Ad Icon: Juan Cabral

Recalling his time as a creative, Buenos Aires-based director, Juan Cabral tells Danny Edwards how there’d be some clients who’d take a piece of your soul and work with it, and some who’d take your soul and stamp on it. Luckily nobody stamped on his Balls, the genius spot that saw Sony Bravia run out of tellies to sell, spawned two great sequels and catapulted Cabral into advertising’s big league…

The debate about which is the best film trilogy is one that rears its head on a regular basis. Back to the Future? Maybe, but the second one’s a bit of a letdown. The Godfather? Part III’s a dud. The original Star Wars trilogy should have many points deducted for the subsequent – crushingly, childhood maulingly – disappointing prequels. Toy Story has to be up there and surely the recent Dark Knight trilogy deserves a mention. Whatever your thinking on the topic, there are a host of choices to call on but when it comes to advertising, trilogies are thin on the ground. Of course, the same criteria can’t necessarily be used for assessing ads as for films, and while many campaigns have recurring characters and themes, rarely – if ever – are they thought of in terms of sequels, prequels, trilogies and the like. But then there’s Sony Bravia’s ‘Colour Like No Other’ campaign. Balls from 2005, Paint from 2006 and Play-Doh from 2007 are a trio of films that could easily be labelled advertising’s best trilogy; three epic spots that were, to borrow more film terminology, commercial and critical blockbusters. A common thread in all three is the agency, Fallon London, and the creative behind the projects, Juan Cabral. 

After Balls was first aired, Cabral’s name was on everyone’s lips and it seemed at first like he’d arrived from nowhere, but where he’d actually arrived from was Mother London and, before that, Agulla & Baccetti in his native Buenos Aires where he was no stranger to award-winning commercials. But before we get to all of that, the eloquent, softly spoken Cabral explains how he ended up in the advertising industry in the first instance:

“At the time it seemed like graphic design was broadly the thing I liked the most. I was at school and I could draw and it just made sense to design logos and things like that. But my brother was in commercials, working as a writer, and it seemed like a good way to get into doing something that I didn’t think I could even dream of.”

Cabral studied graphic design in Argentina but, as part of the course, came to London to study at the London College of Printing. It was while he was in London that things began to change.

“A friend of mine who was studying advertising was also in London and asked to meet. He wanted to us to get together to make a book to show to agencies. I wasn’t sure, I never really showed anyone my book but, you know, I thought I had a good book so he made an appointment for us at Saatchi & Saatchi London.”

That appointment led to an offer of a work experience placement in the agency but Cabral was sceptical.

“I thought I would just be there for a week – cleaning toilets and making the coffee.”

But on arrival he found that he and his partner had an office and were put to work on briefs from the get-go.

“I was like, 18 or 19, and I’m suddenly working on these briefs and then they said ‘OK we’re making one of your ads and it’ll air’. I was like, ‘fuck!’.”

Cabral was at the agency for three months and had to give up attending the London College of Printing because he was so busy at Saatchi. The agency tried to persuade him, after a three-month stint, to stay on in London but Cabral felt it was time to go home.

“I had to go back to school, I had a girlfriend, my band had a gig [he still plays guitar in the same band]. It was great that they wanted us to stay but I felt I had to go home and, anyway, I knew then that I would be coming back at some point.”

And back he was, but not before a successful stint at Agulla & Baccetti, one of Argentina’s most renowned agencies, a part of Cabral’s life that was instigated by a tutor on his course. After returning from London, Cabral realised that having tasted working life at Saatchi he wanted more and his tutor, who was also an advertising creative in Argentina, recommended he look to get a job with Agulla & Baccetti and treat that as his education, albeit one that paid.

“I went with my book, which was now twice as good, and they hired me.”

While at the agency Cabral also got his first taste of award success with the beautifully crafted spot for Telecom Argentina, Yawn, which picked up a gold Lion in Cannes in 2001. After three years at Baccetti’s Cabral then made the move back to London, following his Baccetti CD Sebastian Wilhelm to an agency called Mother, of which, at the time, he had no real knowledge.

“Initially, I didn’t come to Mother. I came to London. But when I got there, I thought, ‘fuck, this is a really good place’.”

It took Cabral some time to properly acclimatise to the English culture and traditions and, crucially, to its language, but it eventually came:

“It took two years but then I finally dreamed in English and that was a defining moment.”

Cabral spent three years at Mother, working on projects for clients such as Orange before moving to Fallon. Even at the time Cabral knew it was an unusual career move. Mother was winning awards left, right and centre but Cabral felt a connection with Fallon CD Richard Flintham and admired some of the work coming out of the agency.

“[The agency] felt experimental and I felt like Mother would be Agency of The Year with or without me, whereas I thought I could make a difference at Fallon.”

Which brings us back to Sony. To say that Balls, directed by MJZ’s Nicolai Fuglsig, was well received would be an understatement. Even before it aired its concept was known and admired. Behind-the-scenes footage was published on a specially set up Sony Bravia website to build anticipation and members of the public were invited to the set and allowed to take photos and even film the action as it happened. At the time Cabral told shots.net that the concept was simply:

“What would happen if we threw 250,000 balls down a hill in San Francisco? That’s it. And Sony got really excited.”

In fact, pretty much everyone got excited. Cabral says it was this sort of project that he had been trying to get made since starting in advertising – which admittedly hadn’t been that long ago. Something with artistic merit and integrity. Set to José González’s beautiful, melodic remake of The Knife’s Heartbeats, the two-and-a-half minute film is as much art as advertising and worked on both levels.

Eventually Sony had to pull the ad because they had sold out of Bravia televisions, which proves the extent of its commercial power, but, even now, you can watch the film as simply a stunning piece of entertainment.

“I feel like I am always trafficking something; be it an idea, a feeling, something to make you laugh, an emotion. I’m trafficking something of me, and some people – the smart clients – know that they are taking a bit of your soul [and work with you]. The bad clients, you offer your soul and they just stamp on it and fuck [the ad] up. But I feel like good advertising is when you can see that there is something, someone, a voice or whatever behind the piece. Balls, for me, was perfect trafficking.”

Cabral admits that as soon as the ad was finished, after the last ball had bounced, he was overcome by a feeling of sadness and wondered what would come next. Next was international recognition and a lot of work for Sony to follow up on Balls. The work part he enjoyed, the recognition and invitations to talk, present and appear on juries, not so much.

“I remember being very depressed [after the shoot]. I was happy with it but I just thought, well, what’s next? I appeared on a couple of juries, did some interviews but, to be honest, I don’t really enjoy any of that.”

The prospect of following up on Balls was both exciting and daunting for Cabral. Following such a huge success would be tough but the fact that Sony wanted to continue to push the creative boundaries was great news. What came next for the brand was Paint and Play-Doh; the first an explosively playful film that saw 70,000 litres of non-toxic paint, 358 single bottle bombs, 22 triple-hung cluster bombs, 268 mortars and a whole host of other complex-sounding explosive devices shot out of buildings on a Glasgow housing estate to achieve spectacular results. Then Play-Doh entailed a huge stop-motion project, a Rolling Stones song, a lot of coloured plasticine and animated bunnies, which all resulted in the continuation of the Bravia campaign’s success. Each ad was met with significant fanfare and no small amount of acclaim, with the trilogy picking up a multitude of international awards over the three-year period.

And all the while Cabral had an eye on the director’s chair. Despite his obvious agency-side successes he had always planned to get behind the camera and be the guy at the eye of the storm. Like many before him he had shot short films as personal projects and promos for local bands. Also like many before him he regarded Jonathan Glazer with something close to awe and says that working with him on Paint, which Glazer directed, was “basically like a film school”. Cabral’s first ‘proper’ directing job came while he was also at the forefront of reinvigorating another brand for Fallon – Cadbury – and meant he could combine his undoubted creative skills with his yet-to-be-honed directing chops.

“After the Sony campaign we had a lot of clients who would come in and say ‘we want Balls’, so you’d come up with some great ideas for them and they’d be like, ‘no, no, we actually just want Balls’.”

But Cadbury came to Fallon with a view to the agency helping them in the way they’d helped Sony, by utilising the same creative energy.

“We showed them some ideas, some nice ideas, but then we said ‘this is what you came for’ and showed them the idea for Gorilla. It was a good brief they gave us, I think the best. Simply, ‘we want people to love us again’.”

But not everyone in the agency was convinced that Cabral’s Cadbury idea was the way to go.

“I’m not going to name names, but there were some people who told me I should not be presenting that, that it was unprofessional. To me it was the most professional thing I had ever done.”

For the one or two of you unfamiliar with Gorilla, it was a fantastic, bold, highly unusual move for a previously ‘safe’ confectionary company to make. A 90-second commercial which, for the first 60 seconds, simply showed a close-up of a gorilla’s concentration-etched face, then the camera pulls out to reveal a drum kit in front of the ape before he starts passionately and expertly playing along to Phil Collins’ 1981 smash, In the Air Tonight. Crazy? Yes. Brilliant? Definitely.

Cabral had pitched himself as the director, to which the client had agreed, and so his professional directing career began. He worked tirelessly on the project, sourcing the right actor, the right suit and making sure all the pieces came together, but it nearly didn’t happen.

“I had to deliver that thing which was in my head and be sure that it wasn’t stopped. We presented it to the client one night, they watched it and said ‘I don’t feel anything’. I thought I’d fucked it up.”

The spot then sat on the shelf for six months before it was decided that it should be put through research, where it subsequently tested through the roof.

“That’s the only time I was happy something got tested. Usually I’m against that.”

Like Balls, Gorilla became a sensation, surging across the internet and TV, garnering plaudits and press along the way. It won the Cannes Grand Prix for Film in 2008 and further cemented Cabral’s already sky-high reputation. Did he feel vindicated that his intuition about the spot was correct? He thinks for a minute before answering:

“Well, yes. But it still does everything it needs to do for the client; it’s fun, it’s professional, it works. But again there was a smart client that allowed something to happen.”

The success of the spot was obviously well received by Cabral but it was the directing that really sticks in his mind. He says it was an extraordinary experience and references a certain ball-based sport that’s particularly popular in his country:

“I love football. I love playing and talking and philosophising and being a manager and when you’re directing that’s what it’s like. You’re working with great people and part of a team. You’re in charge of a lot of decisions but you have to allow people to have their own input.”

Not long after Gorilla, Cabral and his newly pregnant wife decided to move back to Buenos Aires. Fallon tried to persuade him to stay but in the end they settled on a compromise of Cabral working as a one-man Fallon office in Argentina, visiting London six times per year and working as a creative and, when suitable for both parties, a director.

That worked for a while, and Cabral loved working for Fallon but the pull of directing just grew stronger over time and eventually, in 2011 he decided to sign for MJZ. He had received various offers from other production companies, and from people to open an agency, but MJZ simply “felt right”. He has directed a number of commercials through the company, for Sony, Eurostar and BGH, and says he is continually learning and excited to do so. He is also still based in Buenos Aires but, at some point, might like to move to another city, or spend time in two cities over the course of a year.

At the moment he’s working on scripts for commercial, TV and film projects and is in a good place in general, personally and professionally. He says that the previous hour’s conversation has been a good experience because it has been like reliving old times, going over things from many years ago, projects and times he might not have thought about for ages, because the future has his attention more than the past. But, looking back one more time, is there a project he holds in the highest esteem, or with the greatest regard? Can he choose a favourite?

“I don’t feel I need to do that because I even have love for  the old things that went wrong. There are three or four pieces of [acclaimed] work and there are the other 100 that I’ve done. Some of them are OK, they have aired but they are hidden in a cupboard somewhere and no one will see them. But I still look at them and I know that there was something I wanted to say, there was a reason to make it. We can deconstruct it and say we fucked it up because the client did this, or because we were too naïve to do that, but I have lovefor everything.”