NIZAN GUANAES
Nizan Guanaes is Chairman and Founder of Brazilian communications group, Grupo ABC, which is comprised of 14 organisations in the advertising, specialised marketing services, content and entertainment sectors including Brazilian ad agencies DM9DDB, Africa and Loducca. He met with our CEO Sandra Lehnst over a coffee at this year’s Cannes Lions festival to talk social causes and why smaller agencies have the ability to change the ad industry.
Image: Nizan Guanaes speaking at the Cannes Lions. Former US president Bill Clinton's speech at 2012's festival was backed by Grupo ABC.
At the moment I am working on...
Making Grupo ABC a global group.
This year I’ll be attending...
DLD (Digital Life Design), the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Clinton Global Initiative. Cannes is the only ad festival I will go to, because today most of my agenda is the economic and social agenda of the world. For example I work with President Clinton, I work in the United Nations and every year I go to Davos and am in the governor’s meeting with Martin Sorrell.
I am the High Commissioner of the United Nations and a goodwill ambassador of UNESCO. It means I am not only focused in my business, but also in making the world a better place. I am engaged in organisations like the Women in the World Foundation. Why is this relevant? Because 51% of the world population is women. There is no way you can address issues such as birth control, health policies and micro-finance issues without women.
I became one of the five most influential Brazilians according to the Financial Times, which means that today I am not only in the advertising world, but engaged in the economical world of my country and this is very important.
What got my attention at the last festival I attended is...
The last festival I attended before this was Cannes Lions 2002 and what caught my attention is that this festival was dying. So I am very happy to see it has reinvented itself – a bit like I had to do with myself.
If I had not reinvented myself I would be completely out of the agenda and today we have a $1billion company. I have a great past in advertising - but what’s fantastic - a great future. Having a great past is how you project your company to the future. We have a vibrant company because we have a very clear strategy: advertising, branding services and content.
I started in business and this gives you an advantage, because we can understand the artistic side of advertising, but also understand the business side of it and that was very important to be successful in the ad industry. With this I was able to make hits and my commercials in Brazil have usually been very popular.
I am inspired by...
What is being done by companies like Pinterest and what Mark Pincus is doing with social network game company Zynga.
The best time to be a creative...
Is next year.
The piece of digital work I wish I had thought of is...
The "Inside" social film project for Intel + Toshiba by our San Francisco agency Pereira & O'Dell.
In a film about my life, I’d like to be played by...
Morgan Freeman.
In my industry, I admire...
David Ogilvy, Bill Bernbach and John Hegarty.
The next big thing in advertising is going to be...
Fresh, innovative ideas and things that change the industry don’t necessarily come from huge ad companies. You will find loads of upsides in scale, but also downsides. They are Goliath and smaller agencies are David. We respect them, but we are the challenging brands and that is the role of the emerging markets.
We know more about our market; we can be cool, more hype, we can change easily and the great power of our size is that we can make mistakes. We can move quicker, take risks, flop easier and we can be fearless. It is so difficult for public companies to take risks and that’s why our agencies are so awarded and can be so audacious. For example, our partners, DM9 (DDB, Brazil) will celebrate its hundredth Cannes Lion. It’s an amazing shop.
My dream collaboration is...
Arianna Huffington, Tina Brown and Mario Testino.
In up and coming talent, I look for...
Vision. Because young people can also be old.
A piece of criticism I’ve received was...
True. I heard it and I tried to reinvent myself.
The last song I listened to was...
Coldplay. I like them a lot.
Images: Guanaes' well known "Because we are all mammals" ads for Parmalat Milk appeared in Archive Vol. 6/1996. A decade later, the campaign was brought to life again by Africa Publicidade.
Find out more about Grupo ABC.
