17Who's doing some cool stuff? I think Uncommon is doing great work. It's really fresh, you know, fresh and design-oriented. It's great. I think Rethink is having fun. And then, you know, you have, you know, of course, Widen, right? and the marketing agency because again, we're a bunch of ad nerds. We watch ads all the time. But I also like just to watch other things as well, you know, because if you just watch advertising, it's also not good, right? So I love movies and cinema and I just love to watch other things as well, especially movies. So because it's a combination of things, you have to watch everything in your profession, right?
47:58You need to have advertising knowledge right and sometimes i feel that the young generation don't have that they don't study advertising history and they should they need to know you know um cliff freeman and philom mcgallagot and apple midweekers and you know all the classics right ddb bill barrenbuck they need to know that and a lot of people don't know so they need to study the history of advertising so that's important but it's also important just to you know um know what's the latest meme and watch, you know, a new movie by 824 and just read everything and just be curious about life, you know.
48:38Now you've had an incredible five years, you know, since you founded it. I mean, I guess you went from table 57 to the, you know, the creative agency of the year at Cannes in just five years, which is amazing. Well, I guess a couple of questions. How do you stay true to who you are and how do you scale at the same time? Because, you know, now you employ, How many people do you employ? 500 plus people? 570. Seven offices around the world. More coming soon, hopefully. How do you keep the spirit of what you've created and make sure that you're always going to be kind of at the top of your game creatively?
49:11Yeah, it's all about culture. We are obsessed about designing the culture. If you don't design the culture, the culture will design itself. So we are very intentional when it comes to culture. you know we going back to the the branding thing you know we we treat gut as a brand so we have the brand positioning the brand values and personality um you know we write principles you know so we have like 20 principles we keep writing them and we just take that very seriously we have names for things we do naming labeling you know we say oh let's show the client a gut x-ray which is kind of a version of the credentials or let's do a gut punch you know it's an idea that it's like a gut punch you know it's generate a lot it's going to generate a lot of earned media so we create tools to help people to keep the culture alive when we are not around so anyone can use the language you know anyone can use a black tea you know and so we give a lot of tools to keep the culture alive because that's our biggest challenge right now.
50:22As we grow, how can we keep the gut culture strong? And we talk about culture all the time. Sometimes we invite gutsy guest speakers and all of us jump on a Zoom call and we talk with the guest speaker. So we always talk about creativity, talking about who we are, sharing the work, talking about our values. It's very important, you know, and we travel a lot, you know, Gaston and I and Andrea, our CEO and all the partners. We travel a lot, you know, to different offices, to listen to people, to inspire them, to provoke them. How would you describe that culture for someone who's not familiar with Guts?
51:11it's a brave culture it's all about bravery trying to do brave things and we use gutsy you know as um as a word if we always say that oh she's gutsy or he's not gutsy that's how we describe someone a potential candidate or or a talent you know it's um it's a very strong culture When I came back from that event in March in Buenos Aires, we had a recap video. It's a two-minute video. And I showed that video to my daughters. They're 21 and 16. And they told me, dad, this is not an agency. It's a cult. So this is really embarrassing that don't show this to anyone. I need to see it now. You know, maybe it's a bit culty, you know, but you cannot write culture without cult.
52:03you know and we actually have a very low turnover and I think that's great you know because I think people got our talent they're amazing you know they really want to do great work and they know that we you know Gaston and I and the partners we are deep down ad nerds that love advertising and we want to do great work we just love this business one thing that Gaston says is love is our engine, right? Love is our secret. So what's the secret of God? Love. We love what we do. We love advertising. We love ideas. We love the industry, the process. We love our clients. We love our brands. We love each other, you know?
52:50So love is very tangible and clients feel that, right? You cannot fake love, but it's very tangible, you know? clients are very smart. They know if you really love the business or not. I have to say, in my brief spell, freelancing, but after I got fired, I used to do pitch training and business development training. And one of the points I used to say, really, really simple, is like passion can take you a hell of a long way in front of a client, right? If they feel that you really understand them and that you're really passionate about solving the problem, that is worth a thousand slides. you know you know and because often i used to reflect on how i'd feel after a pitch when i've met a few agencies and i'd then go back and look at the pitch decks and realize oh it wasn't necessarily the smartest deck or the cleverest words or whatever it was how i felt was often how i made the decision how i felt was pretty much do i believe the person has the passion for what i'm wanting to do and what i'm trying to sell it's incredibly powerful and i probably made more decisions just based on that, as you described it, the love or communicating the love and passion than on any, have they got the model, you know, have, you know, have they got the tea, you know, all the creds or whatever.
54:05It's much more about that. I agree. And it's also about conviction. A lot of times we go with one idea. Sometimes you can't, right? Sometimes you have to go with two or three. You have, sometimes you need to show an option, but every time we go with one idea our track record is really good because it means that that's the idea i believe you actually i i do because because again when you get three ideas the first thing in your head as a client is well you obviously not that you obviously don't have that much conviction because if you did you'd know which these three ideas was the right one and you almost it's a cop-out it's almost like going well you choose we could do this we could do that we could do the other so well i'm not here to choose between a menu of options i'm here to get the best possible answers the brief which one is it yeah it's like when um when an agency goes and you know it presents eight brilliant ideas it's very hard to have eight brilliant ideas you know um so from our experience every time we go with one idea especially in a pitch you know that's amazing because okay that's the one yeah and even if you don't win right it's okay because you had a very strong conviction yeah and you said that's the one that we would do yeah if we were in your shoes yeah right yeah but but sometimes sometimes we give too many options you know yeah and it's just like okay well it also actually makes it harder for the client because the client's having to now work through which one do i like which one's better yeah i'm not sure i like a bit of this, like a bit of that, and you end up with a hybrid of all, you know, it actually makes it more complicated than easy.
55:44I remember when, when we invited Stefan Zagmeister and Jessica Walsh to design our logo, right? I asked Stefan, what's your process? And he told me, well, you briefed me, I'll think for three months and I'm going to show you one option. I was like, wow, that's not my reality. You know, and then, and we briefed him. And then after two and a half months, he presented two options. But he said, I'm only presenting two options because, you know, you work in advertising, so it's fine. And I remember when I asked him, but Stefan, what happens when you present one option, right? What happens if the client doesn't like it?
56:31What happens if they have some feedback? He said, well, I will work on the feedback and then I'm going to present, you know, a revised option. And then I said, yeah, but what happens if the clients still have comments? And then he said, in 20 years doing this, I've never had to do a third option. I was like, oh my God, this is insane. There is so interesting psychology there because when you present someone with options, actually you start to go, I like a bit of that. I like a bit of this. I'm not, you know, actually it creates a little more uncertainty. uncertainty it's a bit like the old thing where um if you if you present one message in an ad people remember it if you present two messages they actually remember less overall because they're like you know they're struggling to compute it's a bit like with ideas which idea was the one again with the dog and which one was the one with the piano i can't really remember you know it's very confusing yeah yeah whereas one idea you know if you like it or not i mean the other thing i think is really important in any pitch situation is that from a client point of view you you listen to how you feel the very moment that you see it.
57:34That is so important because that's how your audience are going to see it and feel it, right? You know, rather than two hours of, let me walk you through the idea. And here are 15 reasons why the idea is on strategy. You know, it's got to be that first response that you want to capture. We have this thing I got that after every presentation, we cut to a slide that says, how are you feeling right now? And every office does that in every presentation because we want to get the visceral reaction first. And then we can be rational and then we can talk about the to-do list of the idea and if it's doing everything that it needs to do.
58:13But the first reaction, the first feedback needs to come from your second brain, which is your gut, not your first brain, right? so we always cut to that slide and it's a thing now and the clients they already expect that it's so powerful and it's very predictive of what happens because I mean at system one we show people an ad and then we at the end we just say how do you feel literally that's that's the first question then afterwards we go why in fact we ask why three times it's quite interesting we kind of go well why do you feel that why is that why is that and then you uncover loads of stuff about you know the gut reaction they had and you learn so much and what do you associate with the ad now you've seen it we don't ask them anything rational we don't ask them what do you remember what was the message or none of that just why do you feel how you feel perfect and that we've shown that that correlates to business success way more than asking any of the rational questions about what's the message what was the brand or you know none yeah because that's what's going to dictate if that ad is going to be forwarded or not you know because if you feel something if i'm laughing or if i'm crying yeah then i want to share that exactly yeah i'm feeling something then i'm like oh you should watch this well we have one we have one actually one other question we also ask is um when they tell us the emotion we then have a scale of that emotions from sort of you know mild to strong and um the intensity as we call it in terms of how strong the emotion is is very predictive sort of thing so you know it's not just that you create emotion but how powerful that emotion is is really important as well and i mean that's what your um yeah that's what your can line when it work does isn't it is that you don't just get it, you really feel it.
59:51Yeah, we are in the business of making people feel something. You know, when you go to watch a movie, right, basically you are choosing the emotion you want to feel. So you go, okay, I want to watch a horror movie because you want to feel scared, right? Or I want to watch, you know, like a drama because I want to cry, I feel like crying. Or I want, you know, I want comedy today because I feel like laughing. We're choosing an emotion and we're paying to have an emotion. And in advertising, we don't talk about that. You know, it's just like, you know, what's the feeling that we want to evoke? And we always try to talk with our clients in terms of, okay, that's the brief.
1:00:33Great. But what's the feeling? That's a really good question. What's the feeling that we want to evoke with this briefing? Yeah. You know, when you think about the final ad, the final idea, right? The execution. When someone sees that, what's the feeling? Do you want that person to laugh, to cry, to think, to be scared? Let's talk about that. There's a fascinating experiment we did actually where we worked out that if you feel better about an ad, all the rational perceptions go up. So for example, let's say you're advertising a bank, right? And in one banking ad you have, you know, we've got the best rate of interest.
1:01:08We have more banking branches anywhere else. We're open 24, let's say, right? you have that and they have another banking ad that doesn't talk about any of that but makes you feel something when we do the survey afterwards and ask people which one had the best rates which one had the best opening hours which one had the best customer service the one that made you feel something scores better than than all on all the rational attributes and the one that actually said those rational attributes it's amazing because that's how it works isn't it is that how the better you feel about a brand the better you feel about everything about it it's almost like the rising tide floats all bones kind of thing and that's what brands miss because they zone in on the functional thing they want to communicate and they don't realize that by making people feel something that that that will follow it's so obvious right it's not i mean it's all about emotion it's obvious but it's amazing how it gets forgotten isn't it or neglected and we don't talk about that enough yeah we tend to be very rational you know like um just a list of things that we need to say and yeah it's just yeah it's hard yeah yeah yeah we need to correct the campaign for more gut reaction.
1:02:10Okay, last question just to finish us off then. Maybe an obvious question for you, but when is gut going to come to London? Because you've opened up in lots of groups. Where are you based now? You've got LA, you've got Miami, Toronto. We are in Miami, LA, Toronto, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam. Ah, so you're in Europe now. Yeah, yeah. Finally, we are in Europe. Amsterdam is amazing. Amsterdam is our first office in Europe. We opened six months ago, but it's just the first, right? But yeah, Yes. I'm in London right now and I love the city. I've always loved London and we'll come here one day, you know, I already have the handle.
1:02:48You bought the handle. Yeah. You know, I've had good London since, you know, five years ago. So one day, one day we'll come to town. I just love the UK market. You know, I grew up buying D &D annuals, even, you know, without knowing English. I would take D &AD annuals to my English teacher and just go page by page. Please tell me everything about that ad. So, yeah, I love the UK market and we'll come. It's not a matter of if, it's when. Great. Well, you're here at a good time because all the Christmas ads are just broken. And, I mean, we measure a system where we measure emotion on a five-star scale, five the highest um the average uh the average is about a two star for you know ads throughout the year uh this year this christmas the average is a four star and and four star is puts you in the top three or four percent of everything on our database so it's a good year it's a very good year yeah i mean you know if you look through most of the year you know the average performance the average emotion evoked from advertising would be about two to two and a half star all through year christmas four star so like all all the agencies all the advertisers do their very very best work at christmas it's become literally the super bowl i mean i mean for us here and it's also lovely because um you know we get invited to talk on in the news yeah about you know who's done the best christmas ad it becomes a conversation on social media there are people arguing getting really upset about which one was better disagreeing with each other so it's just yeah it's a wonderful full time, you know, to be over here and see the work out.
1:04:28Yeah, I want to watch them. I haven't seen them. I want to watch them all. The thing about the holiday ad brief or the Super Bowl brief that I think is funny is sometimes clients come to us and say, okay, here's a Super Bowl brief, right? The sky's the limit, you know, go crazy. We can use celebrities, you know, money's not a problem. just we want to have the most talked about ad in the Super Bowl. Right? And then for all the other briefs for the rest of the year Yeah, yes. It's like, well, you know, we don't have money. Yes, you're right. Don't, you know, don't go crazy here. We need to sell this.
1:05:06And then we, what we say is like, why not every brief should have, every brief should be a Super Bowl brief. I've got the same thing. Every brief should be a holiday brief like with that same ambition because you want that ad to be the best. You want everyone to talk about that ad. And you were saying as a client, you were bringing ambition to the table. You were saying, money's not a problem. I want just to have the best ad ever. But why not? Just for one week? Every brief should be like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? We used to have this campaign when I was growing up, very young. I think it was from the RSPCA, which is a dog charity.
1:05:41And it was a dog is, sorry, dog is for life, not just for Christmas. Yeah. And I'm just like, well, an ad is for life, not just for Christmas. Yeah. It's like, why is it every, And the other thing we worked out actually on our database is the best ads, so the best performance ads by far, as I said, is Christmas. The shortest duration of campaign is also Christmas. So you look throughout the year and the average campaign lasts for, I think it was like nine months or something. And then at Christmas, it's like three weeks. So most of my money is being spent on the shortest duration doing the best work.
1:06:12And most of the year, it's average. When you have a great idea, you don't need a lot of media. you don't need to repeat yeah yeah yeah you know like 1984 Apple it was just you know you ran once yeah and we're still talking about it yeah you know so when you have a great idea the better the idea the less media you need true you know and the less you just target it yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah very good well listen brilliant place to end an ad is for life not just for Christmas I think or not just for the Super Bowl if you're in America yeah yeah brilliant thank you Anselmo it's been amazing having you on the show thanks for having me very special to be here John in London and talking about advertising on life.
1:06:50I really enjoy it. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Cheers. Thank you so much. Cheers. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching.
1:07:21I'll see you next time.
From the publisher
Anselmo Ramos is the co-founder and Creative Chairman of GUT, a global independent creative agency with offices worldwide. He, along with his co-founder Gaston Bigio, opened GUT in 2018 with the goal of being the go-to agency for the world’s biggest brands, including Popeyes, Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Tim Hortons, among others, who are looking to do brave work and long-term bold brand building. Prior to co-founding GUT, Anselmo was the co-founder of award-winning global creative agency DAVID, and he was also previously the Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy Brazil.
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Start
00:01:04 - Why Anselmo is an ad nerd
00:03:12 - Favourite Ogilvy quotes
00:07:38 - Most proud of from time at Ogilvy
00:17:20 - Founding the DAVID agency
00:18:43 - Founding the GUT agency
00:20:55 - Being an independent agency
00:25:35 - Winning business in the early days
00:30:30 - What makes a great CMO?
00:33:00 - How to find good clients
00:37:30 - Agency of the year
00:40:59 - Stand out Grand Prix winners
00:45:29 - The one line brief
00:47:05 - Who else is doing great work?
00:48:46 - Scaling while staying true to your values
01:02:06 - Expansion
