[Interview] Carmen Rodriguez, Global Chief Growth Officer, GUT

GUT is an independent ad agency which has a global presence with offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Madrid, and New York.

The agency has positioned itself as a courageous and transparent full-service creative network, specializing in advertising, marketing, and communications. Carmen Rodriguez is the Global Chief Growth Officer.

In this interview she talks about what powers the agency, emerging trends and how they are shaping the industry.

Your tagline reads ‘A brave agency for brave clients.’ Tell us in a nutshell what it means and represents?

This is how we describe ourselves in one short and sharp sentence, but there is much to unpack behind this statement. We believe bravery is a scale: you don’t go from 0-10 overnight. We trademarked the “Bravery Scale™” which outlines 10 levels on the scale, and developed a specific workshop designed by our team of strategists in which we work with our clients on the journey of becoming braver. We are the creative partners that take our clients through that Bravery journey.

Over the years GUT has won many awards across different categories. How do you explain these successes?

I believe the awards are a consequence of brave work that drives business and generates results.

We work very closely with our clients; we like to bring them into what we call our “open kitchen” because we believe good ideas come from anywhere. We are not the type of agency that likes to work alone. Because of that integration, we get very close to our brands and get deeply aligned on what the brand stands for and what they need. So we don’t have to wait for briefs; we are constantly bringing proactive ideas to support our clients’ business needs.

Tell us what you consider your most impactful campaigns and why?

That is a tough question because globally we have so many impactful campaigns, with many different metrics. That said, I’d like to highlight a few recent examples from Stella Artois and Mercado Libre.

As Global AOR for Stella Artois, one of the world's most iconic beer brands, we recently launched a new Consumer Connections & Insights (CCI) campaign "For moments worth more," at the same time that Stella's new Global Ambassador, David Beckham, was being announced.

The Stella brand is all about being worth more, and that's something we take very seriously. So, instead of featuring David Beckham's face in the campaign, we focused on the beautiful Stella Chalice held by David's incredibly recognizable hand. The campaign was an immediate success, generating unbelievable awareness, tons of earned media coverage, and a Gold Lion at Cannes. And this is just the beginning of this long-term platform for the brand.

Another great example of a successful campaign that drives business is a Black Friday promotion we developed for our long-time partner Mercado Libre (the biggest e-commerce company in Latin America).

For last year’s Black Friday we created a promotion called “Handshake Hunt”. Mercado Libre’s logo is a handshake, so our promotion, "Handshake Hunt," was centered on this iconic image. To pull it off we partnered with Globo, the biggest TV network in Brazil. Everytime people shook their hands on its programming, a QR code with a relevant item on promotion would appear, so people could immediately scan and buy the item at a discounted rate. This promotion resulted in the best Black Friday sales in the history of Mercado Libre and won the Cannes Lions 2024 Media Grand Prix as well as the WARC 2024 Grand Prix for effectiveness.

How do you measure the success of your campaigns, and what metrics do you find most valuable?

There are many different ways to measure a campaign's success. It starts with reaching or surpassing the client’s sales goals and brand KPIs, as well as extending to PR impressions and talk value, becoming part of culture and being recognized by the creative community as an award-winning piece of communication. It all depends on the objective of each campaign and what will help move the client's brand and business forward. If you can achieve all of them, it's a home run.

In your opinion, which emerging technologies and trends will most impact the future of your industry and why?

There's a lot of talk about the influence of technology, especially AI, and its impact on the industry's future. Now that we're part of one of the biggest tech companies in the world, Globant, we have the best experts and tools available to help us ensure we stay at the forefront of the ever-changing tech world.

At GUT, we believe there are two types of ideas: data-driven and GUT-executed, as well as GUT-inspired and data-validated. Data is nothing without GUT. We believe AI should be a springboard for human creativity, not a replacement.

We have built up our AI capabilities by creating proprietary tools based on best-in-class AI platforms designed to serve our creative and strategy departments. The first one is called Unprompt™, based on the premise that the most recognized campaigns in our industry are born from a powerful data point. The internet has infinite facts out there that are just a prompt away. The challenge is getting to these inspiring data points if we don't know how to prompt AI to find them.

Therefore, we trained Unprompt™ by feeding it more than five thousand data points curated by our creative teams around the network. The only filter was: "Do you think this could inspire a great idea?". Then, we developed a proprietary methodology so that Unprompt™ can constantly scout the internet for similar quality facts without a prompt. Unprompt™ provides a constant feed of AI-curated facts that span science, history, pop culture and human behavior to inspire creative ideation.

We're also developing proprietary AI personas that are essentially like having a focus group on standby, tailored to each specific client based on a consolidation of First, Third, and zero-party data.

When it comes to AI, everything is overseen and checked by a human. Data is nothing without human intuition, leveraging it to build connections that resonate.

How has the rise of digital marketing and advertising impacted your agency’s strategies?

GUT is six years old so digital has always been part of our core. We consider ourselves media-agnostic and believe that ideas drive the media. Sometimes, an idea is born digitally and it will be executed there;, sometimes it isn’t. It truly depends on what the idea is and what makes the most sense for it.

How do you build and maintain strong relationships with your clients?

Our three values are directly related to our name: Courage, which is about having the guts to do things that have never been done before; Transparency, which is about spilling your guts inside and out; and Intuition, which is about trusting our collective guts. We try to live by these three values every day.

We are a highly collaborative group of people who believe ideas come from anywhere. We invite our clients into what we call our "open kitchen." We don't believe in working alone; our clients are part of the process with us because no one knows their brand better than they do.

Transparency and collaboration with our clients are essential to building trusting, long-lasting client partnerships.

How do you stay ahead of the competition in such a rapidly changing industry?

We have an initiative at GUT called “Founders Chat” that started during the pandemic, during which the Founders invited special guests to inspire us with their creative journeys and perspectives. This initiative was so impactful that we decided to keep doing it. A while ago, we had the honor of having Sir John Hegarty talk to us, and he shared a super inspiring thought: “If you work in Art, you study the History of Art. If you work in Science, you study the History of Science. If you work in Advertising, why wouldn’t you study the History of Advertising?”

We love advertising and consider ourselves ad nerds; we’re not cynical about it. We study it and learn from our clients and competitors daily, constantly immersing ourselves in the latest trends, technologies and cultural movements. I think there aren’t many agencies like that these days.

We pride ourselves on being 0% bureaucracy and 100% agility. We are fast, nimble, and intuitive, which is also a really big advantage.

What emerging challenges have you encountered and how are you tackling them?

I think the biggest challenge is how to grow and keep your culture strong and people thriving. Our priorities are People First, Work Second and Clients Third. If your people are happy and nurtured, doing the best work of their lives, your clients will be happy. For us, there is no other way to work.

Our hiring process is designed to ensure we hire the right people to add to our team and further fuel our culture. We are incredibly focused on nurturing our talent and helping our gutsies grow and evolve while ensuring they are also having fun. It’s advertising, and if you are not having fun in the process, something is undoubtedly wrong.