By Robert Goldrich

On May 15 during a formal dinner event in Miami Beach, Marcello Serpa, partner and general creative director of AlmapBBDO, Sao Paulo, Brazil, is scheduled to receive Clio’s Lifetime Achievement Award. It’s a curious honor given that Serpa is only 45. But at the same time, it underscores his achievements to date which in many respects have helped the advertising community in Latin America to attain a higher profile over the past 15 or so years, dating back to when at Brazilian agency DM9DDB he became the first Latin American to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, in print and outdoor for an Antarctica soft drink campaign.
    Born in Brazil, Serpa actually began his career in Germany.  He studied graphic design in Munich and then landed work as a creative at German advertising agencies GGK and R.G. Wiesmeir.
    After seven years in Germany, Serpa returned to Brazil where he worked at the Rio and Sao Paulo offices of ad shop DPZ before joining DM9DDB in 1991.
    In ’93, the year he scored the Grand Prix honor, Serpa and Jose Luiz Madeira, a senior account manager and strategic planner, both left DM9DDB to become partners at AlmapBBDO. Over the years that agency has managed to create standout work for such notable clients as Volkswagen, Pepsi, Inbev, Bayer, Audi Brazil, Mars Brazil, Gatorade, Havaianas and Greenpeace.
    Serpa is the most awarded creative in the history of the Sao Paulo Creative Club Yearbook,, and has been selected best creative director in Iberian America and Brazil eight times by the El Ojo de Iberoamericana Festival. During his 15-year (and still counting) tenure at AlmapBBDO, the agency has won 45 Clio statues, topped the annual Gunn Report in both 2004 and ’05 as the most awarded ad shop in the world, and was named Agency of the Year in 2000 at Cannes.

SHOOT: What does the Clio honor mean to you?

Serpa: First, I was really surprised to hear that I was named to receive the award. It’s a big honor that represents not only my work but the talent of those I’ve had the good fortune to work with over the years.
    It is also recognition of the power of this region creatively. And it’s very good to see that Clio is looking at what’s happening south of the United States border.

SHOOT: You started your career in Germany. Do you feel being exposed to European creative sensibilities enabled you to bring a different dimension to advertising when you returned to Brazil?

Serpa: Absolutely. When I was 18, I traveled abroad and had the chance to study design in Germany and then work at agencies there. I’ve found that having an international background helps a lot. It helps you to look at things a little bit differently. It adds new dimensions to your thinking.
    When I came back to Brazil, I saw everything here in a different light. I had a different angle and perspective which added more value to things in Brazil that I had previously taken for granted. Bringing new perspectives to your world can really open you up creatively and help you to see new possibilities. It was like a coming together of two worlds–and Brazil and Germany are totally different worlds.

SHOOT: Could you elaborate on what you see as being the differences between those two worlds? I’m assuming for example that German culture is more analytical while Brazil skews to the more emotional.

Serpa: Yes. We are more emotionally oriented and driven in Brazil. Germany is much more driven by the rational, the cerebral. My creative experience in Germany helped me to bring some of that rational German orientation to my work in Brazil, creatively meshing those distinctly different rational and emotional aspects in my advertising.

SHOOT: How has the Latin American market changed and progressed over the years?

Serpa: The market is coming of age. It’s not just Brazil doing well but Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Peru. There are good creative people throughout the region–young people with new, fresh ideas; new talent that is trying to make a difference. It’s a powerful market.
    By contrast, 15 or 20 years ago, creative performance was spotty. Once in a while you’d see good work from Brazil but it wasn’t consistent. Now we’re consistently seeing good work all through Latin America.
    The problem we’ve always had–which was even more prominent years ago–is that we don’t often have big budgets. But we’ve learned to turn that into an advantage. Without big budgets, you’re forced to be simple and fresh. You don’t have Hollywood behind you so you have to rely on simple and easily executed ideas. And clean, fresh ideas work well in print, TV and the Internet. Local budgets are still rather tight. Yet we do have many international companies coming to Latin America to tap into our creative talent and those budgets are a bit larger.

SHOOT: How has your role as agency creative director evolved?

Serpa: It’s changed dramatically in terms of the different media we need to deal with today. I started as an art director and was grounded in TV and print. Now you have to look well beyond that with new forms of content emerging, particularly on the Internet. And you’re dealing with many more creative people. We have our Internet people now on the same floor with us because we all have to work well together. We have to create concepts that work everywhere, across all media.

SHOOT: In light of being honored with an industry lifetime achievement award, what achievements do you look back on now as having been particularly significant?

Serpa: The Grand Prix win because it generated attention for all of the Latin American creative community. People around the world started to notice Brazil and we’ve built ourselves from there.
    As an agency, we continued to win all kinds of awards, a key one being the Agency of the Year honor at Cannes in 2000. That made some people around the world angry but it also caused many to take notice of what we’re doing in this market. We become recognized as a world-class creative market.
    Most gratifying to me is that we’ve been able to maintain a high level of creativity consistently over the years. That’s difficult to do–it means so much more than being a fashionable, hip agency for just a year or two.

SHOOT: Does it feel odd to win a lifetime achievement award at the age of 45?

Serpa: Yes. This is the kind of award you’re supposed to receive when you’re white haired and trembling quite a bit.
    Ultimately I look at it like a soccer game where each half is forty-five minutes long. I scored in the last seconds of the first half with this award and now I have to go take a shower and then come back on the field to play some more.
    The second half will be much easier to play than the first. But I will continue to play and have fun. The production of good work, good creative is fun. Good work and fun belong together. My hope for the second half is that clients will continue to allow us to produce good work on their behalf.

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