The organizers of the fourth Effie Awards Argentina have announced that Alberto Pizzi, at the helm of Kraft Foods, will head the jury for the coming event where recognition is given to strategy and creativity contributing to achieving aims and improving results. “It is a gratifying experience and an honor, which will allow me to offer the experience and knowledge I have acquired in numerous marketing positions to achieve the fairest and most accurate assessment of the pieces submitted for the Effie awards”, he held.

Brilliant, intuitive, an outstanding decoder of the likes and preferences of the great public, to whom he managed to sell with surprising dexterity a large number of items used on a daily basis, with the strength of his words and musical compositions. His agency was the first to join an international network (Grey) and was always among those with the highest turnover in Argentina.

Planning director for Young & Rubicam Argentina talked to adlatina.com about the current situation around this discipline. The paper he wrote on this topic Y&R: Creategia y Estratividad, ¿un feliz matrimonio? [Y&R: Creategy and Strativity, a Happy Marriage?] seeks to bridge the differences between creatives and planners: “They are flip sides of the same coin, but planning has to earn a place for itself every day”, he declares.

To William García Soto talent, guts and attitude are three elements that will help a person, or an agency or even a country to get ahead. “In this market everything is yet to be done and there are no restrictions to doing it. Everything lies, to my mind, in attitude. If anyone had been asked if Nicaragua could win 7 Jades, they would have been told they were crazy. Yet today we are talking about winning a Fiap and we want to go even further”, he held.

This multimedia quality entertainment content producer and distributor has selected the agency directed by Papón Ricciarelli to handle the advertising campaigns for their Playboy TV, Venus, Private, For Man and LifeStyle TV brands. The agency started work for their new client on communication in Latin American markets earlier this month.

(Cannes – By special adlatina.com correspondents) - After a year with no awards or shortlists in the Titanium & Integrated category at the Cannes Festival, Juan Carlos Ortiz warns the Latin American region has fallen behind as regards convergence, while leadership in this type of thinking is in the hands of two countries: United States and Australia. “If we continue to think ‘pieces’, we will never be competitive,” he held. We have to understand the communication system, the convergence model, and there are some agencies that are already beginning to show initial sparks, like Shackleton with El pueblo en el que nunca pasa nada [The village where nothing ever happens] or the piece by AlmaDDB Los felinos de la noche [Felines of the Night]. But, to be honest, today we are not up to getting an award”.

The concept applied by The Bravo Group for their Through the voice of a child campaign for Oreo won them a bronze Effie in the Hispanic category. Cultural communication from a child to his father was the key to achieving this aim, while it was also successful in marking a difference with other competing brands. The story includes the technical description and details of the pieces.

The Mexican branch of Grey Group has been awarded another Energizer Personal Care brand. This time it is Hawaiian Tropic, which it will be working for in Latin America.

Publicis Comunicación España’s campaign for the Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión: -Natación sincronizada, Vela, Anillas, Ping Pong and Salto de trampolín- took the Radio Grand Prix at the 24th Edition of El Sol, amongst the applause and laughter of those present at the award ceremony. In conversation with adlatina.com, one of the CGDs of the agency, Santiago Lucero, commented on what is the current situation of Radio in Spain.

The TV judges’ panel, chaired by David Caballero, decided to give the highest TV award to the agency led creatively by Miguel Ángel Vizcaíno, for Aquarius’ Sueños. When discussing what prompted the decision, the judges emphasized the brand’s history, similar to what happened with last year’s Grand Prix awarded to Ikea and *S,C,P,F… for En el salón no se juega. However, Caballero underlined the energy of the piece and the audacity of associating ideas with a coffin. “No one doubted that it was a gold with a little extra,” he said. “It shone on its own.”

With a view to turning the digital area into one of the agency’s high-priority units, Gómez Chica has made an alliance with Euro RSCG London to provide services from Colombia to Euro Rscg 4D London clients in several countries all over the world. “Gómez Chica is involved in the task of creating a group capable of developing any online application to standards high enough to supply international entities”, held executive president, Mauricio Chica.

Jackie Bird founded the Redbean Society after giving up the presidency of WingLatino in August last year. In conversation with adlatina.com, Bird talks about the market, Hispanic reality, and her association with De la Cruz & Asociados.

(By Edgardo Ritacco, journalistic director at adlatina.com) - The agency has just lost its largest account (the CANTV-Movilnet telephone company) and the entire backdrop for Venezuelan advertising is particularly difficult, harassed as it is by official attitudes and the plummeting price of oil. The president of Eliaschev Advertising answers adlatina without euphemisms, crudely and realistically, though never letting the flame of optimism as regards the future die down.

Havas Media South Latin America CEO will be juror for the Media section of the coming El Sol. Festival Iberoamericano de la Comunicación Publicitaria [Hispanic American Festival of Advertising Communication]. In the article, Ramiro Castillo talks of his role as a juror, and of the quality of work in times of crisis, while mentioning his favorite pieces, both of his own and created by other agencies.

Meanwhile, McCann Erickson, the agency belonging to Pedro Pina, has announced the arrival of Fred Fannon to replace Diogo Anahory and José Carlos Bomtempo in the creative management area. There will be no replacement for Miguel Ralha.

Chosen as one of most outstanding creative officers by Adlatina in 2008 (together with his then partner at Leo Burnett Colombia, Carlos Murad), Otavio Schiavon – who returned to Brazil to work as creative officer at DDB Brazil, spoke of the most outstanding campaigns in the last year and mentioned that he and Murad share a relationship of friendship and mutual respect. He likewise stressed his enthusiasm at having come to DDB and admitted to being eager to learn.

The first month of the year involved a variety of changes in the structure of Universal McCann, with the arrival of Andrés Navarro as regional digital vice-president, the appointment of Carlos Gutiérrez as regional director for the network accounts, and with Edgar Tarazona - general manager of Universal McCann Colombia - taking over as regional president for Latin America. “There is no doubt each country is experiencing different economic circumstances, but the network’s strategic, innovative DNA is maintained in all our markets”, held Tarazona.

After six years working for Ogilvy Chile, Nicolás López and Sebastián Alvarado have left the creative management of the agency – which has been taken over by César Agost Carreño – to step into a similar post at Puerto. They will now lead the creative team at this independent agency where two of their former mates from Ogilvy are already working: Ignacio Del Solar (general manager) and Andrés Chateau (accounts manager).

Ogilvy Argentina has appointed Juan Ocampo as manager of Neo@Ogilvy, the operation aimed at providing advisory services in the use of all communication media in advertising campaigns.

Following the departure of Euro RSCG Spain executive creative managers, Eva Conesa and Felipe Crespo, Euro RSCG Worldwide Group in Spain has just announced the appointment of Julián Reyes as general commercial manager and business development manager to become part of Group headquarters in that country.

After the departure of Ricardo Chadwick and Alberto Goachet – who left the agency last Friday -, Armando Andrade –president of the Pragma Group- announced he will be bringing José Arce back to the country as joint president and creative officer at Pragma DDB.

Yuri Aizemberg –former operations officer - and André Gomes –former accounts officer – have been appointed executive officers for the Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro headquarters, respectively. Cláudio Laniado will take over as digital business officer while Silmo Bonimo has been made digital creation officer. In the creative area, Guy Costa has been promoted to creation officer with Leandro Castilho as creation vice-president. Lastly, Aluízio Falcão has left his position as content vice-president.