Nico Pimentel: The Revolution Starts Here

At 25, Nico Pimentel was a burnt-out CD on the verge of quitting. Then, as he tells Joe Lancaster, he fell in love... with new media, and produced a host of celebrated integrated campains for BBDO Argentina before creating his own temple of innovation; +Castro. Less about advertising, it’s more a place where ‘experiments in communication’ are conducted and there’s no room for comfort zones.

I almost can’t believe it when, at 8.30 in the morning, a small door in the middle of the graffiti mural-covered shutter I’m admiring opens and Nico Pimentel greets me with a smile. He must be the first Argentinian in history to turn up to a meeting on time, but you have to get up early in the morning to achieve the kinds of things he has, and your pioneering talents must extend further than setting an alarm clock correctly

I stoop down and enter the +Castro office, a single-room creative paradise in a former stable. Like advertising’s Bat Cave, it feels like a place where ideas are born and grow. Pimentel shows me around and gives me a preview of some top secret prototypes his team are working on, but more on those later. We take a stroll through Buenos Aires’ uber-cool Palermo Soho district (reminiscent of its New York counterpart) and order breakfast in a café while Pimentel tells me about his background. Starting as a copywriter aged 19 at Casares Grey under the wing of Carlos Perez (now chairman of BBDO Argentina), by 2000, aged 25, he was creative director. “I was earning what I wanted to earn and winning the awards I wanted to win, but I was not happy. I wanted to quit everything,” he explains.

Footie art and a waltzing comeback

Rather than join a Tibetan monastery, Pimentel went to work in the account department of an activation agency to broaden his knowledge of the business and a year later he was Perez’ first hire at BBDO. Recruited to manage the Nike account, he “started to work in the world of new innovative media,” and came up with Beautiful Neighbourhood. A “game-changing idea,” it saw the capital’s La Boca district transformed into a giant football-related art installation. Pimentel had fallen in love with the limitless possibilities of new media and when Perez invited him to pick any job he wanted at BBDO, he invented the position of integrated director. In that role he created campaigns like the celebrated Bring Slow Dancing Back for Doritos, which was “ahead of its time” in its use of social media, as well as suggesting a line of retro snack products to Pepsi Co, an idea that didn’t earn a penny for the agency but is still a multi-million dollar business for the brand today.

Striving for discomfort

Restless again, two years ago Pimentel quit BBDO to start his own totally unique ‘innovation house’, +Castro. “We don’t specifically do advertising, we only do communications experiments,” he says, taking out his laptop to show me some of their work, beaming with so much pride he’s oblivious as the guy on the next table becomes increasingly annoyed by the noise from the speakers.

Working directly with clients, +Castro develops branding and invents one-of-a-kind products such as interactive POS devices. “We always say that the main characteristic of +Castro is; if you’re not uncomfortable, if you’re not willing to get away from your comfort zone, you have no place here, because each project is a first time. It’s not a nice place for people who need to process things,” Pimentel shrugs.

For Tropicana +Castro built an installation that recognised pieces of fruit shoppers placed on a podium, then told them, via Rain 2.0 (cascading rain that spells words and numbers), the fruit’s water content. For Lays they engineered a machine that shoppers could drop a potato into and watch the process of how it is turned into crisps (via a video screen mocking a factory), which was so successful the brand has since requested more machines for other countries in the region, which +Castro is producing. Other projects have included innovative websites, apps and even events (with a massive, music-themed production coming soon that’s sadly hush hush). And clients – 70 per cent of whom are regional or international – include Nike, Gillette and Pepsi Co, the same client who Pimentel gifted that lucrative idea to years ago. “He came to me and said, ‘I want you to come up with those kind of ideas for us’,” says Pimental, who’s now in a position to charge for such eureka moments. He oozes enthusiasm. It must be infectious when working for, no, working with him, because for Pimentel, everything’s a collaboration. This is most evident when we walk across the street and duck into the Fly Garage.

Great things in the Garage

Run in collaboration with several partners including Contagious Insider, real-time research company Brain Juicer and Hyper Island, Fly Garage is a an ‘innovation incubator’ run by Kraft and +Castro, where creative people from around the world come to work on real briefs for Kraft brands alongside the client for two weeks. After a successful pilot, from which five ideas are being implemented around the world, the Garage is at the business end of its first full run when I visit. In one corner Japanese clients work with Brazilian creatives. In another there’s a brainstorming session between local copywriters and Hyper Island students. The previous day, Linus Karlsson, McCann CCO for global brands, came to inspire the teams and hear their pitches. The walls are covered with hand-drawn ideas. The place is a hive of activity and Pimentel is in his element.

“It’s not a workshop. It’s like a start-up each time. We work together as if we are an agency.”

He’s a busy man, but a pioneer in integrated communication with a knack for the never-before-seen idea. Any client bored of traditional marketing would do well to call Pimentel, but you’ll have to get up early in the morning to join his and +Castro’s revolution.