Why Chacho Puebla is Searching for Surprise
Horacio “Chacho” Puebla is originally from Mendoza, Argentina, but he has lived and worked in Chile, Portugal, Spain and is currently living in France. He spends almost 200 days a year traveling for his clients. He’s a guy who doesn’t like to stay still.
All of the agencies he has been responsible for throughout his career have been ranked in the Top 5 of each respective country: Tropa Grey (Chile), Leo Burnett (Chile), Leo Burnett (Portugal), Leo Burnett Iberia (Spain) and LOLA MullenLowe (Spain) which is currently ranked #1 in Spain and 12th in the World.
Besides working in advertising, he is actively involved in several other projects like a craft brewery, a t-shirt company and a nightclub. He also works as a communications advisor for several projects in film and art. He is obsessed with the future and he creates conceptual art pieces that have gone viral online.
This year Chacho is serving as jury president for the Outdoor and Direct categories at eurobest. We spoke to him about the state of European creativity, his categories at the festival and the industry's future.
Q> Why are the Outdoor and Direct Awards interesting?
Chacho> Outdoor and Direct are both very relevant disciplines for the world we live in today. With the overload of information and messages we are bombarded with every day, Direct finds ways to engage with the audience. In Outdoor, I see it more as a moral issue. We need to stop polluting cities with useless, ugly and repetitive pieces of advertising that no one even sees. We need to create work that makes us think and feel, with an aesthetic that challenges us.
Q> How important is it for an idea to have long term effectiveness?
Chacho> It depends on the objective of the idea. There are ideas made for long-term, and ideas made for short-term. The problem sometimes in this industry is that we want one thing that does it all. We need to have clear and common sense KPI’s to understand what assets will use creativity to unlock the barriers that brands confront to persuade and connect with their audience.
Q> What is the most important characteristic a winning work must have?
Chacho> Surprise. Why? We are searching for the work that brings something new to the table rather than replicating old formulas.
Q> What sets European creativity apart from the rest of world?
Chacho> Nowadays Europe is the most diverse landscape on the planet. I think that this is reflected in the work. I can’t think of another geographic location where the mix of talent is so rich in diversity.
Q> Describe European creativity in three words.
Chacho> Diverse. Crafted. Multichannel.
Q> Your role sees you travel around the world, how does this inspire your work?
Chacho> When you travel, you change your perspective and by doing so, you see things in a different way. Reframing things to see new points of view is the core of creative thinking. The more you repeat this, the more you understand the whole picture and learn how to create ideas that will trigger emotions in different kinds of people. We are so similar and so different at the same time. This is such a beautiful thought for me.
For further details about eurobest 2019, see the website.
