Saatchi & Saatchi has not had a worldwide creative director since Bob Isherwood stepped down in 2008 after twelve years at the helm. If you think Isherwood is an adgod, you don’t know Del Campo.
The agency he founded in Buenos Aires in 2000, Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi, has won 52 Cannes Lions and 250 FIAP awards. FIAP is the leading awards in Del Campo’s region, Ibero-America. It was New York Festivals most awarded agency in 2013 and Ad Age’s International Agency of the Year in 2011. It has been the #1 agency in Argentina for the last 8 years. It has held the title, Best Agency in Latin America for 5 years in a row and been placed in the Gunn Report’s Top Ten agency the last 10 years: in 2012 it was ranked number 2.
In 2012 Del Campo Saatchi & Saatchi opened in Madrid as part of a Spanish-speaking network within Saatchi & Saatchi. He will continue to be based in Buenos Aires and will remain chairman of both Del Campo Buenos Aires and Madrid, but now will also spend a week every month in either New York or London.
“…in a country where we are always afraid of what is going to happen next because of recurrent instability, we rarely say no to any opportunity. For this reason we happily work 24/7, which makes us more competitive than agencies in more developed markets,” Del Campo stated.
“Pablo’s appointment comes at a time when clients are walking the tightrope between big data and big emotion. Our role as a creative organisation is to turn the swimming pool of data insights into creative revelations that engage customers with ideas, with emotion. Pablo is an ideas leader through and through,” Saatchi & Saatchi chief executive officer Worldwide Kevin Roberts said of him.
On his appointment, Del Campo said, “Ideas about communicating are the center of my universe. My new role is to accelerate the flow and adoption of ideas from our strategists and creatives to customers wherever they are, on whatever device, in every time zone. My priorities are to set new goals for our creative community, to mentor world-changing ideas, and to foster culture…
“When you’re from a peripheral market and not from a central place, like North America or Europe, you must have a global mind to grow. You need creativity, and fresh ideas. Every 10 years we have a big crisis [in Argentina]. When I started my career in 1989, it was hyperinflation. Then when I started my agency it was thecorralito [bank accounts were frozen in 2001]. Things change very fast and drastically. This is part of being Argentine…
“I still believe in traditional media, combined with interactive, and ideas bigger than traditional advertising. There’s room for absolutely everything.”
He said that he will not be the kind of worldwide creative director whose main preoccupation is winning award shows. “Helping each office do its best work ever, that’s the challenge.”
