One Take with Xavier Mantilla

👉 The Scoop – Xavier is truly “an ad guy”. He’s worked for some of the biggest names in the industry: Ogilvy & Mather, McCann, Publicis, Starcom and now Cheil Communications. Born in Quito, Ecuador, he was raised in Sao Paulo, Brazil, speaks fluent English, Spanish and Portuguese. Like a true Paulista, he is a total fan of Formula 1

👉 Decisive Moment #1 – Sitting in Sao Paulo with Unilever to pitch them on this whole Dove idea of the Real Beauty campaign. The Dove Real Beauty campaign is and it is about seeding content. “At first, I didn't realize what we had in our hands and what it became. And it's only as you look back and go, my God, I was in the middle of this cultural revolution where was content became king.”

👉 Unexpected change or event – The death of strategic planning. When everybody shifted to programmatic, strategic planning disappeared because it became just audience planning. If you look at it now, it's all about tactics.

👉 What did he do? – On the one hand, Xavier was a leader in digital change and he pressed on to make the process more efficient. On the other hand, Xavi was not convinced that having 100% tactics was good, and he continued adding a strong dose of strategy and branding to his clients’ products.

👉 About older workers – I think we're valuable. And, looking at my life after 55, it is because I see the mistakes I've made, that I can now sit with you and share some of that life. And hopefully the stories will contribute to your thinking differently.