Dream Teams: Ninon Peres and Geoffrey Poulain’s “Fight for Creative Quality”

Ninon Peres and Geoffrey Poulain’s first brief together was a disaster. Seven years ago, at Sup de Creation - a French advertising school located in Lille - they were part of the sparsely populated classes made up of two teams of roughly 15 copywriters and 15 art directors. This humble spread remained the same throughout the year, so the students at Sup de Creation, including Ninon and Geoffrey, got the opportunity to pair up with everybody at least once. 

It just so happened that Geoffrey was the first person she got paired up with on the programme. The project went so badly that Ninon says she immediately “knew” Geoffrey wouldn’t be her art director. “For once, I’m very happy to have been wrong.”

Geoffrey agrees - the entire process was painful for both, however he firmly believes that it was their level of work that was a disaster, not their pairing, which would be later proven true.

A few months down the line, a much brighter idea emerged - forget the promise of never working together, bury the hatchet and try again. “We created a portfolio together, applied for internships and never let go of each other.” Starting as colleagues and becoming friends, both Ninon and Geoffrey have changed their minds on each other ever since that first impression. 

Later on, the two of them interned at Rosa Paris working on Monoprix, a French supermarket well known for its puns, where they came up with quite a few stellar one-liners. “The first agency project we did was probably a pun for Monoprix or a banner-format adaptation for a car brand,” says Geoffrey. 

The duo’s first major project, though, came about during their first year of “proper” work. “It was the GPS quality label for Auchan, a French retailer. After a series of food industry related scandals and contaminated eggs across Europe at the time, the project came as a refreshing promise of food quality and care for the product. 

During this first experience at Serviceplan, we worked almost exclusively for that client,” says Ninon. While complicated, the hard work on day-to-day projects eventually paid off and her and Geoffrey won their first two Cannes Lions. “It all started with a powerful insight from a strategic planner, and became a way to check the origin of what you’re eating thanks to Google Maps,” says Geoffrey about the project.

Today, their projects are even more impressive. The one Ninon says she’s most proud of is an out-of-home billboard for French plant-based brand La Vie. In a country like France, where veganism remains a divisive subject, the duo had to come up with punchy and memorable messaging to the public. The billboard reads: ‘A Jew, a meat-lover and a Muslim, and a vegan walk into a bar and share a bacon sandwich. No Joke.’

“With a tagline like this, we wanted to prove that veganism shouldn’t be a divisive subject,” explains Ninon. “People of all religions and beliefs can sit down together at the same table and enjoy. So yes, all we’re doing is selling bacon, but in a social context where many people are trying to divide us, we’re very proud to have been able to do so by promoting the values that we share.”

She continues: “What also makes me proud is that even though this was a copywriting idea, it was a real team effort. I quickly came up with it, but the wording didn’t sound like a joke enough. When Geoffrey read it, he worked a bit of rewording magic and that’s how it came about.”

While Geoffrey expresses his love for the La Vie project, he holds a special place in his heart for the duo’s film for Ubisoft’s game ‘The Crew’, because, as he puts it, it was by far the project that required the most work and patience and was “the most impressive shoot of our career.” Oh, and because the music was by Gwen Stefani.

All of these successful projects (bar the first one at school) wouldn't have been possible had Ninon and Geoffrey’s personalities not complemented each other the way they do. “When Ninon is stressed, I’m calm. When she has crazy ideas, I have pragmatic solutions. But when my pragmatism gets a bit boring, she gets crazier. When personal life is hard, we compensate by relieving each other’s workload,” explains Geoffrey.

Ninon agrees: “I’m more of an extrovert and Geoffrey is more introverted. I’m messy and he’s a neat freak. I’m naturally stressed while Geoffrey is calm. I talk a lot while he is a great listener. The little faults of one are balanced by the qualities of the other.”

When the faults don’t get balanced out though, frustrations do emerge. Ninon admits to having been annoyed at Geoffrey’s calmness before fully knowing him, as she thought it came off as indifference. “Now I know it’s a way of being that is just very different from my own, and that’s good because it gives me what I need.”

For Geoffrey, the only balance that necessitates management is the one between the two’s friendship and their work. To protect the first, they put communication and each other on top of everything else - “We always talk about what’s important to us, or what’s bothering us.”

A similar approach is taken when they disagree on a creative solution within their projects. Ninon says she needs to always express what she feels, because left to herself, her feelings boil over and the possible explosion is never good. 

“Geoffrey and I have an almost sibling-like relationship.And while it’s an incredible opportunity to be able to work with someone so close to you, it can become tricky to manage, to put a barrier between private life and work. If you have an argument the night before, you still need to meet up in the morning.”

This is where communication is key. Both agree that the best ideas will be the ones they both love, but whenever one that only half of the duo is keen on emerges, it doesn’t get scrapped - it gets talked about. “Frustration has never come from disagreement,” says Geoffrey. “Rather, frustration comes when we’re both perfectly convinced that we hold something powerful, and that idea dies.”

It’s these moments of honesty and the commitment to communication that carry Ninon and Geoffrey’s challenging projects. This was recently evident in the previously mentioned Ubisoft film done through Sid Lee Paris. “It was our first big international film, and it took almost a year from brief to launch,” says Ninon. In the process, the duo learned patience, the power of self-inquiry, the challenge of changing ideas along the way, but never lost sight of the objective.

“Due to various legal constraints, the first version of our film wasn’t turning out the way we wanted,” she explains. “With our creative director Stephane Soussan, we decided to kill it and write a completely different film. This project was already pretty well advanced, so it was a long road, but we’re all very happy with it today.”

Geoffrey adds: “As we went through the process, there were constraints that might have compromised the quality of the work. The incredible team at Sid Lee had the courage to explain this to the client and to convince them to go with a new one halfway through the process. To fight for creative quality is a very cool - yet stressful - thing to witness.”

Over the years, Ninon and Geoffrey’s friendship has blossomed and has become a carrying pillar for their work relationship. Today, they often go to concerts and to the cinema together, and share most of their friends. “We’ve lost count of the number of film screenings and parties we’ve been to together,” he says. 

Through that time, as well as during their professional time spent together, they both have learned some lessons. “Geoffrey is really better at foosball than I am,” admits Ninon. “Following him to shake hands while being tipsy at parties could get us into an amazing agency. You can get paid to have fun with a great friend. And it can even be a job.”

Geoffrey continues: “Ninon definitely taught me some Franche-Comté dialect (her region), how to be less late (she didn't totally succeed), a few things about spirituality or feminism.”

With one awful project and a heap of amazing ones behind them, it’s categorical - Ninon and Geoffrey wouldn’t be able to do the same work without each other. “I couldn’t do it on my own,” says Ninon. “With Geoffrey I feel stronger, better, and the days are more fun too.”

When talking about creative partnership, Geoffrey adds: “It’s almost a necessity in my opinion. You can have good ideas on your own, but you need someone else to elevate them. Ideas need confrontation, contradiction, to be at their best. This person helping you elevate your ideas has to be someone you know well enough to be able to tell them all the crap without being afraid of judgement.”