“I Am Not A Robot”: Javier Campopiano On Letting Truths Win

With the industry’s award season in full force for this year, Javier Campopiano is a creative who knows a thing or two about winning. With over 200 Cannes Lions to his name; several Grand Prix and Titanium Lions, and a host of awards at D&AD - including its pinnacle Black Pencil, not only does he know what it takes to create award-winning work, but knows the changing tide of the industry; when he talks, everyone stops and listens. 

As global chief creative officer (CCO) of McCann Worldgroup and McCann, Campopiano has led the creative vision for some of the largest brands across the globe, having worked with L’Oréal, Xbox, Coca-Cola and Mastercard to name a few. 

Before joining McCann two years ago, previous roles saw him as worldwide CCO at Grey and WPP’s OpenX, CCO across many FCB agencies, and Saatchi & Saatchi. 

Knowing and understanding creativity, therefore, is an understatement. Speaking at this year's D&AD Festival, Campopiano details the state of the industry at large, providing his top insights into how work should be approached, and how creatives can stay on top of the ever-evolving future, without succumbing to complacency

Insights Are Not Enough

Having an insight is key for any piece of creativity, however, Campopiano argues it's not enough. More than ever, searching for truths is important. 

Starting his career in his home town - the Argentinian capital of Buenos Aires, he explains searching for truths in a landscape where original ideas were often pushed back against is a characteristic he’s held throughout his career. 

“Even thought I didn’t know it, I was trying to find some truth,” he begins. “Argentina at some point in the past became recognised in advertising because of its ability to find insights. In 2001, we had five presidents in one week... you really don’t know what’s going to happen, and I think we became really good at finding insights because amidst the craziness, you cannot hold onto the things you know that are going to change, or see the things that are going to remain constant.” 

Campopiano believes that one of the main consistencies across his work was exemplified through Tide's 2018 Super Bowl ad, based on a “really sharp insight” that if every ad shows impeccable clothes, then they must be Tide.

In the modern era, however, insights aren’t enough. 

“We are living in a time where anyone has access to media, everyone can upload something at any moment, and insights are populating the internet. You can scroll your Instagram at any moment and find a lot of smart insights, a lot of funny things.” 

Campopiano explains an example of a viral video of a Spanish man explaining his day at the beach in the style of a football press conference that was shared to Instagram. 

“In a previous life, something like that could have been the result of an agency working on a beer campaign sponsoring football. It would take two months of development; nowadays there would be new versions today, tomorrow.”

In order to create work that stands out and remains true to its aims, “much more” needs to be done other than finding an insight. 

Advertising Space Doesn’t Exist Anymore

As brands and agencies continue to search for truth, the reality is that traditional advertising space doesn’t exist like it once did, believes Campopiano. 

“We used to live in a place where the advertising space gave us an initial contract with the audience - people knew that a burger won’t look like it does in the ads. But it was a contract done through TV.” 

The decline in people watching TV compared to years previous means brands need to be better at cutting through and finding the truths in what people want to hear and where it's best heard. 

McCann Worldgroup’s work with MasterCard, for Campopiano, provides a prime example of taking advantage of contextual and cultural truths to spread messages in new advertising spaces. 

Last year saw McCann utilise its iconic ‘Priceless’ campaign, born in 1997, with a simple truth - that there are things in life that money can’t buy. Using out-of-home posters across the globe, from London’s tube platforms to billboards near European tourist attractions, several iterations of the campaign were made, honing in on the Venn diagram style logo to connect two truths, from England reaching the Euros Final with: ‘England. Home. Priceless’ to celebrations of life with, ‘Dinner. Friends. Priceless’. 

“Finding truth is a human ability. That's what we're really good at,” Campopiano explains. “Believing our own bullshit makes us robotic.”

This work is just one of many examples of using human truths to tell messages that stick.

Having A Presentation Is Not Having An Idea

Humans are always presenting something - and that comes in many shapes and forms. But humans also pick up habits along the way - one of which being remote working. 

“One of the things that we were left with from remote working that we didn’t have in the past is that we are always presenting something,” he says. “If someone wants to share their screen, they have to present something; and there was a moment years ago where I had teams coming to me that had nothing - and that was a great moment because it meant that the brief was wrong and we needed to work it. They needed more time which led to great ideas.”

For Campopiano, the industry is too focused on uploading things to meet deadlines and show that something is being worked on, but that doesn’t always result in good ideas and excellent creative. 

“It's a really bad moment for our industry right now. It's about realising that the systems that we are creating to work sometimes are going against the quality of what we are presenting.”

We Are Not Our Roles 

Reflecting on his role, he is realistic, believing that a job title doesn’t define a person, regardless of what people post on LinkedIn, outlines the CCO.

“There’s a beautiful phrase: ‘A crazy man who believes he's a king is as crazy as a king who believes he is a king.’

“You can't really believe it all the time. If I believe all the time that I'm the global CCO of McCann, I would do everything like that. I would hire like that. I would think like it. The pressure would be impossible,” Campopiano details.

This kind of mindset, he believes, puts people in danger of turning into robots, by becoming too formulaic with their thinking, and putting creative ideas into boxes of expectation. 

“Truth is informed by data and research; advertising is a personal opinion based on truths.”

The creation of L’Oréal’s iconic ‘Because Your Worth It’ tagline is rooted in personal truths, he highlights.

It was developed by Ilon Specht, a young copywriter for McCann that happened to be a woman working in a male-dominated environment who monopolised the tone behind women’s beauty advertising. She penned the phrase in 1971 - originally for a hair dye campaign for L’Oréal Paris, and now, over 50 years later, it remains a globally renowned phrase of the brand. 

Specht wrote the slogan based off her own experiences as a woman and to reflect the women’s rights movement of the 70s; as a result, the ads gave women a voice - for the first time a woman was featured speaking for herself about women’s beauty.

“Truth is always personal,” Campopiano concludes. “We are always trying to use all the needs we have, the information we have, to see something that comes from inside us. We need to continue finding truths.”