Uncensored CMO

Jon [00:00:06]:
Welcome back, everybody, to uncensored CMO. Now, in this episode, I'm catching up with Anselmo Ramos, who is one of the founders of the gut agency. If you don't know, gut were the most prolific winners at Cannes this year, winning the agency of the year, independent agency of the year as well. Although slightly ironically, news breaking that they have just so since recording this with Anselmo, they have gone on to sell 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 Cannes, how to do creative really well. They've worked on some of the biggest campaigns on the planet, worked for companies like Burger King, stellar Artois and many more. This is a great episode. Anselmo is a real ad nerd.

Jon [00:00:51]:
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. It's a great episode with Anselmo Ramos. Welcome to the show, Anselmo.

Anselmo [00:01:03]:
Thanks for having me.

Jon [00:01:04]:
Let's go back to the beginning. You describe 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?

Anselmo [00:01:13]:
Yeah, I think I became an ad nerd as a consequence of my childhood. I was born and raised in so 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. And then they sent me to a german school, Rudolf Steiner. It's a Waldorf pedagogy.

Anselmo [00:01:44]:
And it's just a very creative environment. 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 kneel. I can knit a sweater for you if you want.

Jon [00:02:04]:
This is great. Yeah. So uncensored cmos, we would do like a bright yellow uncensored sweater. Yes, it's great.

Anselmo [00:02:10]:
So 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, I always. I 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, I 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.

Anselmo [00:02:56]:
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. And in a way, I'm still looking for that validation. But now just making ads now we'll.

Jon [00:03:13]:
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 you were at Ogilvy for many years, chief creative officer. How was that? And what inspired you about Ogilvy? And have you got a favorite Ogilvy quote?

Anselmo [00:03:28]:
For example, when I came back to Brazil after twelve years abroad, I was 2007. It was a big job to change OGV Brazil. It was a very profitable agency. I think it was top five revenue wise in the OGV network, but it was number 47 in creativity. So we had to change that culture. And the thing that we did, we basically reminded everyone about who David Ogilvy was, because he 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.

Anselmo [00:04:05]:
It was about just reminding everyone about all the great things that David Ogvi 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 our industry is so serious right now.

Anselmo [00:04:29]:
Right? A lot of the work, if you go to cannon, 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.

Jon [00:05:03]:
Ironically, it's more true than when he wrote it properly, isn't it? As in we, you know, there's less humor than there used to be.

Anselmo [00:05:09]:
Yeah.

Jon [00:05:09]:
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.

Anselmo [00:05:16]:
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 brands tend to be very serious, and I really feel that brands should take themselves less seriously because the Internet is just, you know, it's fun. It's very stupid.

Jon [00:05:35]:
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.

Anselmo [00:05:42]:
It's memes.

Jon [00:05:42]:
You know, I mean, one of the, as a, as a client, of course, one of the quotes I like is if it doesn't sell, it isn't creative. Totally. And, like, so important that creativity is there to make a difference, isn't it, in terms of your business? And that's something that can be forgotten often in the relationship.

Anselmo [00:06:00]:
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 I like. The consumer is not a moron. She's your wife. You know, that's very David Ogilvy, and I think that's true. You know, consumers are very smart.

Anselmo [00:06:27]:
Sometimes we dumb 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.

Jon [00:06:38]:
We operate in such a bubble, don't we, as well. We forget who the customer actually is very often. I love can, but I think some of the danger with can is that we celebrate the things that we want to celebrate. We forget to actually, the people out there that really matter.

Anselmo [00:06:55]:
Exactly. They are the ones that need to like it.

Jon [00:06:57]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [00:06:57]:
Before, Ken, during, you know.

Jon [00:06:59]:
Yeah, exactly. Now, one other quote I was going to run by, which I thought was, which I thought was great, is talent is the most likely. Talent is most likely to be found amongst the dissidents, non conformists and rebels. That's pretty cool.

Anselmo [00:07:10]:
I love that one. And it's true, you know, it's true sometimes. And, you know, that happens a gut. We have some really talented people, but usually they're the difficult ones.

Jon [00:07:20]:
Yes, yes.

Anselmo [00:07:20]:
And, yeah, talent comes with a price.

Jon [00:07:23]:
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 got a vision for very stubborn. Yeah.

Anselmo [00:07:30]:
And sometimes they're a pain to ass. They just want to do great work, you know, and. Yeah, so it comes with that passion, you know, it comes with that add nerdiness.

Jon [00:07:38]:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So as you look back at your time at Ogilvy, what, what stands out as the. What are you most proud of from that, that time in your career?

Anselmo [00:07:47]:
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 Cannes. And that was a first for any OGV office ever. And it was amazing. Right? And we were doing work for Unilever, Coca Cola, a lot of great brands. And the work that I'm most proud about is real beauty sketches. There is a before and after about at work 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 know, it works like that.

Anselmo [00:08:31]:
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.

Jon [00:08:47]:
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, and what most clients need is to avoid risk of something going wrong. So how did you get kind of. How do you get the support to do something?

Anselmo [00:09:03]:
Well, 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. 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 going to work based on what we know about, you know, women's nature, which is not a lot, but we think it's gonna work.

Anselmo [00:09:41]:
But this is a social experiment, so it is an experiment. So the only way to find out is by actually doing it. And you need to be ready to, you know, 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 want to control everything, the KPI's, and they want to make sure it's going to work. But some of the best ideas, from my experience, you have the feeling of uncertainty. You don't know what's going to happen, because if you know everything, that means that it has been done before.

Anselmo [00:10:34]:
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.

Jon [00:10:46]:
Yeah, it's funny actually, because probably the most creative work I've done, in fact, it won two can lines. 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. It 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, that moment to pass. So firstly, it was just about the.

Jon [00:11:17]:
Because they understood the brand really well and we were working together very regularly. They had the permission just to come and pitch it. The serendipity of it was, it was just the end of our financial year and the day before, finance has said to me, youve got about 300,000 pounds in your budget. I did a media rebate and I hadnt expected it. It was more than I was expecting. And they said if you dont spend it, were going to have to give it back. I was in a position where I was being pitched an idea and I had this money I wasnt expecting. I said to the team, just do it.

Jon [00:11:50]:
And 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 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. Even just you talking about it, I can feel the kind of feel the magic in it. And the only thing I said in terms of feedback, it's quite amusing, is I said at the end of the ad, I want you to add at least 3 seconds of nothing. And, well, why? Because I want every, I want the feeling you've created to stay before you go to the next ad.

Anselmo [00:12:27]:
That's amazing.

Jon [00:12:28]:
So actually I want you to build in just, you know, you need end of 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 3 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. I 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.

Jon [00:12:56]:
And you kind of didn't, you 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 KPI's. It must do this, it must be ready then. And also they were willing just to pitch the idea to me. And we 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.

Anselmo [00:13:26]:
That's amazing, John. I love that story. We do the same. We say something 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, because we're a bunch of ad nerds, everything we see, everything we watched, every trip we take, we're thinking, how can we use this for our brands? It'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.

Anselmo [00:14:15]:
You know, what about this? What about that? And sometimes it gets to a point, the clients tell us, please stop, you know, 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 slide deck to present a great idea.

Jon [00:14:52]:
I 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? 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 gonna launch new products, or every year we always advertise in June, you know, so 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 gonna dispense with the, you know, the calendar and we're going to work kind of continuously.

Anselmo [00:15:28]:
Yeah, but I think that that's the modern advertising. You know, sometimes we call it hack vertizing or react vertizing or fast advertising. 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's talking about. There's always a bigger conversation than your brand. When you understand that, you brief in a different way, you become a little more humble. You understand that maybe you can adapt to the conversation, you can join a conversation, you can react to something that's happening instead of trying to plan everything.

Anselmo [00:16:30]:
So that's why I think modern marketers understand the importance of losing control and setting aside a budget for practical ideas.

Jon [00:16:41]:
That makes so much sense. Well, we're in a position now where lots of consumers are paying to avoid you.

Anselmo [00:16:47]:
Totally, exactly.

Jon [00:16:49]:
So you need to earn the rights to get, you know, get, you know, get their attention. I can't remember, the quote was, I can't remember which famous person said this, but it's like 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, shoot the consumer, I need to look it up. I can't remember 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 Gus and how you work, but just before we do, just fill in the gap between Ogilvy and. So you founded David, didn't you? Which I thought was clever, because presumably the idea was from David Ogilvy. Was it like the first name to the second name? So what was it like being a founder? Going from being in a very big agency, very successfully grown up, to most creative, what was it like starting out as effectively as a founder, right.

Jon [00:17:43]:
For the first time?

Anselmo [00:17:44]:
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 Ogvi's first name, right? And 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 that idea. And I. And we started David, you know, and it was amazing. It was an amazing experience because we learned how to open an agency on their dime.

Anselmo [00:18:19]:
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. You know, we were there for five years. It was 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.

Anselmo [00:18:54]:
And 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 Cannes at the Martinez table 57. That's when gusto and I decided to open gut. And right there, the name decision was very fast. You know, we said, okay, we need a name.

Anselmo [00:19:26]:
And then we remember that got was an option, you know, like five years ago. We said, remember? God, that was a great name.

Jon [00:19:33]:
Oh, so was it a potential name for David.

Anselmo [00:19:35]:
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 God agency, and I showed it to Gaston, and then he got immediately worried, oh, my God, this is happening. Yes, it's happening.

Jon [00:19:51]:
You got the website now.

Anselmo [00:19:53]:
Exactly. We have a website, so it's real now. And then I spent the whole night reserving social media handles. Got Miami, got Toronto, got Mexico City, got Sao Paulo, got London, got Tokyo, got Singapore. I got them all. And next day I showed it to Gaston. He couldn't believe it. He was like, what kind of partner I have? This is crazy.

Anselmo [00:20:18]:
And now we're using seven out of them. We have seven offices, so we're using them. But that's the power of manifestation. Right from the very beginning, we were thinking really big. We wanted to start an agency, to be the best, the best independent agency in the world. That was always our dream. But, yeah, it was a different experience. I took a second mortgage on my house.

Anselmo [00:20:44]:
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 going to be without a salary for two years. So it became a family thing.

Jon [00:20:56]:
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.

Anselmo [00:21:13]:
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. You know, so we. We enjoyed our freedom, and we were saying no to clients, you know, our first hire was jize, 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, she say, can I buy espresso? And she'll say, yes.

Anselmo [00:21:47]:
A single one, not a double, you know, and we learned so much, you know, because we had to decide everything, you know, what's gonna 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.

Jon [00:22:05]:
There's huge amount of operation, isn't there? I did private equity for a few years, and 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 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.

Anselmo [00:22:35]:
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 nonstop, build the 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, you know, and relationships not based on golf or both or, you know, it's just based on great work. And that's it. If you have that, you can have an agency.

Jon [00:23:11]:
Well, 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?

Anselmo [00:23:29]:
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.

Jon [00:23:38]:
And 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 was it going to be different to what?

Anselmo [00:23:51]:
I think our name says it all. 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.

Anselmo [00:24:18]:
And so from the very beginning, we have. We had clarity about who we are and who we are not, because strategy is about choices. And we always said in one line, we're 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.

Anselmo [00:24:45]:
But we had a very clear brand positioning, because agencies. We sell brand positioning to our clients all the time. But a lot of agencies sometimes don't know who they are. They don't have a brand position for themselves. So we always treated God as a brand, and it's our most important brand. So we have a brand book and we have a brand positioning, a brand personality, tone of manner. We have all that. So we take that very seriously.

Jon [00:25:14]:
Who is your first client?

Anselmo [00:25:16]:
Our first client in Latin America was Mercado livery. And then it was Tim Hortons, our client in Canada at Gut Toronto. That was one of our first clients. We started to work them project based, and then they became our AOR in Toronto.

Jon [00:25:37]:
So in those early days, how did you go about winning? Because obviously you needed to win quite a lot of new customers, didn't you? Potentially. So how did you generate new customers in the early stages?

Anselmo [00:25:47]:
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. 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.

Jon [00:26:10]:
And actually something you said as well, which really struck me was the phrase indies help indies.

Anselmo [00:26:16]:
Oh, yeah.

Jon [00:26:16]:
Which is so true, isn't it? And, you know, I think in corporate life, well, I was going to the alternatives. 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 smaller and independent agency or business, it's almost like everyone's very happy to collaborate, even with their competition kind of thing. Because we're better together and we've got more to gain by helping each other out. So it's very different indies. Very different feeling.

Anselmo [00:26:43]:
Indies love helping indies, right? I have a very good relationship with Aaron from rethink. We talk all the time. We help each other. Like Niels from uncommon. I met him in person a couple weeks ago in London. He's great. And he came and he talked to the whole God network, 500 people. And I was interviewing Niels.

Anselmo [00:27:07]:
That's so generous. And then even before we open 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? 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.

Anselmo [00:27:38]:
So now there's no way back. We have to do it, otherwise we're going to look really bad.

Jon [00:27:42]:
You're on the hook now.

Anselmo [00:27:43]:
Yeah. We have to do it.

Jon [00:27:44]:
Yeah. What advice did he give you?

Anselmo [00:27:46]:
He just told us to do it. He said, if you have that feeling, you should follow that feeling. You can totally do it.

Jon [00:27:54]:
Because I think one of the challenges 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, with these things, it's more in our own heads, isn't it, than anything else.

Anselmo [00:28:13]:
Totally. The timing is never right. There's no right time, it's always the wrong time. But if you really want to do it, you need to have a very strong feeling. But if you have that feeling, you just have to follow that feeling. You need to have that desire and then. And you have to believe that's gonna work. You have to.

Anselmo [00:28:37]:
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.

Jon [00:28:54]:
Now, going back to clients. Course, you've had a few clients come back, right? So we talked about Fernando Machado. He's still a client, isn't he now?

Anselmo [00:29:01]:
Yes, we're starting to work again now. He's at Notco. So yeah, we're starting to work on some projects with him. Yeah, it's the 6th brand that we are working together. It's crazy.

Jon [00:29:13]:
It shows the importance, doesn't it, of the personal relationship and trust between you and the client that. Well, I often say to people, actually don't follow brands. Follow people.

Anselmo [00:29:22]:
Yes.

Jon [00:29:23]:
I remember working on quite a funny story, but I was working on, when I was in my private equity, I didn't have very much money. I 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 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, 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.

Jon [00:29:56]:
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 end up taking. But following the person rather than the brand is.

Anselmo [00:30:07]:
Every business is about people, but in our business, I think it's even more it's relationship business, and it's always about the person behind the brand. Sometimes people say, oh, what kind of brands you like to work with? Well, it depends, because if you have a great CMO, a grey CMO can do great work with any brand.

Jon [00:30:32]:
What makes a great CMO?

Anselmo [00:30:34]:
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. We 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 gray Samoa is open to agency practice, idea and agency passion, right? And then 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. You know, I always say that if one day I become CMO, I would just, I just like to be known as the approver.

Anselmo [00:31:49]:
I just approve things. Yes, do this. Yes, do that. 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 ears, just having meetings and decks and feedback sessions, right? And I believe in the executing and I believe in test and learn, test and learn. The more you do, the better you get, because nobody knows anything. The Internet is great at giving you feedback. Just put something out there and pray and see what happens.

Anselmo [00:32:30]:
And the Internet will tell you very quickly if they like it or not. So you learn.

Jon [00:32:34]:
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.

Jon [00:33:02]:
It's quite a rare person you 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. You know, how, I guess, how do you assess your clients, really, in terms of you want to work with?

Anselmo [00:33:17]:
Yeah, I think at the beginning of God, in the first couple of years of God, we were all about bravery, and it was a bit too much. We were like, sometimes we would get 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. We 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.

Anselmo [00:33:58]:
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. How dare you? So it was a very interesting tool to assess what kind of clients they would be, right? That was at the beginning of God. And then we kept saying, we're a brave is 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 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.

Anselmo [00:34:52]:
There's no such thing as you are brave and you are not brave. Okay? Brave. Bravery is a choice. It's a daily, conscious choice. And 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 ten. And it's a scale, right? Zero is completely dominated by fear, and ten is there's no other way to live.

Anselmo [00:35:22]:
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 they were a two or a three, and now they're seven or eight. And usually, from our experience, it takes one year per stage. Right. So 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.

Anselmo [00:35:54]:
You know, it takes time. The problem is, when you are going down the bravery scale, that's when we have to talk. Maybe we're not right for each other.

Jon [00:36:04]:
That's right. Well, big respect for doing that because I think it's. I mean, it can sound a little bit arrogant. So 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? And do we know what we're going to get? I remember asking Fernando when he was on the podcast going, when you're applying for a new job, you think about a new job. Is there a risk for that? They're going to hire you. And he goes, you hire Fernando Machado, you get Fernando Machado. It's like, 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 very good, answers the question.

Anselmo [00:36:43]:
I think every agency out there should do a reverse RFI. I really think that the whole industry should do it because it's like a date. We'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. You know, I think it should be both sides choosing.

Jon [00:37:09]:
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.

Anselmo [00:37:16]:
Oh, I love that.

Jon [00:37:17]:
We'll put the price up 25.

Anselmo [00:37:18]:
I saw Nils that I want to. I'm going to steal that. I join Niels, I'm going to steal that idea. And I think the whole industry should.

Jon [00:37:24]:
Do that, particularly with your always on idea.

Anselmo [00:37:26]:
Right?

Jon [00:37:26]:
If you. If you're constantly coming up and people are putting their passion, energy into all these ideas, that would make loads of sense, wouldn't it?

Anselmo [00:37:31]:
I love that idea.

Jon [00:37:32]:
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?

Anselmo [00:37:44]:
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. We take this very seriously and, yeah, and ever since June we've been crying almost every day and we're still processing what happened there and all the learnings and, 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.

Anselmo [00:38:48]:
We had a soccer World cup. The final was Brazil and Argentina. Of course, Brazil won in that case. And it was so emotional to have everyone there and Gaston and I, we shared 25 lessons from the first five years and it was a very emotional moment. But yeah, this year in Cannes was just historical and it was magical, you know, very, very hard to repeat what.

Jon [00:39:20]:
Were the, what were the biggest of those lessons or what are the ones that stick out the most?

Anselmo [00:39:25]:
One lesson is to have your priorities right. And our priorities are people first, work second, clients last. And 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 going to 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.

Anselmo [00:39:58]:
Right. And then people suffer or they put clients first. They would do whatever the client wants, but then that's not necessarily a good thing. So, yeah, we have our priorities in a very clear way.

Jon [00:40:15]:
Yeah, that makes complete sense. So I love your first meeting 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? 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.

Anselmo [00:40:39]:
The best clients understand.

Jon [00:40:41]:
Yeah, exactly. It's a very good way of filtering out the non serious clients because you're right, the right clients will actually respect and appreciate and get it immediately. It's a good way of weeding out the clients you don't want really. So you won, obviously won the big accolade at Cannes this year and also ad week 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 kind of stand out for you? I know it's a collection now of winners, but what were you most proud of this year?

Anselmo [00:41:11]:
Yeah, this year was crazy. We won three grand Prix in three different categories and we love the one for peridos. Yeah. You know, the cup, that's my favorite.

Jon [00:41:23]:
Total World cup wins.

Anselmo [00:41:24]:
That was incredible.

Jon [00:41:26]:
Just describe it for anyone listening how.

Anselmo [00:41:28]:
That it's a very simple idea, perilously is delivery app, right? And basically we sent a push notification to the whole country saying your order is on the way. Right.

Jon [00:41:43]:
And then just context for everyone listening as well. This is just after World cup.

Anselmo [00:41:48]:
Yes, exactly. Right after.

Jon [00:41:50]:
And Argentina have just won. Right?

Anselmo [00:41:51]:
Exactly. So we just sent a push notification of the whole country in Argentina saying your order is on the way. And people got really pissed like, I didn't order anything. What the fuck is happening? Petito's. Yeah, 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.

Jon [00:42:17]:
Yes.

Anselmo [00:42:17]:
Because we linked them, the app, the pediatric app with the flight carrying the cup.

Jon [00:42:26]:
When it says how far away is your order? You can track it. You can see where the World cup.

Anselmo [00:42:30]:
Is going to actually track the cup coming to Argentina. And then when people realized that that was the order, they loved it. Oh my God, that was amazing. Thank you so much. So it was a prank and it was a very simple idea. It was a push notification idea. Cost was zero.

Jon [00:42:52]:
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 you nothing.

Anselmo [00:43:02]:
And it was a proactive idea.

Jon [00:43:03]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [00:43:04]:
Right. It was done in two days.

Jon [00:43:06]:
Oh, was it?

Anselmo [00:43:06]:
Yeah, we presented to the client what.

Jon [00:43:08]:
So this is literally straight after Argentina won the World cup.

Anselmo [00:43:11]:
Right. And it wasn't brief.

Jon [00:43:13]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [00:43:13]:
You know, it's a very good example of a practical idea. We said, hey, what if we do this right? And yeah, it was a great proactive idea from gut Buenos Aires. Just perfect.

Jon [00:43:24]:
It's very, very clever.

Anselmo [00:43:25]:
The other one that we like a lot is the stellar Artois idea, the Artois probability, right. It'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 twice from 1366. And then we said, wait a minute, maybe it's related, right? Maybe some of these beer could be stellar trois. So what if we try to find, you know, if it's actually stellar trois? And then using data, we analyzed each glass in terms of, you know, the. The type of glass, the color of the liquid, the distance between, you know, where the painting was generated in the brewery. So a lot of different, you know, data inputs. And then we created like a percentage, you know.

Anselmo [00:44:18]:
Okay, so this painting by Hanoi has 67% of Artois probability. And that was the idea. Right?

Jon [00:44:26]:
That's genius.

Anselmo [00:44:26]:
Yeah. We like the line at the end of the case study that says we'll never know if van Gogh painted ista trois. But he probably did.

Jon [00:44:34]:
He probably did. That's absolutely brilliant. We were talking about Orlando earlier and his book, and it reminded me of that so much because he uses 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 to actually spot 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 or the bar or the social meeting house or where people got together to socialize.

Jon [00:45:04]:
That was so much part of the.

Anselmo [00:45:05]:
Yeah, the idea was there in front of us and nobody did it. So. And that's the beauty of when you see an idea like that, you go, I cannot believe that it hasn't been done before. You know, it's kind of obvious.

Jon [00:45:18]:
Only obvious after you see it, though. I mean, again, when I saw it, I'm like, this is unusual because you got the music and the paintings coming, all the paintings over the years. It's beautifully done. So very, very well done. Am I right in saying that anyone in your agency can answer any brieftain at any time as well? Because you talk about one line briefs, don't you, as being.

Anselmo [00:45:39]:
Yeah, yeah. We tend to share, like, what the brand's 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. Yeah, we don't want. We 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.

Anselmo [00:46:07]:
This is the brand positioning to all the creatives. So they know that when they come up with an idea, it's going to be hundred percent on brand, you know, and it's going to be driving business results because it's addressing something very concrete, you know, about the brand. And sometimes we write like a one line brief. It's just like a one line and that's the line, you know.

Jon [00:46:28]:
So what was a really good example of one line brief that you've had?

Anselmo [00:46:31]:
We 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 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 results. But we try to find that for all the clients because it just makes everything so simple.

Jon [00:47:08]:
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 who's doing some cool stuff?

Anselmo [00:47:19]:
I think uncommon is doing great work. It's refresh, 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 Wyden right. And the marketing agency, because again, we, 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.

Anselmo [00:47:46]:
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. You 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, Cliff Freeman and fellow Magelligot and Ebon mid Vickers and, you know, all the classics, right. Did beverage Bill Barenbach. They need to know of that. And a lot of people don't know.

Anselmo [00:48:22]:
So they need to study the history of advertising. So that's important, but also important just to, you know, know, what's the latest meme and watch, you know, a new movie by a 24 and just read everything and just be curious about life, you know.

Jon [00:48:38]:
Now you've had an incredible. Five years since you found it. I mean, I guess you went from table 57 to the creative agency, the year it can 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 now you employ. How many people do you employ? 500. Plus 577 offices around the world. More coming soon, hopefully.

Jon [00:49:04]:
How do you keep the spirit of what you've created and make sure that you're always going to be at the top of your game creatively?

Anselmo [00:49:12]:
Yeah, 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 branding thing, you know, we treat God as a brand. So we have the brand positioning, the brand values and personality. We write principles, so we have 20 principles. We keep writing them, and we just take that very seriously.

Anselmo [00:49:46]:
We have names for things. We do naming, labeling. We say, oh, let's show the client a gut x ray, which is a version of the credentials, or, let's do a gut punch is an idea that is like a gut punch. 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. As we grow, how can we keep the gut culture strong? And we talk about culture all the time. You know, we sometimes we invite gutsy guest speakers, and all of us jump on a.

Anselmo [00:50:35]:
On a Zoom call, and we talk, you know, with a 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.

Jon [00:51:05]:
How would you. So how would you describe that culture for someone who's not familiar with Gus?

Anselmo [00:51:11]:
It's brave culture. It's all about bravery, trying to do brave things. And we use gutsy, you know, as a word. We always say that, oh, she's gutsy, or he's not gutsy. That's how we describe someone. A potential candidate or a talent. You know, it's. It's a very strong culture.

Anselmo [00:51:34]:
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.

Jon [00:51:56]:
I need to say it now, you.

Anselmo [00:51:58]:
Know, maybe it's a big culture, you know, but you cannot write culture without cult, you 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're. They really want to do great work. And they know that we, 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.

Anselmo [00:52:39]:
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? So love is very tangible, and clients feel that, right. You cannot fake love, but it's very tangible.

Anselmo [00:53:01]:
You know, clients are very smart. They know if you really love the business or not.

Jon [00:53:06]:
Absolutely. 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 used to say, really, really simple is passion can take you a hell of a long way in front of a client if they feel that you really understand them and that you're really passionate about solving the problem. That is worth a thousand slides. 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.

Anselmo [00:53:42]:
It was.

Jon [00:53:43]:
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 the passion than on any. Have they got the model? Have they got the tea or creds or whatever? It was much more about that.

Anselmo [00:54:07]:
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.

Jon [00:54:31]:
I believe you, actually, I do. 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 of these three ideas was the right one. And 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. It's like, well, I'm not here to choose between a menu of options.

Jon [00:54:51]:
I'm here to get the best possible answers to the brief. Which one is it?

Anselmo [00:54:55]:
It's like when an agency goes and present eight brilliant ideas, it's very hard to have eight brilliant ideas. So from our experience, every time we go with one idea, especially in a pitch, that's amazing because, okay, that's the one. And even if you don't win, it's okay because you had a very strong conviction and you said, that's the one that we would do if we were in your shoes. But sometimes we give you too many options and it's just like, okay, then you do it.

Jon [00:55:31]:
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? I'm not sure. I like a bit of this. I could be that. And you end up with a hybrid of all. You know, it actually makes it more.

Anselmo [00:55:43]:
Complicated than I remember 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 would 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, um. And we brief 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 then 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? What happens if they have some feedback? He said, well, I will work on the feedback, and then I'm going to present 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.

Jon [00:56:53]:
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. Creates a little more uncertainty. It's a bit like the old thing where if you present one message in an ad, people remember it. If you present two messages, they actually remember less overall because 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.

Anselmo [00:57:20]:
It's very confusing.

Jon [00:57:21]:
Yeah. Whereas one idea, if you like it or not, the other thing I think is really important in any pitch situation, is that from a client point of view, you listen to how you feel the very moment that you see it. That is so important because that's how your audience are going to see it and feel it. Right? Rather than 2 hours of let me walk you through the idea, and here are 15 reasons why the idea is on strategy. It's got to be that first response you want to capture.

Anselmo [00:57:48]:
We have this thing, God, that after every presentation, we cut twice light 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. But 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 expect, it's so powerful.

Jon [00:58:30]:
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 the first question. Then afterwards we go, why? In fact, we asked why three times. It's quite interesting. We kind of go, well, why'd 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. 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? And we've shown that that correlates to business success way more than asking any of the rational questions about what was the message, what was the brand? None of that.

Anselmo [00:59:09]:
Yeah, because that's what's going to dictate if that ad is going to be forwarded or not. Because if you feel something, if I'm laughing or if I'm crying, then I want to share that.

Jon [00:59:19]:
Exactly.

Anselmo [00:59:20]:
Because I'm feeling something, then I'm like, oh, you should watch this.

Jon [00:59:23]:
Well, we have one, actually, one other question we also ask is when they tell us the emotion, we then have a scale of that emotions from sort of mild to strong. And the intensity, as we call it, in terms of how strong the emotion is, is very predictive sort of thing. So 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 can line winning work does, isn't it, is that you don't just get it, you really feel it. And yeah, we are in the sense.

Anselmo [00:59:52]:
Of making people feel something. You know, it's, you know, when you go to watch a movie, right, you 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, but 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, great. But what's the feeling?

Jon [01:00:35]:
That's a really good question.

Anselmo [01:00:36]:
What's the feeling that we want to evoke with this briefing? Yeah, you know, when you think about the final ads, the final idea, 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.

Jon [01:00:52]:
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, and in one banking ad, you have, we've got the best rate of interest. We have more banking branches anywhere else. We're open 24. Let's say you have that, 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 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? The better you feel about a brand, the better you feel about everything about it. It's almost like the rising tide floats all boats kind of thing.

Jon [01:01:40]:
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 will follow secondary.

Anselmo [01:01:48]:
It's so obvious, right? It's not. I mean, it's all about emotion.

Jon [01:01:52]:
It's obvious, but it's amazing how it gets forgotten, isn't it? Or neglected.

Anselmo [01:01:55]:
And we don't talk about that enough. We tend to be very rational, you know, like just a list of things that we need to say, and it's just. Yeah, it's hard.

Jon [01:02:05]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to correct the campaign for more gut reaction. Okay, last question, just to finish this off, then maybe an obvious question for you. But when is gut gonna come to London? Because you've opened up in lots of great. So where are you based now? You got lA, you got Miami, Toronto?

Anselmo [01:02:21]:
We are in Miami, La, Toronto, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, and Amsterdam. Yeah, finally we are in Europe. Amsterdam is our first office in Europe. We opened six months ago, but it's just the first, right? But, 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.

Jon [01:02:48]:
You bought the handle? Yeah.

Anselmo [01:02:51]:
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 DT annuals. Even without knowing English. I would take DNA Daniels to my english teacher and just go page by page. Please tell me everything about that ad.

Anselmo [01:03:14]:
So, yeah, I love the UK market, and we'll come. It's not a matter of if, it's when.

Jon [01:03:22]:
Great. Well, you're here at a good time because all the Christmas ads have just broken. And, I mean, we measure a system where we measure emotion on a five star scale. Five bit high. The average. The average is about two star for ads throughout the year. This year, this Christmas, the average is a four star. And four star puts you in the top three or 4% of everything on our day to day.

Anselmo [01:03:44]:
So it's a good year.

Jon [01:03:45]:
It's a very good year. If you look through most of the year. The average emotion evoked from advertising would be about two to two and a half star all through a year, Christmas, four star that all the agencies, all the advertisers do their very, very best work at Christmas. It's become literally the Super bowl for us here. And it's also lovely because we get invited to talk in the news about 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. It's just.

Jon [01:04:23]:
Yeah, it's a wonderful time, you know, to be over here and see the workout.

Anselmo [01:04:28]:
Yeah, 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 it's 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.

Anselmo [01:04:51]:
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.

Jon [01:05:00]:
Yeah, yeah.

Anselmo [01:05:01]:
It's like, well, you know, we don't have money.

Jon [01:05:03]:
You're right.

Anselmo [01:05:03]:
Don't, you know, don't go crazy here. We need to sell this. And then we. What we say is like, why not? Every brief should have. Every brief should be a Super bowl brief.

Jon [01:05:13]:
I've got the same, you know, every.

Anselmo [01:05:15]:
Brief should be a holiday brief. Like, with that same ambition.

Jon [01:05:18]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [01:05:18]:
Because you want the ad to be the best. You want everyone to talk about the 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, briefly, like that? Yeah, yeah.

Jon [01:05:35]:
We used to have this. We used to have this campaign when I was growing up, very young. I think it's from the RSPCA, which is a dog charity. And it was a dog is. Sorry. Dog is for life, not just for Christmas. And I'm just like, well, an ad is for life, not just for Christmas. It's like, why is it every.

Jon [01:05:48]:
And the other thing we worked out, actually, on our database, is the best ads. So the best performance fans, 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.

Anselmo [01:06:07]:
Yeah.

Jon [01:06:07]:
So most amount of money is being spent on the shortest duration, doing the best work, and most of the year, it's average.

Anselmo [01:06:15]:
When you have a great idea, you don't need a lot of media, you do need to repeat.

Jon [01:06:19]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anselmo [01:06:20]:
You know, like 1984, Apple, it was just, you know, random once.

Jon [01:06:25]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [01:06:25]:
And we're still talking about it.

Jon [01:06:27]:
Yeah.

Anselmo [01:06:27]:
You know, so when you have a great idea, the better the idea, the less media you need.

Jon [01:06:32]:
True. You know, and then target. 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.

Anselmo [01:06:41]:
Yeah, yeah.

Jon [01:06:42]:
Brilliant. Thank you, Anselmo. It's been amazing having you on, having you on the show.

Anselmo [01:06:45]:
Thank you for having me. Very special to be here joining London in talking about advertising on life. I really enjoy it. Thank you.

Jon [01:06:52]:
Right. Thank you. Cheers.

Anselmo [01:06:53]:
Thank you so much. Cheers.

Jon [01:06:54]:
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 at me, you can do.

Jon [01:07:14]:
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. I'll see you next time.