Daniel Ottoni, Chief Creative Officer at TracyLocke Brasil (a DDB group agency), joined MARKETING jury of White Square 2021.

Holder of more than 100 international advertising awards, including Cannes, New Blood D&AD, El Ojo, Effie, Fiap, Wave, Sinos, Cristal, Mobile Marketing Association, Creative Club of Brazil, shared his point of view about current questions of communication industry.

—  2020 has been challenging for the communication industry in every country around the globe. What professional experience or lesson that could be named as a discovery have you got? 

— The discovery of 2020 was the notion we have about time has been totally transformed. It’s possible to go deeper into memories and project them into the present without leaving the reality. Being in home office every day allowed us to see the same signs and thus free our minds to travel in space-time in different ways. Memories can be pulled by social platforms reminding you where you were 7 years ago or even by a call from a friend. Doesn’t matter. In particular, my memory of old facts came back with details of dialogues and a photograph with a richness that I hadn’t experienced for a long time. The pandemic has revealed that the brain can be a powerful time machine.

—  In your opinion, what are the things in communications, advertising and creativity that stayed in the past forever, and what will remain unchanged for the projects to work properly & effective? 
—  Campaigns that are more concerned with the format and that do not consider dialogue with the customer. There is no more comfort zone, but what I really wanted to talk about is creativity. It has already been highly fought and several prophets in the market decreed its end by talking about data, programmatic and A.I. They just forgot to say that without creativity none of the new tools generate the promised results. The pandemic has shown this. When pressed, the brands resorted to creative and powerful ideas that are effective. Creativity is stronger than ever.

—  Do you have a project in your portfolio that is particularly special to you, perhaps the one that was a prize-winning at ad festivals, or, vice verse, a project that stayed unnoticed despite its significant results? If so, why this project is so special to you? 

—  Wi-fi Killer for TIM Telecom. I was the art director and associate creative director in this job. The briefing asked us to sell a chip with 20 gigabytes of internet per month for gen Z. So, we thought, with 20 gigs you don't need wi-fi anymore, so we killed it. In just one week we got 220,000 customers for the Telecom and took down its website. An underground movement fueled by sim cards disguised as a “candy”. It was designed to be a secretive social object, distributed hand to hand at bars, clubs and streets, inviting the audience to engage to the movement on our platform. The case won important awards such as gold at Mobile Marketing Association and gold at Effie Awards. I really believe this case deserved more visibility at other festivals. It’s a synthesis of many beliefs I have about communication and I could spend hours talking about this work.

—  You are a jury member on the White Square Festival 2021, and you have already been a jury member on various international creativity festivals. Can you name one or more key evaluating criteria of entries for you and why? 
—  I always judge a work based on three pillars: originality, creativity and effectiveness. Originality is what can make a job different, new, standing out from your competitors. Creativity is what makes the shopper engage with an idea. Effectiveness starts from a well-executed creative strategy focused on conversion. It is not easy to have the three pillars acting strongly in a single campaign. When it succeeds, the work turns unbeatable.

—  The international advertising Festival "White Square" is one of the largest creative festivals in Europe. The business program of the festival includes workshops in marketing, creativity and branding, media & digital, based on speaker's cases that demonstrated high results in different countries markets, and is rich with hot marketing practices and relevant insights around the world. Are you going to give a talk at the festival, and if so, what ideas will you share?

—  The theme of the talk will be ‘Creative Effectiveness. It’s only effective because it’s creative. It’s possible to be creative with a focus on results. There is no more room for creation that doesn’t wear the customer’s shoes and feel their pain. Otherwise it’s not creation, it’s just speculation. Also, you can't think of effectiveness without creativity. It would be like give a party with the best drinks, but without inviting your friends. There is no chemistry that makes it work.

We remind you that White Square 2021 entry system for is now opened for submission into 7 contests, 129 nominations оnline until May 17. Till April 15 all the participants are provided with special participation fees.