Gaston Bigio: Bringing up Baby

According to Gaston Bigio, Ogilvy Latina’s regional creative director and proud co-founder of Ogilvy offspring DAVID, creating an agency is much like giving birth; delivery is all important. Seeing as how the mini-network has already proved cute enough to attract top clients like Sony and Burger King, it looks like Bigio and co are really getting this baby off the ground. Joe Lancaster peeks into the pram...

Despite his deep affinity with the Force, Luke Skywalker would have likely spent his days on Uncle Owen’s moisture farm if it hadn’t been for the guidance of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Every prospective talent needs a mentor and self-confessed Star Wars obsessive Gaston Bigio (“I bring my children up to be like Luke and Leia”) learned from the best.

In 1995, aged 16, Bigio saw Hugh Grant and Divine Brown’s mug shots plastered all over the news and thought it would be a great opportunity for a car window polariser ad. He started making ads from newspaper stories and eventually walked into the offices of Casares Grey (now Grey Argentina) and said, “I want to work here.” They said, “OK but you need to take the tapes to the TV channels for one year. For free. But you will learn a lot.” Fernando Vega Olmos, now worldwide CCO at JWT, was the ECD, Carlos Pérez, now president of BBDO Argentina, was a copywriter and Pablo Del Campo, now CEO of Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, was a senior creative. Bigio certainly learned a lot and soon rose through the ranks, reaching the position of regional creative director, Ogilvy Latina, overseeing the offices that have won 77 Lions in the last three years.

Quality over quantity

But while toasting their success at Cannes last June, he and his friends from Ogilvy Brazil, Fernando Musa (CEO) and Anselmo Ramos (VP creative director) devised a new challenge; to found a mini Ogilvy network taking the forename of the group’s founder. Things moved quickly and DAVID opened its first two offices, Buenos Aires and Säo Paulo, on 1 January this year, with plans for a New York office to follow soon.

“We thought we could attract even more talent to the Ogilvy group through a new agency in a smaller format, with a different kind of approach,” says Bigio, who heads DAVID Buenos Aires yet maintains his regional position with Ogilvy Latina. He’s sitting at a desk in the agency’s brand new 60s-inspired offices in Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires’ hip district, which is home to production companies and design studios rather than large agencies, which are usually miles out of town. “We say that DAVID is a first name agency, it’s very personal,” he continues, explaining how the plan is to avoid becoming large and cumbersome. “Never. Maximum 70 people. From all my years I learned that when you cross the line of 70/80 you are on another level.”

Of course when it comes to creative agencies, quality is king over quantity and Bigio believes the hiring policy will be key to DAVID’s success. “Agencies are about people,” he says. “The average age [at DAVID] is really young and we like that. It’s also people from around the world; Ecuador, the UK, Bangladesh, Brazilians and Argentinians all working together.” Although the agency will retain its Latin vibe, even in the New York office, this ethnic diversity is the driving force behind the ‘mini-network’ says Bigio: “I think that when an agency’s starting, it’s like a baby. It needs to start creating a DNA. It’s not just the package you deliver, but the way you deliver it. We like to stay as a Latin American company and have that as our trademark. The New York office will have a very Latin spirit and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of Latin American talent working there. We love mixing Americans with Latin Americans – we have a lot of Americans working at DAVID Säo Paulo. I really believe for a client it’s more consistent to present for a worldwide campaign, a campaign that has been done by people from around the world.”

First impressions count and in May the agency’s first TV spot was released for Staples. The funny play on the idea of needing more than screensavers to tidy up a shabby office was a positive indicator of what’s to come and with a list of clients including Burger King locally and in the US, Powerade in Latin America and Sony in Brazil, the outlook is bright. Spots helmed by high profile directors Lieven Van Baelen and Henry-Alex Rubin are already in the bag and on the way.

One brand – two formats

Bigio reveals it won’t just be traditional work coming from the agency. “Right now we’re working with Nexus to create two beautiful projects for Coke in Latin America, but we didn’t create them and go to Nexus as a production company – we created the stuff with Nexus and presented to the client with them. “We’re trying to change the way we do things. Nowadays [you need to use] people who understand the technologies during the creative process and not just as a tool to develop your ideas after you’ve had them.”

But will David be in competition with its Ogilvy cousins? “I think there are clients for both and I think there isn’t even competition because when someone needs a family car he doesn’t need a two-door convertible. So there’s no competition – it’s one brand that has two formats. DAVID is the convertible. Less is more.” With 16 staff members, David is growing as steadily as Bigio intended and will continue to do so. “There are new prospects coming today.” Let’s hope for their sakes that they got the job, after all, who wouldn’t want Gaston Bigio as their Obi-Wan Kenobi?