Promonition!  ( May '23,2007, ET)

It is in the fitness of things that Geraldo Rocha Azevedo will preside over the Promo Lions jury at Cannes this year. After all, Azevedo, president – integrated solutions, NEOGAMA/BBH, started his career back in the early 80s by launching a promotional marketing agency in Sao Paulo while he was still in college.

It’s a different matter that Azevedo sold his agency within two years and joined Ogilvy & Mather Brazil: what’s important is that in those two years, he formed a virtual bond with promotional marketing, and has worked in — and for — the discipline ever since. “The decision to sell and to join O&M was because I was very young, and I wanted to learn more, from a big organisation,” Azevedo explains.

After two years at O&M Brazil, Azevedo was transferred to O&M’s New York office. There he spent another three years, before returning to Brazil to start his second promotional marketing startup, Rocha Azevedo. “In the mid-80s, communications wasn’t as easy as it is today. Imagine, there was no fax, no CD, no cell phones, no email.

Globalisation was nowhere in sight, and the US market was much more developed than Brazil. So the experience I had in New York was spectacular. When I came back to Brazil, I was years ahead of the market,” he smiles. The New York experience stood Azevedo in good stead — Rocha Azevedo grew to become the leading promotional marketing agency in Brazil, opened offices in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, and won over 500 awards including a Globes Grand Prix.

“At that time, promotional marketing was a booming discipline in Brazil. Everyone was talking about it, but apart from a very few agencies, there was no one doing it professionally. So, the opportunity was right there,” recalls Azevedo, adding that the agency grew on the back of “great creativity, innovation and a strong business sense”.

Success begot suitors, and after 12 years, Azevedo sold Rocha Azevedo to The Marketing Store in 2001. “We decided on The Marketing Store as it was a privately held group, very serious, well respected, and with a great deal of synergy. Not to mention the great people we found there,” he says. Post-sale, Azevedo became president in charge of the Latin America Zone.

The next turning point came in 2006, when Alexandre Gama, the founder of NEOGAMA/BBH, invited Azevedo to become a partner in the agency and head the integrated solutions part of the business. “In the five years since its acquisition of Rocha Azevedo, we transformed The Marketing Store from a nonexistent agency into a highly respected brand in Brazil. I also prepared my succession very well, so once I finished what I had to do there I found myself ready to take the next step,” he says.

Enumerating his reasons for accepting Gama’s offer, Azevedo says, “There is the charm of BBH, one of the sexiest agencies in the world. Second is Alexandre himself, someone I have the utmost respect for. Third, there is the challenge of implementing a lineless model that I truly believe is a winning advertising agency.”

At NEOGAMA/BBH, Azevedo’s job involves implementing BBH’s creative and planning rigour across the integrated solutions offering. The trick, he says, lies in planning without any divisions. “From the very beginning, the solution is thought in a lineless environment. The ideas, concepts and campaigns are born integrated. Integration is not a result of a separated effort that comes after the campaign is created. It is all one thing. NEOGAMA/BBH recommends a campaign without media if we think it is the right thing to do,” he says.

In a statement that’s applicable to India too, he laments that a lot of ‘integrated work’ happening in Brazil is “a lot of noise”. He says: “We see a TV commercial adapted to POP and, maybe, to a promotion. There are very few really integrated campaigns.” Azevedo is happy that promotions as a discipline is finally getting its due. “When an important festival like Cannes recognises the promotional discipline, there is no going back,” he says. And as jury president, his jury will focus on recognising the best ideas.

“Ideas that better engage the consumer with the brand. I want to be proud of each Lion we give,” he emphasises. Azevedo believes that while well-known agencies like Crispin Porter, Lowe Hunt, Whybin\TBWA, Leo Burnett and JWT have won Promo Lions in the past, there are lots of smaller agencies out there doing great work, but not submitting it. “I really hope to see new talents emerging this year,” he adds.