Insights

What is the very best career advice you’ve ever received? At my very first job at Digitas as a marketing associate, my manager at the time told me “As account people, we are constantly juggling multiple things on less than ideal timelines; some things are made of glass others are made of rubber. Mistakes are inevitable but it’s imperative we know which ones will break if dropped and which will bounce back.”  I can’t remember what prompted this conversation but I would guess I probably had gone to her to confess I’d done something terribly wrong (the fact I can’t…

If you could attribute one other person or life event to your success, who or what would it be and why? When I graduated from university with an advertising degree (yes, those exist) and a few copywriting internships under my belt, I thought securing a job would take a matter of weeks.  After all, I had, what I thought, was the single most important quality to get into a creative department: passion. We all know how this story goes; the ingredient to get into a creative department does start with “P” but it isn’t passion, it’s portfolio school. And after…

México cuenta con una rica tradición en artes, cultura y gastronomía que es amada y respetada en todo el mundo. Sin embargo, durante mucho tiempo el país ha sido pasado por alto como fuente de talento para la industria publicitaria y, lo que es aún peor, como un mercado de consumo dinámico y diverso. No obstante, una confluencia de factores parece estar impulsando a México a convertirse en un jugador cada vez más relevante en la industria publicitaria y como un público objetivo para las oportunidades de marketing global. En cuanto al talento, cada vez más agencias están abriendo oficinas…

Las agencias de relaciones públicas tradicionales están perdiendo la oportunidad de expandir sus negocios y ampliar el alcance de sus responsabilidades con clientes globales, dejando sobre la mesa sumas considerables de dinero al no integrar la creatividad en su modelo de negocio. Atribuyo esta falta de visión al mismo miedo al cambio que mantuvo rezagadas a las agencias de publicidad tradicionales durante años, ya que separaban los medios, lo digital, la creación de contenido, los datos y el análisis, y otras disciplinas en compartimentos estancos. Incluso cuando las compañías holding fusionaron esos compartimentos en redes masivas “integradas”, la misma mentalidad…

Mexico boasts a rich tradition of arts, culture, and gastronomy that is loved and respected worldwide. But the country has long been overlooked as a source of talent for the advertising industry and, even worse, as a dynamic and diverse consumer market. But a confluence of events seems to be driving Mexico to become a bigger and bigger player in the advertising industry and as a target audience for global marketing opportunities. On the talent side, more agencies are opening offices in Mexico, including Gut, Isla, Wieden + Kennedy, We Believers, Circus Marketing/Media Monks and David. They join global agencies,…

Traditional PR firms are missing an opportunity to expand their businesses and the boundaries of their remits with global clients, and leaving serious money on the table, by failing to integrate the creative discipline into their business model. I attribute this failure of vision to the same fear of change that held back traditional ad agencies for years as they kept media, digital, content creation, data and analytics and other disciplines in silos. Even as holding companies merged those agency silos into massive “integrated” networks, the same silo mentality has held sway inside the PR agency sense of purpose. Speaking…

If you could attribute your success to one other person or life event, who or what would it be and why? Hunter: Being a “Hunter S.” and partnering with a “Thompson” to become ‘Hunter S. & Thompson’ was almost a cosmic level coincidence. The only better naming would have been if we were Samuel and Jackson. Creative partnerships are like a marriage—if you find the right one, stick with them. Thompson: Same answer, but reversed. Borrowing from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” we’re the advertising version of Leon finding his Mary Ferguson. Although, I’m not sure if I’m Leon or Mary? Probably…

Hace unos años, trabajé con un Director de Comunicaciones (CCO) muy exitoso. Al buscar a un Director Creativo Ejecutivo (ECD), noté que cada vez que le presentaban a un candidato fuera de su red de contactos, comenzaba cada conservación enfocándose en por qué esa persona no sería adecuada para el puesto. Predominaban las percepciones negativas por sobre las positivas, impulsadas por el temor a lo desconocido. Finalmente, la empresa contrató a alguien dentro de la red del CCO. Encontrar personas con las que disfrutas trabajar es difícil, por lo que, cuando lo consigues, tiene sentido que quieras aferrarte tanto como…