Pancho Cassis - DAVID: You spent 50 million doing players running after a ball again?
Gully Flowers: I didn't like that either. Yeah, I can't stand when they do that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I'm not saying anything, Gully. You're you're you're assuming that I'm saying anything.
Gully Flowers: is it possible when you're fully remote?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I don't think so. To be honest, no. if they jump with you into the pool and the pool has no water
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that client will never trust you again
Gully Flowers: He's one of the people behind Moldy Whopper. He also helped turn one of the smallest football clubs in England into one of the biggest teams in FIFA. He put a hundred year old grandmother with twenty eight Instagram followers all over the Madrid Metro. He starts every brief with a fairly brutal assumption. People don't want to see your advertising. So we talked about how you make something they can't ignore, why creative culture can't be built on Zoom, and what his dad taught him about convincing clients to buy ideas that scare the shit out of them.
Kerrie Finch: Pancho, welcome to Second Wind.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Hey, thank you for the invitation and for such lovely words. yes. Super happy to be here.
Kerrie Finch: They're all true.
Gully Flowers: didn't mention his totals because I think I I have them here. 192 Cannes Lions, 8 Grand Prix, 3 titanium, 38 gold, 63 effies, D&AD black pencil, eleven hundred awards overall.
Kerrie Finch: I thought that mentioning them would be showing off.
Gully Flowers: Anyway, I did I you know it's it's it
Kerrie Finch: It's outrageous, Pancho. You need to just step aside and let someone else win for a change.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: No, it's it's I think it's a result of working with with a lot of amazing people throughout my career and being been you know, lucky to work with also brave clients with great brands.
Gully Flowers: Now, and we've just had Cannes Lions. I I'm curious how you're thinking about festivals and creativity and places like Cannes. Given the stress that the advertising agency model has been under.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: It's a great question to start, like a strong start.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: look, to be honest, after a week in Cannes, what I mostly feel is inspired. I think that we forget that Cannes is that moment of the year where you go and see who's doing great work around the world. And even when the world is super global right now, Cannes still has those little gems. that you go there and you see a team from you know Thailand doing an amazing campaign for a very interesting local problem and that inspires something else. and in this case I had the pleasure to be in the titanium jury, which also gave me the chance not only to vote the best of the best, but also to hear from the creators and their clients firsthand in a ten minute presentation why they believed their idea was a titanium candidate, right? So
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that was also interesting because you could see the creative teams
Gully Flowers: That's a cool experience.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: dynamics, yes, you could hear from different problems around the world, different categories. Actually the Grand Prix was a an insurance company, but you also have really fun things in the mix. so yes, Haven, yes.
Gully Flowers: Was that the Australian one, the Suncorp? Yeah, yeah, that was cool.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So it was an amazing week. Honestly for me Cannes is a is a learning week since I started going there when I was a trainee because you know I was in I was in Spain doing an internship And I thought, okay, maybe this is gonna end fast. So before they kick me back to Chile and they discovered I'm not a good copywriter, I need to go to Cannes. Please,
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, nobody tell anyone. Shhh.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I I try to go every year, right? And then I started going and then I I started, you know, doing my deals with my bosses. So it was like, okay, I'm gonna pay for everything, I'm gonna sleep on the floor, but if I win, I'm gonna have all the expenses here, so you have to pay me back. And little by little I I ended up going a lot of times and for me it's always that and for me also that's why at David we try to take as much people as we can. Because it feels like a week as and now that specially clients are are also joining the party, I think it's good to be with them and actually walk the Palais
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, yeah. It's big on brands,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: talk about the business, you know, talk about current work that we're doing. so in that sense, for me it's always a a week of inspiration.
Kerrie Finch: I think that when people get a delegate pass and they use it effectively, too many people think of it as this...
Gully Flowers: Is the delegate inside the palais? sorry to interrupt. I've never been inside the palais, just so you know. I've always
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, don't we need to stop telling people that Gully's never been inside the Palais. It's
Gully Flowers: It's the off piste It's just a different Cannes okay guys?
Kerrie Finch: a very different Cannes But this is what I mean. It's that I think a lot of people think, it's it's all party, party, party. But actually,
Gully Flowers: So ad tech dinners.
Kerrie Finch: yeah, it was an interesting year, it didn't feel like it was so much about the award winners or about the work. You know, it felt more about the experiential, the events, the beaches, So it's heartening to hear
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah.
Kerrie Finch: that this is how you're using it.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes and I think that I've never been it was David, then previously I was at Lola and previously Leo Burnett when I s where I started as a trainee. So I've never been in that place where they gave me a badge and and that's it, right? I needed to earn my badge. And then when I was the one deciding deciding who goes to can, either at Lola or at David, I was like, okay, we're gonna take the people who do the best work, you're gonna earn it for next year. And we're gonna give you a lot of work, especially coming back because I think that people need to understand that going to Cannes and spending five days looking at the best work in the world, it's also a responsibility so you can go back to the office and share it with the rest. So I always just like I found ways for my boss to reimburse my expenses when I went and I ate one McDonald's a day as a trainee. I also found my ways to make the badge Like super relevant for people and get everyone in the Palais on time and try to make the most out of it. Because you can have fun somewhere else.
Gully Flowers: Tell us about the titanium process, because I know I've had clients who've been preparing for that and they were terrified. and it's pretty rare you see clients terrified of creatives, right? Maybe not, but Usually the
Kerrie Finch: Do mean?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: For once.
Gully Flowers: Usually the power dynamics.
Kerrie Finch: Do mean, Dali, that people are terrified because they have to go in front of the jurors and talk about their project? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gully Flowers: Yes. And they have
Kerrie Finch: OK.
Gully Flowers: how mu like th tell me about it, 'cause I I I haven't been in the room, as d as you probably know, but yeah. I've
Kerrie Finch: No, I've never been in the room. I'd love to know more.
Gully Flowers: been in the palais. Haven't been in the building. But yeah, I I'm interested to hear about that process and dynamic and how that feels to be somebody in that room judging.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: It's a great process. I think that that like any other category, you know, people submit, you bought from home kind of a first long list, shortlist, so you start identifying what. Because titanium, different from the rest, Cannes release the shortlist like two weeks in advance so people can prepare that presentation. It's the same in glass and innovation, but you have to prepare. So we released a shortlist in advance. And then of course you get to can with a list in order of preference, but then people have to vote and and have to present, and then you need to vote again. And it's interesting because the list that we had more or less flipped upside down. Many of the stuff that were looking super strong on the case study, then when you see the client, they were not as you know powerful as we thought, or they were very proto in a very they were in a very prototype stage and
Kerrie Finch: Okay.
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: plus there were other stuff that in the case study we I think we missed something but when the client presented they filled
Kerrie Finch: It comes alive.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: all the holes and it was amazing and like you could see the chemistry and and that's what happened
Kerrie Finch: What did you find most...
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and after that you vote so it it can change radically right
Kerrie Finch: What did you find most influential? What did you notice was really changing your perspective?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think that what happened and this is true story. many of the stuff that were up there ended up being lower after the presentation. And then when we did the final list where we said, okay, after the presentations, after voting, hey, we need to decide on this top ten. Mm, I think the top five were were presentations where the client and the agency presented together and you could see that they had a relationship for a long time. Both knew the business problem perfectly.
Kerrie Finch: Thank
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Both in many of the things both were like fighting to who can reply our questions
Gully Flowers: Ha ha.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: because they both knew exactly what was going on. and that was interesting. Because you know, people choose who presents. So sometimes it's two people from the clients, sometimes it's the engineer who came up with whatever plus the client, blah blah blah. But it was funny to see that at least in our top after seeing the presentation, there was most of them were client agency, which was
Kerrie Finch: Mmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: nice, I think. Because also we're in the business of, you know, fixing and building brands on the long run, not just doing these little creative shots, right?
Kerrie Finch: So what makes a good client agency relationship? What is absolutely fundamental? What's non-negotiable for you?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: For me, trust feels obvious, right? But you know, having the clients full trust and having them on WhatsApp and being able to talk about everything, then telling you the real problems, I think it's that intimacy. It's it's the magic after mu behind most of the campaigns I've been lucky to do. because when you know what's really going on in that side, I think you can get to a better solution, right? Most of the time, that's why, for example, pitching and all of that is it's the dynamics are are so different that it's hard to do something on a pitch that then will end up going on the street and actually changing stuff. Because you need the intimacy to understand what what's behind the brief and even question the brief and then go back when because clients are human like us. They have their own careers, they have their own problems, they have bosses. So when you understand Everything that's going on there, it's easier to get to a better solution for the brand, right?
Gully Flowers: we talked to Justine Armour recently and she called out something that as a jury, you sort of want to find a hidden gem how much of that drives your motivation when you're on a jury?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think you have a bit of everything. I think luckily for Cannes, and for for you as a jury, I think many, many campaigns start the cycle in Cannes. So you do see a lot of new things. I think there's other shows where you kind of get the end of the cycle of a campaign and then of course you get it and it already won a Grand Prix in Cannes and whatever and you need to decide whether to give Another Grand Prix to this very famous idea or to open to something new that maybe didn't make it to Cannes, but it's now here, right? So, in that sense, Cannes is lucky because I think most of the agencies use it as the first show of the year. But on the other hand, every time I've been jury president or part of a jury, I push a lot to be generous. I think that many times we get very polluted by the fame that a campaign has before arriving to a show. And in that sense it's unfair because you know, campaigns from bigger markets that have bigger media with bigger reach arrive in a more famous way, right? Than maybe sometimes a campaign from Thailand. But you see the campaign from Thailand, everyone laughs, is amazing. They're usually
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: super clever and they rise up. So I usually try to say, guys, let's be generous. Of course we need to reward this campaign that broke all the records and won the Super Bowl and blah blah blah blah blah and has three celebrities and cost twenty million dollars and it's Spike
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Jonze and Mickey Mouse and all that. But hey, let's be open to the
Gully Flowers: The American stuff.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: the the American stuff, but let's be open also to hey
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: there's this little thing from Peru or from Chile or from Thailand that is as clever as this. But it has a different context.
Kerrie Finch: I think it can work against you, can't it? Is there anything in this year from Cannes that you felt like got away, that it didn't do as well as you were expecting it to?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think there were a couple of things. I think there was a Brazilian campaign for Doritos that was absolutely brilliant where they do a whole theory of you remember the famous Ronaldo, the original Ronaldo haircut.
Gully Flowers: Yeah yeah. Yep.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And they do a whole thing, a theory that it was a you know, a Doritos thing and and connected all the World Cups. then you see the results, how it was done, it was amazing. I think there was another Renault campaign that for me was was gonna be a a clear winner. care fleet that was talking about you know the health deserts in France. All those little towns are they're far away from a hospital I think it was it was gonna be a tough year because I think twenty twenty five was a tough year in the world, right? With all the political situation plus the clients, the tariffs, the mergers. So I think we as an industry didn't produce the amount of work. You could see it then in the entries. Could have been that, but also the entries new entry system. So I thought hey, maybe this is gonna be a slower year, but then when you see the winners, you get happy again because there's a lot of great work that can hopefully get us all excited and and and trying to do our best for next year.
Gully Flowers: I remember when I was lowly suit at D D B in Sydney, coming back from Cannes we would all get together as as an agency and watch like a compilation of the best case studies. do you do anything after Cannes to get everybody together and sort of try to make sure that everybody in the agency, not just the people who went, you know, get some of those learnings?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes. So I I think I I I told you before the trick is the people that go needs to do a presentation for the
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: rest of the agency to share what they learn. And that's great because it's not only watching the winners. Everyone can what can see the list of winners and play the case studies, right? But what we like is that the people that go say, Hey, I went to a talk about this person in sports marketing. I thought it was interesting because of this, this, and that. And I think it can relate to our business. Because we have Budweiser, we have Águila in Colombia, and these sponsorships can learn something from this. So I do it. So that's something we do. And also we do a lot of of watching relevant case studies from time to time, right? Which is great. We go back, see the winners. Because also I think that one the beauty of walking the palais in the basement. Or even sitting down for hours, which is something I do every year. Just sit down in one of those computers with access to everything. Is that you discover something in the short list that doesn't make it to a lion that is brilliant?
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And maybe didn't win because of the craft, maybe didn't win because I don't know, whatever reason. Someone thought it was similar to something, but I in the short list, you can discover like like pure gold.
Kerrie Finch: you've said that people hate advertising and that you wake up every day trying to do something that most people will hate. I'm really curious to know how that has shaped the way that you come at creativity on a day-to-day or week-by-week basis.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Think it's a good when because this is something we say a lot with our clients. And and in the beginning the clients who didn't know us a lot, they were like a bit shocked. But when you accept that people will do anything to avoid you, and you start working from that, I think that you start having more interesting conversations around how brave you need to be, what kind of media you need to buy, and what kind of also what kind of conversations in social you should jump in or not, right? There's still people, clients, agencies that believe that whatever they do, people are gonna watch it like, yeah, I'm gonna spend three minutes watching this, but then it's like, yeah, it's three minutes of football players running after a ball? Really? Really? You spent 50 million doing players running after a ball again?
Gully Flowers: I didn't like that either. Yeah, I can't stand when they do that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I'm not saying anything, Gully. You're you're you're assuming that I'm saying anything. Right? But people assume that because
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: they either put a lot of money or producer or they're a big brand, people are gonna watch it and
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: people don't wanna watch it.
Gully Flowers: Just get Chalamet,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: People
Gully Flowers: it's easy.
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: people have a list, yes. People have a list of stuff to watch on Netflix, a list of stuff to watch on HBO. Like they have stuff to do. So either you break that, and I
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: think Adidas is a great example because I have to watch
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: it twice. With my kid and his friends in the living room because they couldn't believe what they just saw. And they were like, what else is coming? That is that's amazing. That's what we're here to do. Yes, that's what we're
Kerrie Finch: amazing you know that it's it's resonating with them yeah that's the point
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: here to do. And I think it helps when you start the meeting, the relationship, the project, saying, guys, people will do anything to avoid watching what we're gonna do. So let's try to crack it, right?
Kerrie Finch: What does engagement mean to you? Where is the industry getting it wrong?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think that some brands are getting it right, some brands are getting it wrong. I think that what we're we're still struggling is like sometimes brand brands try to jump into every new trend
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: out there. And just like social, right? You need to know when people want to hear you or when people want to spend some time with you and when they don't, right? And I think that for this whole experiential thing, yes, you can do a partnership, yes, you can do a pop-up. Yes, you can do an activation in in Wimbledon. Everything is but you need to find the ones that are really relevant to your brand and that will actually give people something extra, right? If it's just merch, if it's just a boring thing that makes sense for you, but you're gonna make people, you know, spend a lot of time in a line and then get late to the Wimbledon game they went to see. then it's not gonna work even if you put a lot of money or you do a partnership or whatever, right? It needs to be relevant. So in that sense, that's what at least we try to do, right? We try to question why are we gonna do an experience or not,
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and why is it going to be relevant.
Gully Flowers: Susan Credle was on recently and she's suggested we kill the case study, which I kind of love as a idea, but I'm not sure what we do instead. I kind of feel like the titanium line process was is interesting, right? Standing up and talking about the work, different members of the team. Yeah, well, yes. But how how how do you
Kerrie Finch: having sent in a case study.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes.
Gully Flowers: feel generally about case studies?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think case studies are an art form itself, right? You need to be able to put all the information in a way that is, you know, entertaining in two minutes. So they have become the more and more we do crazy stuff that ca you cannot put in one bucket, right? We do stuff that looks direct but it's integrated, but it has experiential, but it's
Gully Flowers: Like shades of red.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: social, kind of like shades of red. And many of the winners of this year, right? You need to try to Tell the story as quick as possible. What what the titanium j judging allows you is to to go deeper, right? And that's why it was funny to see that the list that we voted based on the case study completely changed after we
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: saw the teams presenting, right? Which is interesting. I think I agree with Susan. Susan is genius. and we talk a lot about this when we meet for the AB InBev Council and and different places. Like, what's the next thing so we can, you know. judge an idea that it's not easy to judge because it's not a film, it's not a print, it's something bigger than that. but that is not the case study, right? And we're all trying to think what's the next big thing, right? but maybe it's the two minutes of someone presenting the idea with all the without all the ornaments and the decoration around it, right? Like just
Gully Flowers: that's hard.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: tell me your problem, tell me your solution, and then if we're interested we're gonna see more. But Again, there's a lot of good work around the world. In a category like Titanium, that we have a hundred and fifty entries, that's fine. But in a category where you have 2,000, like direct
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: the year I was president, it's impossible, right? But maybe, but
Kerrie Finch: Yeah. Yeah, it's huge, isn't it?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: maybe, just maybe, it's going also back to like Rick was saying in an article in in campaign, I think, last year. Let's go back to your best idea against my best idea. And that's it, right? Less categories, less less subcategories,
Kerrie Finch: What makes a good idea travel across borders?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think when idea is good, it makes you feel something, right? And it can be no, again, going to Thai humor. Thai humor is one of the best in the world. And it's not what we see every day, right? What we see
Kerrie Finch: Okay.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: is Hollywood, Netflix kind of humor,
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: many of them with pre recorded laughs. of course we have Brit humor we have, but Thai humor is not something that we see every day, but we recognize the brilliance in it because it makes us feel something, right? It it takes us from a different angle. And I think that this year we had big winners from Peru, we had big winners from many different markets, Poland, but but the the core of the idea was something that we can relate to, right? And it makes you feel something. You say, Yeah shit. If I got my phone stolen, this idea is brilliant, right? in the case of the idea from Peru. So I think that you can recognize the work because it It's it touches you on a level that it's independent from where you are and where you live, right? It's a purity of the idea.
Gully Flowers: what should the industry stop doing?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Mm. Tough question.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Kerrie Finch: So many things!
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So many things.
Gully Flowers: Just one. Just pick your pick your biggest one.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: No, I I I pff so many things. Who do I want to get into a fight with? no, but I
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, come on, bring it on. Come on Pancho.
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: think that you you were asking the beginning, Kerrie about award shows. I think we have a lot. and I think we should
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Kerrie Finch: We do. There are many, many around the world. Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: yes, we should I know, but it's us spending the money. So
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: because they can try to do another a hundred shows, but if we don't send the work then there's no business, right? I think we should try to focus on that. We should try to focus on our people. Spend more on them.
Gully Flowers: Thin out the award shows. Less award shows, right?
Kerrie Finch: So what are the top award shows for
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: A little yeah.
Kerrie Finch: you? What are your main contenders?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: we've been cutting from our shows just to because the world is changing so if the world is changing our participation in our shows also is changing but we try to stay close to the ones that actually make a difference either for the industry or for our clients right if they do both amazing right but i think that the the D&AD is an example of of an institution that does much much more and does a lot for the future generations which is another chapter of something that we should really take care
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, that's so important, yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: of because if we keep just having meetings on zoom or relying on ai we won't have a new generation of creatives coming soon. but D&AD for me is important. One show also does an amazing job Clio and and and Cannes I think Cannes is the standard of the thing. I think it's is one that that clients are also very interested because of what it means. So
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: more or less like that. But we've been cutting a lot of of the let's say all the the rest of the the the satellites, yeah. Yeah,
Kerrie Finch: The satellite, yeah.
Gully Flowers: Tier two and below. Yeah. And
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: a little bit.
Gully Flowers: I think you s just said something really interesting there, which was that if we keep using AI and Zoom, we won't have creatives. And I think it's a really interesting comment about building creative culture. And I'm interested in how you do that. because I think a lot of I think the mid agencies are pretty fucked, you know. Like it feels like a really competitive environment. And I'm curious as somebody who's been leading the elite level of creativity for decades, how do you build a creative culture and and is it possible when you're fully remote?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I don't think so. To be honest, no. That's why we go to the office. Not every day, we're super flexible in a way. we're flexible with summers, we're flexible with other things, but I truly believe that you can only build culture when you are around people. of course, being flexible, we never ask if you need to stay home, that's fine. But I think If you worry about the people, you need to be with the people. And you need to nurture the new talent. You need to help them. I think there's a lot of stuff that happens even on a very slow day of an agency, which we haven't had in a long time. I think all agencies where right now we're totally swamped with work, but there's a lot of things that happen that that cannot fit into a zoom call. A comment here. a What do you think about this? Help me with this. All of those things cannot be, let's say, scheduled in a in a zoom call
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, it's the spontaneity, isn't it? It's the water cooler moment. It's the serendipity of, you know, that chance encounter and passing a desk and having a coffee and yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Totally. And if people want to feel part of something and not just a collection of freelancers, they need to go together to have a coffee. We need to play the agency's football cup. You need to know that one person is moving houses and and spend time with them. And also you need to be the juniors need to be close to you. They need to know that they can ask. They need to know that you're a human, not just a face on a Zoom. And and you need to have that that vibe. That's why I think that that the culture is created you know, being closed. It's hard to create culture on a Zoom.
Kerrie Finch: I'm curious about how you develop next generation talent from any department, whether it's creativity, strategy, design, whatever it happens to be. But what's important to you?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah, no, I think what we do is stay really close to our people. And have a very collaborative environment. And in that sense, you can see from our credit lists in our campaigns to the way we work to where to the fact that we're very horizontal. I'm lucky to have that kind of leadership in all the David offices. But we we are super close to them and we give them chances, which I think that sometimes in in because we're We have a a boutique size, right? But in other bigger companies The junior teams, even the trainees, they don't have the chance to, you know, get a big brief and try to put you know, an idea in, right? And we do that. We open most of the projects. Of course, there's somewhat responsible, but we open the projects. We have a like a very rudimentary, but we have a system of walls, so all the ideas are there so people can see, people can jump in. I try to create an environment when even when when people are not the owners of an idea they feel like if they help that idea be better it's gonna be better for everyone right so hey you didn't you didn't think the Stevenage campaign that's fine but if you help the Stevenage campaign be better This agency will be better and you will be working in that better agency, right? So there's a lot of that and and
Kerrie Finch: you
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and I've been lucky to have people that that leave the most of the ego at the door. So that's how I feel again, going back to the new generations. They feel like you're they are in a place where they can shine, right? And I had the data somewhere, but but many of the Lions that we've won in our careers were from like a big number were from juniors that were given the chance to hey give it a thought and see what you can come up with and they did right so that's amazing
Gully Flowers: are there specific things that you've learned to help convince a client to do something that makes
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Gully Flowers: them feel really scared?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Hmm. I I don't know if I said it, Gully, but my dad was in advertising and interesting, he went from being a copywriter to being the CEO of the agency and then the president and then he retired. So I've been super lucky. Totally, totally.
Gully Flowers: Which was probably quite unusual back then, right? Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But there was there was a moment where the CEO left and
Kerrie Finch: Someone had to do it.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Someone in Chicago said, Hey, all the clients that speak really well about this. They super trust you. So hey, we're gonna
Gully Flowers: Yeah, right.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: give you a couple of of lessons in in economics, math, and Excel files,
Gully Flowers: Ha ha
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and you're gonna move to the other side of the building.
Kerrie Finch: my God.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But it was amazing. So I've been super lucky to have someone giving me advice since I started from
Gully Flowers: Mm. Who was a creative and then became yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Who was a creative, so like what do you need for someone to buy your idea? What do you need to be a creative director? What do you need to be the creative director of the office? you're gonna resign to Lola? Okay, what do you need to open your own agency? Like he's been able to give me a lot of advice, especially with clients, because my dad, one thing that he was really good at was with clients, he was super loved in the industry in Chile. So I think that the the way to persuasion, he always told me, like patience, patience. We're super impatient as creatives. And if someone doesn't like our thing, we get mad.
Gully Flowers: Yeah. Don't you love my idea? Do you want to buy it right now?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Totally, totally. And we try to sell it the first time. So my
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: dad always told me, like, patience, and it's something that I've been able to practice and and understand that it's super true. Depending on how brave your client is you need to have more patience or less patience right but they need to go hand in hand with you because they're gonna they're gonna give you if you if you do your job really well they're gonna give you one chance if they jump with you into the pool and the pool has no water
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that client will never trust you again right so you
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: need to make sure that every little step you do with you you give with them is a step that they will say Amazing, nothing happened. Actually, it's getting better. And little by little, and I've seen that with Magnum in Unilever. I've seen that with many, many clients, where you take them by the hand and you say little by little, and then look, Magnum right now and Lola, they're doing amazing work. and it was a job of many people, many creative directors along the years, but hand in hand. And and I think that is something that we should always remember. There are people too, they're scared too. They're scared not only for the brand. not performing and not only for the you know, the campaign having backlash, they're worried about their careers as human beings, right? Where are they gonna go if they get fired? So every time you want someone to be, you know, brave, y it's it's a work of time and patience.
Gully Flowers: Patience, I love that. do you do you have a piece of work ready you want to show?
Kerrie Finch: the Harland work, since we're in football season?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I love it. Yes, Haaland could be a good one. Yes. I think the Haaland
Kerrie Finch: Tell us about that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Well the client comes up, they need to put for the first time they were gonna put an actual person as a character in the game. the team in David New York, André and the whole team, they convinced the client and they ended up doing Haaland someone came up with the amazing strategy of yes, Haaland is famous, he's the top scorer of the Premier League. I think that year he broke the record of goals in the Premier League. But because of that, he also must have a lot of haters, right? Because of course, if we put Haaland in the game, all of the people who love Haaland are going to actually play the game. But what if we go to the people who suffer Haaland every weekend? And that's how the
Kerrie Finch: Ha ha!
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: amazing client and the amazing team at Supercell they bought into the strategy and they bought into the idea of doing a whole integrated campaign that changed every weekend. depending on how Haaland make you suffer or not.
Gully Flowers: Is this something the client like got right away or did it take some convincing?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: A little bit but not that much. You know that the client our Supercell client at that time was the same client we had at Burger King, Iwo Zakowski We had at Burger King when we did the Moldy Whopper So it's a very like brave
Gully Flowers: Wow, that was a
Kerrie Finch: Okay,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: client.
Kerrie Finch: so the same individual signed off Moldy Whopper and Haaland work. interesting. How interesting. Okay.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: The same human, amazing and beautiful human being. Yes. Yeah.
Gully Flowers: I mean Moldy Whopper
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So.
Gully Flowers: has gotta be probably the greatest campaign of all time, maybe. I don't know.
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, it's brilliant.
Gully Flowers: It's a it's it gets referenced so much, you know,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I love
Kerrie Finch: Yeah,
Gully Flowers: I don't think I've seen a campaign go to that next step of like not just featuring a celebrity but going, there must be a ton of people out there who want to seek revenge
Kerrie Finch: that hate this person.
Gully Flowers: on this person and give them an in game mechanic to actually do that that drives the pro I mean, I think you said previously that like the product is coming back to the center of celebrated advertising. And I feel like that my favorite campaigns are always the ones where you're like, this is so tightly connected to the product, you know, and I think you guys did a wonderful job of just linking celebrity to gameplay to a real insight about football fans. And I hadn't
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah.
Gully Flowers: seen that, so congratulations. That's a that's a real banger.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: amazing. I think that the brilliant of the of the team was finding that strategy because sometimes we just say, okay, we have the famous guy, let's it's gonna work, of course. Many of the Super Bowl work kind of depends on like, yeah,
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: we already paid 20 million
Gully Flowers: There he is, yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: for three famous guys, it's gonna work. And
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think what the team did with André and everyone in New York was like, okay, but what else can we do that is gonna be fun, that is gonna be relevant for that moment of Haaland? And then something that we do at David, and maybe it's because we're coming, we we were never part of the, you know, of Madison Avenue and we had a lot of resources. So we always try to find something is we try to juice like we say in Spanish, milk the idea till the last drop, like milk
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: a stone, sacar leche de las piedras. That's something that we say because we could have stopped in many of those places, right?
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But the team said no, let's do the out of home. Okay, good. No, but then let's do print every Monday. The newspaper is gonna come with the result of Haaland that weekend. And then someone said, Hey David Beckham is there there's a Manchester United documentary. Let's
Kerrie Finch: I love that when you jump on the documentary.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: let's put the out of home on top of the cinema. We'd
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: made a l which made a lot of headlines in The Sun and many more you know, like there was rivals in
Gully Flowers: Those rivalries, right? Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And then we said, okay, why don't we jump in and and and export the campaign using Ronaldinho or Ronaldo, even Aguero that have connections with him, but also have connections with the product they play and they they they tap into different markets. So we can say, hey, Haaland is beating your records. What do you think about that? No, fucking, let's fuck his village, right? So I think there's like
Gully Flowers: It's genius. Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: not stopping when the idea is good, not stopping is one of of the things we like to do, right?
Gully Flowers: Milk Milk the Stone, I like that.
Gully Flowers: I didn't like that either. Yeah, I can't stand when they do that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I'm not saying anything, Gully. You're you're you're assuming that I'm saying anything.
Gully Flowers: is it possible when you're fully remote?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I don't think so. To be honest, no. if they jump with you into the pool and the pool has no water
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that client will never trust you again
Gully Flowers: He's one of the people behind Moldy Whopper. He also helped turn one of the smallest football clubs in England into one of the biggest teams in FIFA. He put a hundred year old grandmother with twenty eight Instagram followers all over the Madrid Metro. He starts every brief with a fairly brutal assumption. People don't want to see your advertising. So we talked about how you make something they can't ignore, why creative culture can't be built on Zoom, and what his dad taught him about convincing clients to buy ideas that scare the shit out of them.
Kerrie Finch: Pancho, welcome to Second Wind.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Hey, thank you for the invitation and for such lovely words. yes. Super happy to be here.
Kerrie Finch: They're all true.
Gully Flowers: didn't mention his totals because I think I I have them here. 192 Cannes Lions, 8 Grand Prix, 3 titanium, 38 gold, 63 effies, D&AD black pencil, eleven hundred awards overall.
Kerrie Finch: I thought that mentioning them would be showing off.
Gully Flowers: Anyway, I did I you know it's it's it
Kerrie Finch: It's outrageous, Pancho. You need to just step aside and let someone else win for a change.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: No, it's it's I think it's a result of working with with a lot of amazing people throughout my career and being been you know, lucky to work with also brave clients with great brands.
Gully Flowers: Now, and we've just had Cannes Lions. I I'm curious how you're thinking about festivals and creativity and places like Cannes. Given the stress that the advertising agency model has been under.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: It's a great question to start, like a strong start.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: look, to be honest, after a week in Cannes, what I mostly feel is inspired. I think that we forget that Cannes is that moment of the year where you go and see who's doing great work around the world. And even when the world is super global right now, Cannes still has those little gems. that you go there and you see a team from you know Thailand doing an amazing campaign for a very interesting local problem and that inspires something else. and in this case I had the pleasure to be in the titanium jury, which also gave me the chance not only to vote the best of the best, but also to hear from the creators and their clients firsthand in a ten minute presentation why they believed their idea was a titanium candidate, right? So
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that was also interesting because you could see the creative teams
Gully Flowers: That's a cool experience.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: dynamics, yes, you could hear from different problems around the world, different categories. Actually the Grand Prix was a an insurance company, but you also have really fun things in the mix. so yes, Haven, yes.
Gully Flowers: Was that the Australian one, the Suncorp? Yeah, yeah, that was cool.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So it was an amazing week. Honestly for me Cannes is a is a learning week since I started going there when I was a trainee because you know I was in I was in Spain doing an internship And I thought, okay, maybe this is gonna end fast. So before they kick me back to Chile and they discovered I'm not a good copywriter, I need to go to Cannes. Please,
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, nobody tell anyone. Shhh.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I I try to go every year, right? And then I started going and then I I started, you know, doing my deals with my bosses. So it was like, okay, I'm gonna pay for everything, I'm gonna sleep on the floor, but if I win, I'm gonna have all the expenses here, so you have to pay me back. And little by little I I ended up going a lot of times and for me it's always that and for me also that's why at David we try to take as much people as we can. Because it feels like a week as and now that specially clients are are also joining the party, I think it's good to be with them and actually walk the Palais
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, yeah. It's big on brands,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: talk about the business, you know, talk about current work that we're doing. so in that sense, for me it's always a a week of inspiration.
Kerrie Finch: I think that when people get a delegate pass and they use it effectively, too many people think of it as this...
Gully Flowers: Is the delegate inside the palais? sorry to interrupt. I've never been inside the palais, just so you know. I've always
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, don't we need to stop telling people that Gully's never been inside the Palais. It's
Gully Flowers: It's the off piste It's just a different Cannes okay guys?
Kerrie Finch: a very different Cannes But this is what I mean. It's that I think a lot of people think, it's it's all party, party, party. But actually,
Gully Flowers: So ad tech dinners.
Kerrie Finch: yeah, it was an interesting year, it didn't feel like it was so much about the award winners or about the work. You know, it felt more about the experiential, the events, the beaches, So it's heartening to hear
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah.
Kerrie Finch: that this is how you're using it.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes and I think that I've never been it was David, then previously I was at Lola and previously Leo Burnett when I s where I started as a trainee. So I've never been in that place where they gave me a badge and and that's it, right? I needed to earn my badge. And then when I was the one deciding deciding who goes to can, either at Lola or at David, I was like, okay, we're gonna take the people who do the best work, you're gonna earn it for next year. And we're gonna give you a lot of work, especially coming back because I think that people need to understand that going to Cannes and spending five days looking at the best work in the world, it's also a responsibility so you can go back to the office and share it with the rest. So I always just like I found ways for my boss to reimburse my expenses when I went and I ate one McDonald's a day as a trainee. I also found my ways to make the badge Like super relevant for people and get everyone in the Palais on time and try to make the most out of it. Because you can have fun somewhere else.
Gully Flowers: Tell us about the titanium process, because I know I've had clients who've been preparing for that and they were terrified. and it's pretty rare you see clients terrified of creatives, right? Maybe not, but Usually the
Kerrie Finch: Do mean?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: For once.
Gully Flowers: Usually the power dynamics.
Kerrie Finch: Do mean, Dali, that people are terrified because they have to go in front of the jurors and talk about their project? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Gully Flowers: Yes. And they have
Kerrie Finch: OK.
Gully Flowers: how mu like th tell me about it, 'cause I I I haven't been in the room, as d as you probably know, but yeah. I've
Kerrie Finch: No, I've never been in the room. I'd love to know more.
Gully Flowers: been in the palais. Haven't been in the building. But yeah, I I'm interested to hear about that process and dynamic and how that feels to be somebody in that room judging.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: It's a great process. I think that that like any other category, you know, people submit, you bought from home kind of a first long list, shortlist, so you start identifying what. Because titanium, different from the rest, Cannes release the shortlist like two weeks in advance so people can prepare that presentation. It's the same in glass and innovation, but you have to prepare. So we released a shortlist in advance. And then of course you get to can with a list in order of preference, but then people have to vote and and have to present, and then you need to vote again. And it's interesting because the list that we had more or less flipped upside down. Many of the stuff that were looking super strong on the case study, then when you see the client, they were not as you know powerful as we thought, or they were very proto in a very they were in a very prototype stage and
Kerrie Finch: Okay.
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: plus there were other stuff that in the case study we I think we missed something but when the client presented they filled
Kerrie Finch: It comes alive.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: all the holes and it was amazing and like you could see the chemistry and and that's what happened
Kerrie Finch: What did you find most...
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and after that you vote so it it can change radically right
Kerrie Finch: What did you find most influential? What did you notice was really changing your perspective?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think that what happened and this is true story. many of the stuff that were up there ended up being lower after the presentation. And then when we did the final list where we said, okay, after the presentations, after voting, hey, we need to decide on this top ten. Mm, I think the top five were were presentations where the client and the agency presented together and you could see that they had a relationship for a long time. Both knew the business problem perfectly.
Kerrie Finch: Thank
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Both in many of the things both were like fighting to who can reply our questions
Gully Flowers: Ha ha.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: because they both knew exactly what was going on. and that was interesting. Because you know, people choose who presents. So sometimes it's two people from the clients, sometimes it's the engineer who came up with whatever plus the client, blah blah blah. But it was funny to see that at least in our top after seeing the presentation, there was most of them were client agency, which was
Kerrie Finch: Mmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: nice, I think. Because also we're in the business of, you know, fixing and building brands on the long run, not just doing these little creative shots, right?
Kerrie Finch: So what makes a good client agency relationship? What is absolutely fundamental? What's non-negotiable for you?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: For me, trust feels obvious, right? But you know, having the clients full trust and having them on WhatsApp and being able to talk about everything, then telling you the real problems, I think it's that intimacy. It's it's the magic after mu behind most of the campaigns I've been lucky to do. because when you know what's really going on in that side, I think you can get to a better solution, right? Most of the time, that's why, for example, pitching and all of that is it's the dynamics are are so different that it's hard to do something on a pitch that then will end up going on the street and actually changing stuff. Because you need the intimacy to understand what what's behind the brief and even question the brief and then go back when because clients are human like us. They have their own careers, they have their own problems, they have bosses. So when you understand Everything that's going on there, it's easier to get to a better solution for the brand, right?
Gully Flowers: we talked to Justine Armour recently and she called out something that as a jury, you sort of want to find a hidden gem how much of that drives your motivation when you're on a jury?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think you have a bit of everything. I think luckily for Cannes, and for for you as a jury, I think many, many campaigns start the cycle in Cannes. So you do see a lot of new things. I think there's other shows where you kind of get the end of the cycle of a campaign and then of course you get it and it already won a Grand Prix in Cannes and whatever and you need to decide whether to give Another Grand Prix to this very famous idea or to open to something new that maybe didn't make it to Cannes, but it's now here, right? So, in that sense, Cannes is lucky because I think most of the agencies use it as the first show of the year. But on the other hand, every time I've been jury president or part of a jury, I push a lot to be generous. I think that many times we get very polluted by the fame that a campaign has before arriving to a show. And in that sense it's unfair because you know, campaigns from bigger markets that have bigger media with bigger reach arrive in a more famous way, right? Than maybe sometimes a campaign from Thailand. But you see the campaign from Thailand, everyone laughs, is amazing. They're usually
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: super clever and they rise up. So I usually try to say, guys, let's be generous. Of course we need to reward this campaign that broke all the records and won the Super Bowl and blah blah blah blah blah and has three celebrities and cost twenty million dollars and it's Spike
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Jonze and Mickey Mouse and all that. But hey, let's be open to the
Gully Flowers: The American stuff.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: the the American stuff, but let's be open also to hey
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: there's this little thing from Peru or from Chile or from Thailand that is as clever as this. But it has a different context.
Kerrie Finch: I think it can work against you, can't it? Is there anything in this year from Cannes that you felt like got away, that it didn't do as well as you were expecting it to?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think there were a couple of things. I think there was a Brazilian campaign for Doritos that was absolutely brilliant where they do a whole theory of you remember the famous Ronaldo, the original Ronaldo haircut.
Gully Flowers: Yeah yeah. Yep.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And they do a whole thing, a theory that it was a you know, a Doritos thing and and connected all the World Cups. then you see the results, how it was done, it was amazing. I think there was another Renault campaign that for me was was gonna be a a clear winner. care fleet that was talking about you know the health deserts in France. All those little towns are they're far away from a hospital I think it was it was gonna be a tough year because I think twenty twenty five was a tough year in the world, right? With all the political situation plus the clients, the tariffs, the mergers. So I think we as an industry didn't produce the amount of work. You could see it then in the entries. Could have been that, but also the entries new entry system. So I thought hey, maybe this is gonna be a slower year, but then when you see the winners, you get happy again because there's a lot of great work that can hopefully get us all excited and and and trying to do our best for next year.
Gully Flowers: I remember when I was lowly suit at D D B in Sydney, coming back from Cannes we would all get together as as an agency and watch like a compilation of the best case studies. do you do anything after Cannes to get everybody together and sort of try to make sure that everybody in the agency, not just the people who went, you know, get some of those learnings?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes. So I I think I I I told you before the trick is the people that go needs to do a presentation for the
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: rest of the agency to share what they learn. And that's great because it's not only watching the winners. Everyone can what can see the list of winners and play the case studies, right? But what we like is that the people that go say, Hey, I went to a talk about this person in sports marketing. I thought it was interesting because of this, this, and that. And I think it can relate to our business. Because we have Budweiser, we have Águila in Colombia, and these sponsorships can learn something from this. So I do it. So that's something we do. And also we do a lot of of watching relevant case studies from time to time, right? Which is great. We go back, see the winners. Because also I think that one the beauty of walking the palais in the basement. Or even sitting down for hours, which is something I do every year. Just sit down in one of those computers with access to everything. Is that you discover something in the short list that doesn't make it to a lion that is brilliant?
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And maybe didn't win because of the craft, maybe didn't win because I don't know, whatever reason. Someone thought it was similar to something, but I in the short list, you can discover like like pure gold.
Kerrie Finch: you've said that people hate advertising and that you wake up every day trying to do something that most people will hate. I'm really curious to know how that has shaped the way that you come at creativity on a day-to-day or week-by-week basis.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Think it's a good when because this is something we say a lot with our clients. And and in the beginning the clients who didn't know us a lot, they were like a bit shocked. But when you accept that people will do anything to avoid you, and you start working from that, I think that you start having more interesting conversations around how brave you need to be, what kind of media you need to buy, and what kind of also what kind of conversations in social you should jump in or not, right? There's still people, clients, agencies that believe that whatever they do, people are gonna watch it like, yeah, I'm gonna spend three minutes watching this, but then it's like, yeah, it's three minutes of football players running after a ball? Really? Really? You spent 50 million doing players running after a ball again?
Gully Flowers: I didn't like that either. Yeah, I can't stand when they do that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I'm not saying anything, Gully. You're you're you're assuming that I'm saying anything. Right? But people assume that because
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: they either put a lot of money or producer or they're a big brand, people are gonna watch it and
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: people don't wanna watch it.
Gully Flowers: Just get Chalamet,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: People
Gully Flowers: it's easy.
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: people have a list, yes. People have a list of stuff to watch on Netflix, a list of stuff to watch on HBO. Like they have stuff to do. So either you break that, and I
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: think Adidas is a great example because I have to watch
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: it twice. With my kid and his friends in the living room because they couldn't believe what they just saw. And they were like, what else is coming? That is that's amazing. That's what we're here to do. Yes, that's what we're
Kerrie Finch: amazing you know that it's it's resonating with them yeah that's the point
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: here to do. And I think it helps when you start the meeting, the relationship, the project, saying, guys, people will do anything to avoid watching what we're gonna do. So let's try to crack it, right?
Kerrie Finch: What does engagement mean to you? Where is the industry getting it wrong?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think that some brands are getting it right, some brands are getting it wrong. I think that what we're we're still struggling is like sometimes brand brands try to jump into every new trend
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: out there. And just like social, right? You need to know when people want to hear you or when people want to spend some time with you and when they don't, right? And I think that for this whole experiential thing, yes, you can do a partnership, yes, you can do a pop-up. Yes, you can do an activation in in Wimbledon. Everything is but you need to find the ones that are really relevant to your brand and that will actually give people something extra, right? If it's just merch, if it's just a boring thing that makes sense for you, but you're gonna make people, you know, spend a lot of time in a line and then get late to the Wimbledon game they went to see. then it's not gonna work even if you put a lot of money or you do a partnership or whatever, right? It needs to be relevant. So in that sense, that's what at least we try to do, right? We try to question why are we gonna do an experience or not,
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and why is it going to be relevant.
Gully Flowers: Susan Credle was on recently and she's suggested we kill the case study, which I kind of love as a idea, but I'm not sure what we do instead. I kind of feel like the titanium line process was is interesting, right? Standing up and talking about the work, different members of the team. Yeah, well, yes. But how how how do you
Kerrie Finch: having sent in a case study.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yes.
Gully Flowers: feel generally about case studies?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think case studies are an art form itself, right? You need to be able to put all the information in a way that is, you know, entertaining in two minutes. So they have become the more and more we do crazy stuff that ca you cannot put in one bucket, right? We do stuff that looks direct but it's integrated, but it has experiential, but it's
Gully Flowers: Like shades of red.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: social, kind of like shades of red. And many of the winners of this year, right? You need to try to Tell the story as quick as possible. What what the titanium j judging allows you is to to go deeper, right? And that's why it was funny to see that the list that we voted based on the case study completely changed after we
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: saw the teams presenting, right? Which is interesting. I think I agree with Susan. Susan is genius. and we talk a lot about this when we meet for the AB InBev Council and and different places. Like, what's the next thing so we can, you know. judge an idea that it's not easy to judge because it's not a film, it's not a print, it's something bigger than that. but that is not the case study, right? And we're all trying to think what's the next big thing, right? but maybe it's the two minutes of someone presenting the idea with all the without all the ornaments and the decoration around it, right? Like just
Gully Flowers: that's hard.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: tell me your problem, tell me your solution, and then if we're interested we're gonna see more. But Again, there's a lot of good work around the world. In a category like Titanium, that we have a hundred and fifty entries, that's fine. But in a category where you have 2,000, like direct
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: the year I was president, it's impossible, right? But maybe, but
Kerrie Finch: Yeah. Yeah, it's huge, isn't it?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: maybe, just maybe, it's going also back to like Rick was saying in an article in in campaign, I think, last year. Let's go back to your best idea against my best idea. And that's it, right? Less categories, less less subcategories,
Kerrie Finch: What makes a good idea travel across borders?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think when idea is good, it makes you feel something, right? And it can be no, again, going to Thai humor. Thai humor is one of the best in the world. And it's not what we see every day, right? What we see
Kerrie Finch: Okay.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: is Hollywood, Netflix kind of humor,
Kerrie Finch: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: many of them with pre recorded laughs. of course we have Brit humor we have, but Thai humor is not something that we see every day, but we recognize the brilliance in it because it makes us feel something, right? It it takes us from a different angle. And I think that this year we had big winners from Peru, we had big winners from many different markets, Poland, but but the the core of the idea was something that we can relate to, right? And it makes you feel something. You say, Yeah shit. If I got my phone stolen, this idea is brilliant, right? in the case of the idea from Peru. So I think that you can recognize the work because it It's it touches you on a level that it's independent from where you are and where you live, right? It's a purity of the idea.
Gully Flowers: what should the industry stop doing?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Mm. Tough question.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Kerrie Finch: So many things!
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So many things.
Gully Flowers: Just one. Just pick your pick your biggest one.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: No, I I I pff so many things. Who do I want to get into a fight with? no, but I
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, come on, bring it on. Come on Pancho.
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: think that you you were asking the beginning, Kerrie about award shows. I think we have a lot. and I think we should
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Kerrie Finch: We do. There are many, many around the world. Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: yes, we should I know, but it's us spending the money. So
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: because they can try to do another a hundred shows, but if we don't send the work then there's no business, right? I think we should try to focus on that. We should try to focus on our people. Spend more on them.
Gully Flowers: Thin out the award shows. Less award shows, right?
Kerrie Finch: So what are the top award shows for
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: A little yeah.
Kerrie Finch: you? What are your main contenders?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: we've been cutting from our shows just to because the world is changing so if the world is changing our participation in our shows also is changing but we try to stay close to the ones that actually make a difference either for the industry or for our clients right if they do both amazing right but i think that the the D&AD is an example of of an institution that does much much more and does a lot for the future generations which is another chapter of something that we should really take care
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, that's so important, yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: of because if we keep just having meetings on zoom or relying on ai we won't have a new generation of creatives coming soon. but D&AD for me is important. One show also does an amazing job Clio and and and Cannes I think Cannes is the standard of the thing. I think it's is one that that clients are also very interested because of what it means. So
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: more or less like that. But we've been cutting a lot of of the let's say all the the rest of the the the satellites, yeah. Yeah,
Kerrie Finch: The satellite, yeah.
Gully Flowers: Tier two and below. Yeah. And
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: a little bit.
Gully Flowers: I think you s just said something really interesting there, which was that if we keep using AI and Zoom, we won't have creatives. And I think it's a really interesting comment about building creative culture. And I'm interested in how you do that. because I think a lot of I think the mid agencies are pretty fucked, you know. Like it feels like a really competitive environment. And I'm curious as somebody who's been leading the elite level of creativity for decades, how do you build a creative culture and and is it possible when you're fully remote?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I don't think so. To be honest, no. That's why we go to the office. Not every day, we're super flexible in a way. we're flexible with summers, we're flexible with other things, but I truly believe that you can only build culture when you are around people. of course, being flexible, we never ask if you need to stay home, that's fine. But I think If you worry about the people, you need to be with the people. And you need to nurture the new talent. You need to help them. I think there's a lot of stuff that happens even on a very slow day of an agency, which we haven't had in a long time. I think all agencies where right now we're totally swamped with work, but there's a lot of things that happen that that cannot fit into a zoom call. A comment here. a What do you think about this? Help me with this. All of those things cannot be, let's say, scheduled in a in a zoom call
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, it's the spontaneity, isn't it? It's the water cooler moment. It's the serendipity of, you know, that chance encounter and passing a desk and having a coffee and yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Totally. And if people want to feel part of something and not just a collection of freelancers, they need to go together to have a coffee. We need to play the agency's football cup. You need to know that one person is moving houses and and spend time with them. And also you need to be the juniors need to be close to you. They need to know that they can ask. They need to know that you're a human, not just a face on a Zoom. And and you need to have that that vibe. That's why I think that that the culture is created you know, being closed. It's hard to create culture on a Zoom.
Kerrie Finch: I'm curious about how you develop next generation talent from any department, whether it's creativity, strategy, design, whatever it happens to be. But what's important to you?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah, no, I think what we do is stay really close to our people. And have a very collaborative environment. And in that sense, you can see from our credit lists in our campaigns to the way we work to where to the fact that we're very horizontal. I'm lucky to have that kind of leadership in all the David offices. But we we are super close to them and we give them chances, which I think that sometimes in in because we're We have a a boutique size, right? But in other bigger companies The junior teams, even the trainees, they don't have the chance to, you know, get a big brief and try to put you know, an idea in, right? And we do that. We open most of the projects. Of course, there's somewhat responsible, but we open the projects. We have a like a very rudimentary, but we have a system of walls, so all the ideas are there so people can see, people can jump in. I try to create an environment when even when when people are not the owners of an idea they feel like if they help that idea be better it's gonna be better for everyone right so hey you didn't you didn't think the Stevenage campaign that's fine but if you help the Stevenage campaign be better This agency will be better and you will be working in that better agency, right? So there's a lot of that and and
Kerrie Finch: you
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and I've been lucky to have people that that leave the most of the ego at the door. So that's how I feel again, going back to the new generations. They feel like you're they are in a place where they can shine, right? And I had the data somewhere, but but many of the Lions that we've won in our careers were from like a big number were from juniors that were given the chance to hey give it a thought and see what you can come up with and they did right so that's amazing
Gully Flowers: are there specific things that you've learned to help convince a client to do something that makes
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Gully Flowers: them feel really scared?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Hmm. I I don't know if I said it, Gully, but my dad was in advertising and interesting, he went from being a copywriter to being the CEO of the agency and then the president and then he retired. So I've been super lucky. Totally, totally.
Gully Flowers: Which was probably quite unusual back then, right? Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But there was there was a moment where the CEO left and
Kerrie Finch: Someone had to do it.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Someone in Chicago said, Hey, all the clients that speak really well about this. They super trust you. So hey, we're gonna
Gully Flowers: Yeah, right.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: give you a couple of of lessons in in economics, math, and Excel files,
Gully Flowers: Ha ha
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: and you're gonna move to the other side of the building.
Kerrie Finch: my God.
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But it was amazing. So I've been super lucky to have someone giving me advice since I started from
Gully Flowers: Mm. Who was a creative and then became yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Who was a creative, so like what do you need for someone to buy your idea? What do you need to be a creative director? What do you need to be the creative director of the office? you're gonna resign to Lola? Okay, what do you need to open your own agency? Like he's been able to give me a lot of advice, especially with clients, because my dad, one thing that he was really good at was with clients, he was super loved in the industry in Chile. So I think that the the way to persuasion, he always told me, like patience, patience. We're super impatient as creatives. And if someone doesn't like our thing, we get mad.
Gully Flowers: Yeah. Don't you love my idea? Do you want to buy it right now?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Totally, totally. And we try to sell it the first time. So my
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: dad always told me, like, patience, and it's something that I've been able to practice and and understand that it's super true. Depending on how brave your client is you need to have more patience or less patience right but they need to go hand in hand with you because they're gonna they're gonna give you if you if you do your job really well they're gonna give you one chance if they jump with you into the pool and the pool has no water
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: that client will never trust you again right so you
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: need to make sure that every little step you do with you you give with them is a step that they will say Amazing, nothing happened. Actually, it's getting better. And little by little, and I've seen that with Magnum in Unilever. I've seen that with many, many clients, where you take them by the hand and you say little by little, and then look, Magnum right now and Lola, they're doing amazing work. and it was a job of many people, many creative directors along the years, but hand in hand. And and I think that is something that we should always remember. There are people too, they're scared too. They're scared not only for the brand. not performing and not only for the you know, the campaign having backlash, they're worried about their careers as human beings, right? Where are they gonna go if they get fired? So every time you want someone to be, you know, brave, y it's it's a work of time and patience.
Gully Flowers: Patience, I love that. do you do you have a piece of work ready you want to show?
Kerrie Finch: the Harland work, since we're in football season?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I love it. Yes, Haaland could be a good one. Yes. I think the Haaland
Kerrie Finch: Tell us about that.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Well the client comes up, they need to put for the first time they were gonna put an actual person as a character in the game. the team in David New York, André and the whole team, they convinced the client and they ended up doing Haaland someone came up with the amazing strategy of yes, Haaland is famous, he's the top scorer of the Premier League. I think that year he broke the record of goals in the Premier League. But because of that, he also must have a lot of haters, right? Because of course, if we put Haaland in the game, all of the people who love Haaland are going to actually play the game. But what if we go to the people who suffer Haaland every weekend? And that's how the
Kerrie Finch: Ha ha!
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: amazing client and the amazing team at Supercell they bought into the strategy and they bought into the idea of doing a whole integrated campaign that changed every weekend. depending on how Haaland make you suffer or not.
Gully Flowers: Is this something the client like got right away or did it take some convincing?
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: A little bit but not that much. You know that the client our Supercell client at that time was the same client we had at Burger King, Iwo Zakowski We had at Burger King when we did the Moldy Whopper So it's a very like brave
Gully Flowers: Wow, that was a
Kerrie Finch: Okay,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: client.
Kerrie Finch: so the same individual signed off Moldy Whopper and Haaland work. interesting. How interesting. Okay.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: The same human, amazing and beautiful human being. Yes. Yeah.
Gully Flowers: I mean Moldy Whopper
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: So.
Gully Flowers: has gotta be probably the greatest campaign of all time, maybe. I don't know.
Kerrie Finch: Yeah, it's brilliant.
Gully Flowers: It's a it's it gets referenced so much, you know,
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I love
Kerrie Finch: Yeah,
Gully Flowers: I don't think I've seen a campaign go to that next step of like not just featuring a celebrity but going, there must be a ton of people out there who want to seek revenge
Kerrie Finch: that hate this person.
Gully Flowers: on this person and give them an in game mechanic to actually do that that drives the pro I mean, I think you said previously that like the product is coming back to the center of celebrated advertising. And I feel like that my favorite campaigns are always the ones where you're like, this is so tightly connected to the product, you know, and I think you guys did a wonderful job of just linking celebrity to gameplay to a real insight about football fans. And I hadn't
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: Yeah.
Gully Flowers: seen that, so congratulations. That's a that's a real banger.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: amazing. I think that the brilliant of the of the team was finding that strategy because sometimes we just say, okay, we have the famous guy, let's it's gonna work, of course. Many of the Super Bowl work kind of depends on like, yeah,
Kerrie Finch: Hmm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: we already paid 20 million
Gully Flowers: There he is, yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: for three famous guys, it's gonna work. And
Kerrie Finch: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: I think what the team did with André and everyone in New York was like, okay, but what else can we do that is gonna be fun, that is gonna be relevant for that moment of Haaland? And then something that we do at David, and maybe it's because we're coming, we we were never part of the, you know, of Madison Avenue and we had a lot of resources. So we always try to find something is we try to juice like we say in Spanish, milk the idea till the last drop, like milk
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: a stone, sacar leche de las piedras. That's something that we say because we could have stopped in many of those places, right?
Gully Flowers: Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: But the team said no, let's do the out of home. Okay, good. No, but then let's do print every Monday. The newspaper is gonna come with the result of Haaland that weekend. And then someone said, Hey David Beckham is there there's a Manchester United documentary. Let's
Kerrie Finch: I love that when you jump on the documentary.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: let's put the out of home on top of the cinema. We'd
Gully Flowers: Mm.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: made a l which made a lot of headlines in The Sun and many more you know, like there was rivals in
Gully Flowers: Those rivalries, right? Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: And then we said, okay, why don't we jump in and and and export the campaign using Ronaldinho or Ronaldo, even Aguero that have connections with him, but also have connections with the product they play and they they they tap into different markets. So we can say, hey, Haaland is beating your records. What do you think about that? No, fucking, let's fuck his village, right? So I think there's like
Gully Flowers: It's genius. Yeah.
Pancho Cassis - DAVID: not stopping when the idea is good, not stopping is one of of the things we like to do, right?
Gully Flowers: Milk Milk the Stone, I like that.
