MERCADEO Versión en español
Jessica Apellaniz, Eva Santos, Alvar Suñol and Juan Jose Posada Weigh The Biggest Creative Challenges of 2021
Cristian Vergara| 9 de febrero de 2021
Face to Face Webinar 9 Febrero 2021
The 2021 season of the FIAP Face to Face Webinar, On the Way to the 2021 Summit, started with the participation of four of Ibero-America’s top creatives. On the subject of “Creativdad: El Reto 2021” (Creativity: The Challenge of 2021), Jessica Apellaniz, CCO de Ogilvy Mexico; Eva Santos, Co-CCO & founder of Delirio & Twain; Alvar Suñol, co-president & CCO of Alma DDB; and Juan Jose Posada, president & CCO of Grey Colombia, shared their opinions on the new work models, advertising resilience and the industry’s contribution to economic recovery. “The pandemic was a tag added to all the briefs. As we learned more about the situation, we were able to resolve problems better and more creatively. And yes, we picked up speed out of the need to be relevant in Zoom meetings,” Jessica Apellaniz said to start the conversation. To which Alvar Suñol added that “we have no other choice but to generate new dynamics in our brainstormings. We’ve been learning from them and how to make the most of them. We’re lucky to have a job that can be developed this way. And while we miss many dynamics related to human interaction, we make the most of those temporary individual silences. I can’t stop thinking about how to combine the best we had before with what we’ve achieved now.” For her part, Eva Santos noted how hard this period has been for those just starting out in the profession. “It is a bad time to be a junior. This is a career you learn by doing. In-person meetings work better despite their many interruptions. You have to be patient, and for directors it’s now more complicated to identify talents and how well they will play out,” she said during the talk. Juan Jose Posada followed up with an anecdote about the huge challenge it has been to hold meetings with the camera turned off: “You don’t feel that great talking to a few initials on the screen. This is an additional layer of complexity – not being able to see or perceive your interlocutors’ emotions. I hope we can humanize this process again.” The creatives all agreed that advertising is indispensable for driving economic recovery in the region and that therein lies the huge responsibility of aligning what the brand can do with consumers’ needs in this new context. “Few professionals have the experience across so many sectors of the market as we do, and it’s something we have to keep working on. When the chain is broken in which only the top marketing executive talks to creatives, and the same exec establishes this new communication, the result is a very fruitful conversation for everybody. The thing is, if creative advertising isn’t responsible for reactivating the economy, what is?” Eva Santos said.
