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Inside the Mind of Guilherme Jahara, CCO at F.biz

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Guilherme Jahara has been Chief Creative Officer at São Paulo’s F.biz since January 2014, a position he took on with more than 20 years' experience in the industry already under his belt. Guilherme's resume is a rather dazzling affair - featuring (amongst others) 35 Cannes Lions and both Gold and Yellow D&AD Pencils. During his career he has also been a member of many advertising juries including Cannes, Clio and D&AD, and he also lecturers at the Miami AdSchool São Paulo and Cuca School of Creativity. We wanted a piece of his industry wisdom so we sat him down and played student for this interview.

Hi Guilherme, tell us a bit about your lengthy career. 

I started my career as an art director in Rio de Janeiro but right after I won Rio de Janeiro’s first Gold Lion I was hired to work at F/Nazca Saatchi&Saatchi in São Paulo and I’ve lived here ever since.

After F/Nazca, I went to AlmapBBDO where I stayed for five years. And from there I became Creative Director and later Vice President at Publicis Brasil. For three years I was Group Creative Director at DM9DDB and then I moved on to be Executive Creative Director at Leo Burnett Tailor Made. After two years of great successes I felt my career needed some new challenges though, so when F.biz invited me to become Chief Creative Officer and to transform the agency, I knew it was the right move for me. The position integrates the digital knowledge they have, with my creative career to date. I’ve been here for three years.

On the subject of digital knowledge, what are the main ways you've seen the traditional creative agency change over the years?

F.biz definitely isn’t one of the traditional agencies it’s different. But at agencies I’ve worked at before (considered to be more traditional) technology and digital creation were always separate to the creative department. Invariably, there was a ‘Head of Integration’ professional working between the departments, but if there’s a need for this position, it’s usually because there’s no integration going on at all.

I think this is still the case in some agencies today, but at F.biz, all the teams work in a much more integrated fashion - there are no ‘online’ or ‘offline’ departments.

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How do you ensure true collaboration between creative, media and strategy teams?

At F.biz we are connecting more and more. Either internally between teams or by working with publishers, the media and production companies. Our teams work on projects altogether so the strategy and media teams are always in the same room as the creative team. Everything must be connected otherwise ideas and solutions for a client’s problems won’t happen.

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With this in mind, what do you think the agencies of the future will need to do to stay relevant and keep on pushing creative boundaries?

I think there will be different types of agencies in the future and different profiles inside agencies. Creativity and strategy will be the basis through which agencies establish their territory, but because a lot of things will be automated or done for ‘collateral’ purposes, agencies will increasingly be the creators of content. It needs to be this way to attract the attention of people in a world that’s more and more fragmented.

I believe in a concept that I have shown lately to my team and market: that creativity is liquid. Regardless of the obstacle, creativity must adjust, change and overcome. That’s the only way to push forwards.

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Clients are also asking for more and more from agencies these days, how is this impacting the traditional agency model?

Agencies are working with people from more diverse backgrounds to keep up with differentiation and creative & strategic pertinence. Long term our biggest change vector is the need to be more connected with different professionals and players in the market instead of having everything inside the agency. The future agency model will be much more ‘brain’ than ‘arms’.

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Would you say this is one of the main challenges facing top agencies around the world today?

Yes, the so-called ‘relevance and differentiation’ problem definitely is. Today, everyone is a content creator - from YouTubers to media channels, they all produce, co-create and work directly with clients which means the client-agency-producer-media cycle is broken. Our main challenge now is to work with strong strategic and creative mindsets to remain relevant in an extremely competitive and diverse environment.

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What's the best way to find and train the creative teams of tomorrow then?

There are many types of new talents because there are many new doors opening but a few things are still a given - it’s so important to have focus, devotion and commitment, without these traits any talent just goes down the drain. It’s important to always have a passion for what you do as well. Without this, there is no focus devotion or commitment.

I think this is the most important training that I can provide. Much more than matters relating to the craft, to copywriting or art direction. I will be learning from the new technologies and from the new professionals as well. But keeping the balance between work and emotion is something I can help people explore.

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What advice would you give to someone starting out in the industry today?

Go find the paths that will move you forwards in the industry’s trajectory. But at the core of this is ideas of course. If you’re starting out, see yourself as a generator of ideas that deliver and solve problems.

Don’t forget the most important thing as well: you need to make people fall in love with what you do.

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Over the years you've been on many different advertising juries. What are the main things you're looking out for when judging?

Judgment processes are always similar but I look for ideas that create connections in different manners: connections that bring relevance, that hack systems or paradigms, and that have a craft of excellence. These are the ideas that captivate people and they’re always the winners.

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Finally, what's the best way to tell a client they're wrong?

Through collaboration or empathy. You either have the ability or your don’t. If you have it you will be able to say it naturally. If you don’t have it you are the wrong person for that job!

Featured works:
1) Don’t Judge. Just Kiss/ Closeup (2016) - Silver/ Health & Wellness/ Cannes Health - Gold/ Mobile Social/ The Smarties - Bronze/ Mobile/ El Ojo Iberoamérica - In Book/ Clube de Criação (a local Brazilian award) 
2) Good Bye Serious/ Kibon (2016) - Silver/ Cyber/ Wave Festival - Best Use of Facebook Plataform / Facebook Awards LatAm - Silver/ Brand Awareness/ The Smarties - Silver/ Digital Production/ El Ojo Iberoamérica - In Book/ Clube de Criação (a local Brazilian award) 
3) The hidden truth/ Instituto Maria da Penha ONG (2015) An interactive ad that shows what it feels like to be a victim of domestic violence - Abril Award / Popular Jury – Digital - Bronze/ Mobile / Wave Festival

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