The World: How DDB Brazil won Cannes Agency of the Year

executive of DDB Brazil, winner of the Cannes Agency of the Year award,
says it's how to do things faster.

"The most important and relevant impact that this economic crisis has
had on my industry, is on planning time," he says. "Now we need more
quick answers than ever. So if you are fast, and efficient, you can be
better. This is the most important necessity for now."

Valente argues that Brazil, whose agencies regularly cart home crates of
awards from Cannes, has been impacted less by the recession than have
other countries.

"We have been in crisis for years," he says. "Clients have cut budgets
something like 20 per cent. The best medicine is creativity and we are
totally prepared for that. But because we have been through so much, we
have to do a lot with very little, and that's what ad agencies could
learn from us."

Valente cites what happened during the live broadcast of Michael
Jackson's memorial service, an event watched simultaneously in countries
around the world, to make his point.

"On Facebook, everybody was connecting with friends who were watching
it. And when people are connecting, they are talking about your brand,
your product, so you have to be a little more influential and fast with
this networking. In addition to increasing creativity, the challenge is
how to deal with the internet and networking. Last year, it was
convergence, but this year, the most important trend is networking."

Winning Agency of the Year at Cannes, with a cache of nine Lions (two
gold, four silver and three bronze, for clients such as Terra Travel,
the sound-production company Saxsofunny, FedEx and the image bank
Latinstock), is only the latest in a number of titles the Sao
Paulo-based agency has notched up over the years. Others include Cyber
Agency of the Year in 2005, and Agency of the Year titles in 1998 and
1999. (Formerly the local hotshop DM9, it was bought by DDB in
1997.)

"Winning at Cannes is not the most important thing but it is the most
difficult thing in advertising," Valente explains. "Cannes is like the
record of an athlete. If you focus on the record, you beat everything;
you beat your competitors, and you will be naturally good for your
clients, your colleagues and your partners. This is a kind of religion.
It's not the most important thing, but when you get Agency of the Year,
you show everybody, 'Look how good, how clever I am; how at the top of
the trend I am', and, of course, everybody wants that."

Valente is less concerned with what it says about Latin America's
creativity, than what it says about Brazil, a country of 180 million
people consisting of two different demographics: the very poor and the
very rich.

"We are a huge country with many different people, so we have to be very
creative to deal with it," he says. "You have to be popular and
breathtaking, but, at the same time, you have to be clever and
surprising and use different weapons. The rich and the poor are like two
different countries and situations, but you have different ways to
connect. You don't have to use different weapons, sometimes it's the
same weapons. But you have to have a good positioning to build great
advertising."

In Brazil, media buying remains in-house. "That's the best way," Valente
says. "Because you have to put creativity in the media. Media is just to
buy goods and sell the brand better, it's not a finance thing, I'm
talking about intelligence, research, genes and creativity and the best
way is to put all this together."

Humour, emotion and passion characterise Brazilian ads, which often
reflect the country's soap opera culture. And they also could be said to
characterise Valente himself. Friendly and talkative, Valente has a
fireman's pole outside his office and he slides down to the floor below,
where the creatives and planners sit. Once there, he no doubt exhorts
them to do better work and win more Cannes Lions.

According to Bob Scarpelli, DDB Worldwide's chairman and chief creative
officer: "The passion and energy with DDB Brazil is palpable. They are
always looking to the future. Even after winning Agency of the Year they
were already talking about 2010. They just live for what's next. I think
it has something to do with the way Brazilian agencies operate. It
relies very much on the cult of personality. So many of its senior
figures, such as Marcelo Serpa at Almap/BBDO, have reputations that
extend well beyond the business."

In addition to passion and personality, it's also the agency's famous
heritage that helps differentiate it from other Brazilian shops. "We
believe in our soul, and our soul is DM9 and we never forget that,"
Valente says. "Despite being DDB, we have a DM9 heritage. We're
different because we just want to be us, and I believe that many clients
don't like us.

"One day, I had a meeting with a marketing director, and he's talking
what he wants and what he doesn't and we have to do this and don't do
that and I stopped him and said: 'Hey, man, I don't want to work for
you. We're not happy together, so it's better for you to find an agency
that matches you.'

"I'm still looking for clients that match with me. It's all about
happiness. Maybe I am a little Pollyanna, but I really believe if we are
not happy, we will not do good work."