There's A New Creative Leader In Town

When McCann’s first work for its recently won client Peroni breaks, the UK will get its first taste of how Emiliano Gonzalez De Pietri does creativity. But for now, let’s just say he was a pivotal factor in the agency’s triumph in the Peroni pitch.

And in the meantime, let us tell you a little bit about McCann’s new London CCO. Born in Milan, brought up in Madrid and later educated in New York, De Pietri is the archetypal global citizen. He’s worked in Spain (including a 12-year spell at Ogilvy in Madrid), followed by stints for Grey in Peru, Colombia, New York and fleetingly, (because he was trapped in Spain during the pandemic), in London, before reuniting with his boss Javier Campopiano at McCann. After four years back in Madrid, he’s now taking over the agency's UK creative leadership and is relishing the prospect of working in the city that Covid denied him.

So what really floats De Pietri’s creative boat? Well, let’s ask him

Creative Salon: Tell us about your route to advertising, was it always your dream?

Emiliano De Pietri: I originally wanted to be a journalist. I went to Sarah Lawrence College in New York—a very small liberal arts school—and had lofty aspirations; my hero was Ernest Hemingway. I did start as a journalist at a newspaper in Madrid but a friend who worked as a producer in an agency thought I should give advertising creativity a shot. It was a very unusual way of entering the industry because I studied English and that gave me writing skills but I never went to Miami Ad school, for example - it was straight from journalism into advertising. They might seem like close disciplines but they’re not. When you work for a client that's a newspaper, you realise how different the cultures and sensitivities are.

As a creative, then, are you more of a writer than a visual person?

I'm definitely a writer. I'm not good at drawing or designing, and you can see it in my homes around the world—they've always looked very like a CIA safehouse.

Was it quickly apparent that advertising was for you?

Yes, it was and that made me very happy. It's funny—the first ad I shot was for a Spanish cell phone carrier. The production was so bad that we had to re-shoot it. My very first ad was a complete production disaster until we remade it and then won a local award. That award got the attention of Ogilvy, and about a year after I was hired at Y&R, I received an offer from Ogilvy and I moved to Ogilvy Madrid [where I worked] for more than 10 years. That's where I grew as a creative, became a creative director, won my first awards and took on my first global roles for Santander.

How would you describe what type of creative person you are? 

There are creatives that put human insights at the center of everything they do. This a very Argentinian approach. If you look at Javi Campopiano’s body of work or just riff with him for ten minutes, you can quickly detect that innate ability to find deep, untapped, human truths. Then there are creatives who obsess over culture and generating work that leverages it and infiltrates, almost as if it was an inevitable byproduct of it. In my case, I’m fascinated by brand and product truths. I truly enjoy finding undeniable, often physical product truths and use them as a base to build entire brand platforms. It may have something to do with my journalistic background, but there’re very few things I enjoy more than visiting the factories, design studios, distilleries, etcetera where our client’s products are conceived and talk with the people who make the things we have to write about. There’s a sign over the entrance to the IKEA prototype lab in Älmhult, Sweden that reads “a prototype is worth a thousand meetings.” That tells me more about the brand’s ethos than a 100-page briefing document.

Of all the markets you've worked in, do you see huge differences in the approach to advertising, or has the industry become quite homogenised?

One of the things that changes most drastically from market-to-market is sense of humour humour - a big part of advertising. If you don’t get it right, your presentation will suffer and the work might bomb. I’ve experienced situations where not understanding a market’s intricacies and nuances led to negative outcomes. Maybe there’s an arrogance when Spaniards move to South America thinking it's the same language, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. You have to be very humble and listen and absorb cultural nuances. Yes, there are certain elements that are the same; you need to find attention; you need to find insights; you want to be go beyond TV and really infiltrate, but there are cultural nuances that if you don't take them into consideration, you will have a hard time.

Now you're going to be based in London - was that always an ambition?

London is one of the two capitals of creativity. For any creative, coming here is amazing. My dad was a political cartoonist and a very crucial part of his career happened in London. In his early 20s, he started by washing dishes and doing his first cartoons. Then newspapers began buying his work, and he was able to stop washing dishes and become a cartoonist. His style, his view of the world, and his humour were all shaped by London. In my family, London has always had that sense of place you go and it changes you and has an impact on your career that maybe other destinations wouldn’t. When you see the level of work coming out of the city—not just in advertising, in any creative field—it's staggering. Coming to London was one of my North Stars.

What does creativity mean to you?

As the son of an artist and a theatre actress, creativity is everything - the only thing I could possibly do with my life. Even when I was thinking of being a journalist, I was looking more into Tom Wolfe’s work, non-fiction work with a creative element. Creativity is the only thing that I lived and breathed in my home and had I become an accountant, I don't know how my parents would have reacted. It's not even a scenario I consider, right?

So did you have a particularly creative childhood?

Yeah, I don't think they were pushy about it because it was there, I was surrounded by it.

They didn't need to push it into me, I just absorbed it. But it was quickly apparent that I was not good at drawing. For some reason, I did not inherit that from my dad. But then we realised I was pretty good at anything verbal and writing. And the teacher started saying, ‘Hey, your son is pretty good. You brought a very good story’. So, okay, I thought so maybe that's my way.

Did you inherit any of your mum's theatrical flair?

A little bit, yes—and that has come in handy in this industry.

I did take some theatre classes at college and you don't want to overdo the theatrics, of course, but a little bit of that sometimes, when reading a manifesto or revealing a big idea, the inflection, a little dramatic pause can go a long way.

We heard you even get roped into doing voiceovers for ads.

Yeah it's true. Sometimes we’ll call a professional voiceover artist and they have perfect diction, perfect accent, perfect everything but sometimes they don't fully grasp the depth of that, every single nuance. And of course, you are the creative behind it, so you're going to read it maybe in a more imperfect way, which sometimes is actually a good thing. And you're going to read it with a passion and inflections in your voice that convey that you truly care in a way that maybe sometimes professional voice over artists will not.

Was there a particular moment of inspiration when you thought, ‘I really want to be a creative person’?

Yes, at different stages. As a kid, my parents had this habit of taking me to films that were not appropriate for my age. I saw 2001 by Stanley Kubrick when I was incredibly young. It’s nearly three hours long with minimal dialogue, and I was completely blown away. I will always remember watching that film and the impact it had on me.

And reading Stephen King as teenager really had an impact because I could see the emotions - the fear - it could instil in reading. I remember Cujo' which is the story of this killer dog. I was terrorised by this thing. The power of the written word was made dramatically apparent to me by Stephen King. George Orwell had a huge impact as well. His essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, where he talks about how sometimes governments and other institutions use language to manipulate us and twist things, and how we should never use borrowed language but create our own.

Even playing video games like Grand Theft Auto (GTA) - driving a car around the city and listening to the radio ads. The way they’re written, everything that happens in that game is just a huge endeavour that I was blown away by. I remember writing a letter to Rockstar Games saying I wanted to be creative on their team. They never responded.

What did you want to bring to the creative industries? Do you feel there's something you can add?

I think I can add a little joie de vivre, the industry needs some of that. Things have gotten a little serious and tense. I see the angst. I pride myself on keeping a light approach, using humour to remind people that this is an industry where we should be having fun and celebrate each other, not overcomplicate things and being sometimes a little mean to each other or overly aggressive. I will never give in to that.

I always try to create a safe haven where people can joke and have fun while we make great work. It’s not like I came up with this formula. One of my mentors, Per Pedersen—the former global creative chairman at Grey— had that approach when he designed the global creative council as a band of friends meeting in remote places. A big part of that beyond the work was how he got people to engage and have fun. I hate to call it ‘team building’ but it was a type of team building that was genuine. Hopefully I can bring some of that.

What conditions do you need to be creative?

I've tried all sorts of things but I haven't come to any conclusions. Whenever I try something and it leads to an amazing breakthrough, I try to replicate it and don't get the same results. The angst and conviction that this will be the last project, my career will sink, the imposter syndrome - I never get rid of that no matter if I sit in a coffee shop or go to countryside or lock myself in my bedroom. I've never found a formula.

I hate to admit it, but I think that a little angst always helps. My mum always says: 'Since you were a little kid, you procrastinated, left everything for the last minute, and that's when you gave your best and that worked for you.' I've always envied those students in school that studied a little bit each day and then when the exam came, they were fine.

In trying to be the best creative you can be, what are the challenges that you’ve faced?

Despite what I just said, I do believe that fear - proper fear - is a great enemy of creativity. It can come from clients, agencies, or even from a junior creative who doesn’t want to make a fool of themselves that they think is a ‘stupid’ idea. This is an industry where it's not like an accountant doing numbers and you either get it wrong or you get it right. In creativity, each time you put an idea on the table it is a part of you - not a part of a mathematical formula.

When it gets criticised and torn apart in a discussion, if you're young and insecure, that can have an effect. The industry needs to remember to always create that space where young creatives, senior creatives, agencies presenting to clients that risk-taking and creativity are never chastised. Never chastise a person or an organisation because they took a risk.

How might you advise someone to create a culture like that?

This reminds me of Tor Myhren [vice president of marketing communications for Apple] and what he did when he was CCO. He gave a trophy each year to the biggest disaster that happened - the worst presentation or the biggest like idea that bombed - not to ridicule, but celebrating that somebody took a risk. That sent a message: it's okay to get it wrong. As long as you were moved by a true instinct of wanting to be better, break rules and break through.

Do you think the industry allows time for that, or does the system force us to settle for ‘good enough’?

There are a lot of elements - there's this sense that you might lose clients relatively easily because you maybe overstepped in a presentation; there’s a lot of testing and sometimes you worry too much about: ‘is this going to test well or not?’.

When it comes to a creative leader like myself, what I can control is the type of atmosphere I create where people feel they can experiment and try things and not expect to be told off by me.

Do you look at the industry now and feel excited about creativity?

I do. I see creative work that I love and envy. There’s even pieces of work coming from [McCann London] - that I had no relationship with unfortunately - like Everyday Tactician and the cheeky controller idea for Xbox — those are ideas that renew my faith in creativity and advertising.

Technology and AI will bring both opportunities and challenges. Does that excite you?

Yes, absolutely. The first time I tried Chat GPT, my first prompt was to write a short story about an accountant who’s a zombie. It produced a story that could have been written by Kafka or Melville. I remember the first line was, ‘Frank was an accountant who had no respect for human life.’ It's like, whoa, is that the opening line?

I'm excited about it but not overly excited. I think it’s a wonderful tool that we have to use and embrace but like with everything else technology-wise let’s not get overly blinded by it. That’s all I ask because sometimes you do see overexcitement.

Do you see any negatives from the technology?

It can be negative if we surrender too much to AI and are so fascinated by its capabilities that we forget about our own. That's when you start getting similar ideas, similar pieces of work, and detecting these trends.I personally despise trends because trends imply ‘group think’ - anything that creates that doesn't get me too excited. And with AI, sometimes we get that.

So I would say absolutely embrace it and use it to its full extent, but don't be overly enamoured by it because that's when you lose objectivity.

What would you say is the biggest challenge you face today as a creative leader in this AI-driven world we’re moving into?

The biggest challenge is to convince the new generation of creatives of the relevance of this industry and to attract them. Make sure they don’t find other routes that they like more - stay relevant and attractive for the new generations.

If you could give a message to the industry about what agencies could all collectively do to help raise creative standards, what would that be?

There seems to be declining revenues and there's only so much you can tighten up budgets without quality taking a hit.

If young talent and future creatives don't see a clear path to a career that is rewarding and has the ability to give them a good quality of life, then what are we doing? Is this sustainable? If there was something that agencies could do to collectively set minimum standards. 

I'm a creative not a numbers guy, but I sense that's a big issue right now.

Tell us a little bit about the piece of work you're proudest of

It’s hard because when I look back at my past work sometimes I kind of hate everything. It’s a very creative thing. But there is definitely work I’m proud of - one of them is when I was CCO at Grey Colombia we did a project called ‘Payphone Back’, and it was a technology that allowed old payphones to be turned into banking terminals that unbanked people could use to start saving by putting change into them and actually have bank accounts that help them establish a credit history for the first time. So it was about financial inclusion.

Another nice piece of work we did at McCann Madrid for IKEA was ‘Trapped in the 90s.’ Gen Z never witnessed the arrival of IKEA so the problem, at least in Spain, was that Gen Z-ers looked at IKEA as another brand in their catalogues and we wanted to remind them what a game changer it is.

We created a reality show where we locked up Gen Z influencers with zero IKEA solutions in a house from the past where they had to use rotary phones and fax machines. We applied the same logic to love - you sometimes don't appreciate something you have until it's taken away from you. So Gen Z-ers got the message that you need IKEA in your life.

What would you say to a young person considering advertising - how do you sell the industry to them?

I would take a bunch of them to Cannes. One of my favourite things in Cannes is the Titanium Lion and Innovation Lions presentations where you see some of the best creatives and strategists and account people in the world at the top of their game, presenting to a jury that is made up of the best creatives and strategists in the world. It doesn't get any better than that, and it's funny that they're always half empty. I don't know how many people are aware of these presentations.

They're the most amazing master classes. And I would just probably take them to some of these presentations where these amazing innovations and ground-breaking ideas are presented, I would tell them, ‘Look, you could be on that stage in 10-15 years down the line if you like this and you enjoy this’.

Imagine advertising was banned this year. What would you do with the rest of your life?

I think it could be a decent crime novelist - the kind of embossed paperbacks you’d see at the airport - it would at least pay the rent. The angst and fear that sparks creative - maybe I haven't felt it in my crime writing, but if advertising disappeared then I there would be no other option than to embrace that.