Why brave creativity means business results according to GUT co-founder Anselmo Ramos

Summary

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Uncensored CMO: Why Brave Creativity Means Business Results – with GUT Co-founder Anselmo Ramos

Podcast: Uncensored CMO
Host: Jon Evans
Guest: Anselmo Ramos (Co-founder, GUT)
Date: June 17, 2026

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Overview

In this episode, Jon Evans welcomes back Anselmo Ramos, co-founder of acclaimed agency GUT, for a deep-dive on the connection between brave creativity and business impact. They explore why creativity often fails to spark emotion, the founding of GUT, lessons in scaling an agency, the “bravery gap” in organizations, and why intuition remains one of the most undervalued business assets. The duo also unpacks GUT’s award-winning work for Stella Artois – and along the way, they share memorable stories, principles, frameworks, and advice for marketers and creatives eager to make a bigger impact.

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Why Your Gut Is Your Superpower

• The Second Brain:
  • Anselmo explains, “Your gut is literally your second brain, right? That’s science. Serotonin, neurotransmitters, like, like neurons. The same thing that we have up here, we have down here…you have to stop and listen to it because he whispers, you know, it doesn’t shout.” (01:33)
  • Most advertising is rational, not emotional, which is why “90, 95% of ads—you don’t feel anything.” (02:39)
• Emotion over Reason:
  • “If your gut is making the decision, it’s more important how you make them feel than what you make them think.” – John (04:07)

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Building GUT: Principles, Values, and "The Dreamer vs. The Intense"

• How GUT Started:
  • Conceived at Cannes over dinner, the decision to open offices (like GUT Mexico) often begins with a feeling, then is followed by rational planning. (07:01)
  • “Every decision for eight years, since day one…most powerful ones, they start with a feeling.” (07:01)
• Values:
  • GUT’s brand in one word: Bravery.
  • Core values: Courage, transparency, intuition.
    • Courage: “Having the guts to do something that hasn’t been done before.”
    • Transparency: “About spitting your guts inside and out.”
    • Intuition: “Following your gut no matter what, because your gut knows something you don’t.” (14:52)
• The Power of Complementary Partnerships:
  • Anselmo (the "Dreamer") and Gaston (the "Intense") achieved balance by consciously acknowledging and enabling each other's strengths. (12:38)
  • Memorable quote: “Dream big and dream small, same energy.” (12:38)

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Lessons in Scaling and Agency Culture

• Know Who You Are:
  • “If I’m about bravery, I need to hire brave people…look for brave clients and I need to do brave work.” (14:52)
• Importance of Values:
  • “You’re not for everyone...Not every client will call you when you say, ‘I’m super brave.’” (14:52)
• Reputation & Relationships:
  • "You need reputation and you need relationships ... relationships are based on creative work. They're not based on golfing or boating." (18:12)
  • “If you have those two things...it’s just slightly easier to start an agency.” (18:12)

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The DNA of Creativity: Briefs, Proactivity, and The Reverse RFP

• The Brief is Never Just the Brief:
  • Agencies should challenge the client’s brief to uncover the real goals and context, accelerating understanding and winning pitches. (26:35)
• Proactivity Over Passivity:
  • “The best agencies today, they don’t wait, they just go...Agents are always waiting for the brief, waiting for the approval...I think the best agencies today, they don’t wait, they just go, you know, they make it happen and they show something that’s almost ready.” (31:31)
• Reverse RFP/Reverse RFI:
  • Early on, GUT would send potential clients a set of probing questions to assess mutual fit, not just answer briefs.
  • “It was playful. Sometimes clients will answer every question and we go, ‘Oh, that’s a great client.’ Sometimes they wouldn’t…and that already says a lot about the kind of client that would be.” (23:04)

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The Bravery Scale: Closing the Bravery Gap

• Defining the Bravery Gap:
  • Most marketers are personally more brave than their brands:
    • Individuals: “average is always 6, 7”
    • Brands: “3, 4” (37:23)
  • “Our job as an agency is to close that bravery gap. And ... it takes one year to move up one stage.” (38:19)
• A Practical Tool:
  • The Bravery Scale (0–10): Used both as a diagnostic and as an annual tracking tool to help clients push work further, one step at a time. (37:23–40:50)
• Business Proposition:
  • “Bravery means business...We believe brave creativity drives business results.” (43:26)
  • “The more I understand about your business, the more brave we can be together.” (44:03)

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Relationships Over Brands

• People Over Logos:
  • “A CMO is way more important than the brand. So...with a great CMO, I can work with any brand. But if I work with the best brand ever with an average CMO, I won’t be able to do great work.” (20:52)
• Warm Relationships Fuel Creativity:
  • “Sometimes in this industry, the relationships are very cold...We become friends with our clients...it’s a very close relationship.” (21:51)

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Iconic, Effective Creative: Work for Stella Artois

"Artois Probability" (59:42)

• Idea: Analyzing old paintings featuring beer glasses and asking, "What’s the probability this is a Stella Artois?"
• Why It Worked: Clever use of heritage, humor, and tech. "Creative data is creative and tech." (62:44)
• [Memorable Quote] “In most cases, the answer is in the past. When you look at brands, sometimes we are obsessed with the new...but when you go back in history...usually the answer is there.” (63:27)

The White Can – Wimbledon Campaign (64:51)

• Concept: Embracing Wimbledon’s “all white” rule, GUT and JKR designed a special white Stella can and campaign.
• Collaboration: “It was just like a very simple idea. But the idea kept growing and growing...became a platform.” (64:51)

Beckham’s Hand (66:17)

• Outdoor Campaign: David Beckham holding the beer, but only his hand (and tattoos) visible.
• Creative Punch: “Very simple. Because you can see it’s him. You don’t need to see his face. It’s his hand, his tattoos. Right. Very, very simple.” (66:17)

“Celebrations” Spot (68:44)

• Premise: In a chaotic, beer-spilling bar celebration, David Beckham calmly preserves his Stella—because it’s worth more.
• Execution Focus: “You actually reduce. The idea is reduced first...and then you sort of blow up the execution.” (70:07)
• [Notable Statistic] This work performed in the top 2% of all beer ads in the System1 database. (68:36)

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How to Nurture Bravery and Creativity

• On Approval Processes:
  • “The approval that happens in the meeting is becoming super rare. Sometimes...we’re missing that beautiful moment, almost like a Mad Men moment, where ‘I love this idea, let’s make it happen.’” (33:19)
• Fostering Chemistry:
  • “For me, the most important thing is chemistry, to really see if we like each other and if we have shared values and common goals.” (23:04)
• Humor and Emotion:
  • “If you were to divide [all the ads]...between those that use humor and those that don’t, the humor ads score an average of 3.4 versus 2.4...Humor makes us feel more. It makes us things more memorable.” – John (67:19–67:49)
• Memorable Quote:
  • “The best ideas are what if we just do that? It’s just one line. It’s just a nugget...then, yes, is how we’re going to bring that to life—which is the craft.” (69:45)

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GUT, Tech, and Future Growth

• Acquisition Journey:
  • GUT was acquired by a tech company client, bringing new capabilities and a learning exchange, but without sacrificing their creative culture. (49:49–56:23)
  • “Now it's like…expanding a culture, which is a new phase for us. How do you expand the Gut culture to new markets, to new capabilities, but also how do you assimilate other cultures?” (54:20)

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The Role of AI

• A Selling Tool, not a Creative Originator (Yet):
  • AI helps sell and visualize ideas ("AI accelerates the selling process"), but the best creative thinking still comes from humans. (71:11, 73:39)
  • “For us as an agency, it’s not a creative tool. It's not good. It's not fresh enough. It's not guts enough. It's not brave enough. But to help you to sell an idea—amazing. It helps a lot.” (71:11)

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Advice for Marketers & Creatives

• Dream Big, Don’t Wait:
  • “Don’t be afraid and just think as big as you can...because without a dream, you do [not] know what to do with your life.” (74:04)
  • “Do not wait. I took too long...It’s never going to be perfect...If there’s always an imperfect condition, do it now. Start now. Don’t wait too long.” (78:30)
• Balance Consuming and Creating:
  • “I’ll try to find…a balance between consuming and creating. Consume in a very conscious way... but set aside time to create, to write a script, to write a movie…” (76:14)
• Believe in Yourself:
  • “Have a little more self-esteem. Don’t allow social media to undermine that...There’s no one else like you. Right. So be yourself. Express that...” (77:41)

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Memorable Moments and Quotes

• On Intuition:
  • “Intuition is super powerful. It’s not an option...intuition is everything.” (08:41)
• On Agency Naming:
  • “Some of the best agencies today, they don’t have names that are after their founders. They stand for something…Uncommon, Mischief, they stand for something.” (14:52)
• On Simple, Big Dreams:
  • “You have to dream big, man. Otherwise it’s the same cost—dream big and dreaming small, same energy.” (12:38)
• On Working With the Right People:
  • “Life is short, man. We need to work with people that we like.” (21:51)
• On Black T-Shirts as Brand Identity:
  • “Not mandatory, it's optional, but…at any given time…there’s like half of the people wearing black tees because they want, not because…it became a thing.” (47:59)

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Key Timestamps

• [01:33] - The science behind “gut instinct” and creativity
• [07:01] - Opening offices on a feeling; business plans come later
• [12:38] - Balancing dreamer and intense personalities at GUT
• [14:52] - GUT’s founding principles and values
• [18:12] - The necessity of reputation and creative relationships
• [23:04] - The Reverse RFP: Why agency-client chemistry matters
• [31:31] - Proactivity and why agencies shouldn’t wait
• [37:23] - Measuring and closing the bravery gap
• [43:26] - “Bravery means business” as a proposition
• [59:42] - Stella Artois “Artois Probability” case study
• [64:51] - Stella & Wimbledon: Turning brand constraints into campaigns
• [66:17] - Beckham for Stella: Minimalist, recognizable creative
• [68:44] - “Celebrations” – Craft and emotion in a single shot
• [71:11] - AI’s role: selling tool not creative generator
• [74:04] - Final advice: dream big, don’t wait, create more

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a masterclass in the business of creativity – both inspiring and practical. It reveals how the world’s top creative work comes not from following formulas, but from following your gut, nurturing brave relationships, and relentlessly simplifying big ideas. As Anselmo sums up: “Do not wait. It’s never going to be perfect…start now.”

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For more insights and case studies, visit GUT Agency.

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Transcript

[John]

Hey, everyone. Just before we get into the show, I just wanted to give a really big shout out to my founding sponsor, System One. As many of you know, I worked at System One, and before that I was actually a client of theirs. Now, the thing I love about System One is when I need to make a big decision, they have been there to help me. Because what System One does is use the power of emotion to help predict the likely impact of my innovation or advertising. So when I've been stuck in the boardroom needing to justify why, when we're going to pick one creative route over another or launch this innovation over that one, it has been indispensable. It's also really simple to use. Very actionable and incredibly good value too. So if you want to find out more about System One's Test yout Add or Test yout Innovation, simply go over to systemonegroup.com and find out more. Okay, without further ado, let's go on with the show. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Uncensored cmo. Now, I've got an amazing returning guest in this episode. Anselmo Ramos is the co founder of the Gut Agency. They created their agency in Cannes and they've done some of the most effective creative work on the planet. Now, last time I had Anselmo on the podcast about three years ago, he then went and sold his agency within a few weeks of that episode. So I'm catching up with him to find out what's happened after the exit and what kind of work has he been doing for some of his clients around the world. Because these are some of the most spectacular case studies. It's a great example of how creativity can transform business and why your gut is your second brain. And Selma explains why. Here we go.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Your gut is literally your second brain, right? That's science. So the scientific community call your gut your second brain. So we do have in our guts serotonin, neurotransmitters, like, like neurons. Same thing that we have up here, we have down here. So you have two brains. All of us, we have two brains. The problem is, most of the times you are using just your first brain. You know, very rational, right? But your second brain is as powerful as your first one, which is your guide. The thing is, you have to stop and listen to it because he whispers, you know, it doesn't shout. So you need to be. You need to be connected to your gut, your feelings, and then you can act on it, right? But this is your. This is your second brain, man. I think that's Our business. Right. To create those. To create those emotional connections with brands. You know, and if you think about it, that's the problem of 90, 95 of ads. You don't feel anything.

[John]

It's appealing to your head, isn't it? It's giving you the rational reason, not emotional reason.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Em. Yeah, it's just boring, soulless.

[John]

Why is that? Why, given we know this to be true and the science backs it up and the evidence backs it up, why do we. Why is the advertising industry continually obsessed with making rational advertising?

[Anselmo Ramos]

But I don't think it's even just about advertising. It applies to anything. 95% of books are boring. 95% of movies are boring. Like really, you know, we are in the 5% business. We're just trying to make advertising better, more entertaining, more emotional, funnier. But, you know, most movies are really boring, but when you see a great one, you go like, oh, my God, you know, I cried so much, I was laughing so hard. You have to watch that movie as well, you know, same thing with a book or anything, so. Because I think it's very hard to generate that kind of emotion, you know, And I think sometimes when it comes to advertising, you should be part of the brief. Right? And we don't talk enough about that. Like example, what kind of emotion we're trying to evoke here, you know, yes, that's the product benefit or that's what we have to communicate. But are we trying to make people laugh? Are we trying to make people cry? And we don't talk enough about that. You know, clients and agencies and I, I think that's crucial. Otherwise you're going to generate something that's kind of like, you know, half baked. It's not that funny or it's not that emotional. And I think we need to talk more about that.

[John]

We do. If your gut is making the decision, it's more important how you make them feel than what you make them think.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Totally, man, Totally. You know, and again, talk about your gut. We have a lot of principles. A guy. We have 68 principles.

[John]

68, yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And we keep writing them as they appear, right? Because. Very organic. Someone says something and we go, oh, that's a good principle. Because it just captures our way of doing things, right? So one principle is nobody knows anything, but your gut has a pretty good idea, right? Because we always talk about that. Nobody knows anything, man. It's like when a client tell you give me a viral ad, it's like, what? I cannot guarantee you anything. I don't know if people like this or not. I have a feeling about it, right? We also have our collective feeling because there's only. There's only one thing more powerful than your gut feeling is our collective gut feeling. So because if you are in a table and you have like 10 people and 10 smart people, you know, CMOs, CCOs, and if we're all feeling the same thing, that's a very powerful feeling. You know, the collective gut feeling is even more powerful than your. Your own gut feeling. But, yeah, nobody knows anything, man. I don't know if an idea is going to work or not. You know, the Internet would tell you very fast, right? So that's the beauty of, you know, today's world. It just put something out there and you will know if people like it or not. It's as simple as that. But nobody knows, man.

[John]

They don't. I had near Eyal on the, on the pod last week, and he's just written a new book called Beyond Belief. And it's about the power of what we choose to pay attention to. Which is really interesting because one of the things he talks about is, and I might misquote him, but I think it's every second we absorb the equivalent of the entire War and Peace book in terms of information, but our ability to pay attention to any of that information is a fraction. We just, we just can't. So what we choose, which information we choose to react to, can change how we see the world. Yeah, it was quite mind blowing, actually. And that's at the power of what we focus on and pay attention to. And this is your point about paying attention to how we feel in our gut? Yes, it's a choice because there are so many things that are capturing our attention. We have to decide what we're gonna.

[Anselmo Ramos]

It's a choice. It's actually a very conscious choice. You know, I'm gonna. From now on, I'm gonna start paying more attention to my feelings. And not only that, I will allow my feelings to actually tell me what I should do. So if you really look at the story of God, it's, you know, it's everything about feelings. Business plan. The Excel always comes later. We've opened offices just because of feeling.

[John]

Wow.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Really?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah. I'll give example. Gut. Mexico was a decision over dinner. You know, I was having dinner with Gaston and then we say, hey, what about Mexico? Yeah, we love the country and we know some people and I think we, we can make a difference in the market. You know, if GUT goes to Mexico, should we open? Should we open? Go. Mexico yes, let's do it. That was the decision. It was, you know, a feeling over dinner. After that, we call Jesus, our cfo. We just decided to open Mexico. Like, what, another office? You guys are crazy. Well, and then we'll work on the business plan and the Excel and, okay, the investment. You know, we think about talent, but you always start with a feeling. So every decision for eight years, since day one until today, of course, you also have rational decisions. But most of them, the most powerful ones, they start refilling. We feel we should do that. That's it.

[John]

And I think we need to reframe the perceived risk of that. Because people think if you make a gut instinct decision, that somehow that's risky rather than the logical one. But your gut knows, as you said, your gut knows more than your brain. It's a more. It's a more rational thing to do. I mean, when I. When I worked at System One, we often said emotion is the most rational thing you can do. Yeah. You know, it's more logical than listening to the logic, which is a weird thing, but. Because sometimes people go, well, you're making these crazy, reckless decisions. If you're based on your gut, your gut knows a lot. It knows more than your brain can process.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, I think sometimes people dismiss intuition, and I think intuition is super powerful. It's incredibly powerful. It's not an option. You know, it's like, you know, oh, he's so intuitive. No, this is really powerful. You know, intuition is everything. We're following your, you know, your most powerful feeling that's coming from your second brain for your gut. It's hard to explain. It's not rational.

[John]

It is now. A lot has changed since we last caught up. For anyone who's not familiar yet with what you've created, just. Just give us a sense of the origin story at Cannes and what you established.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Well, I can't believe we just turned eight. Now we are eight years old, you know? Right. So you always start in Cannes. Everything happens in Cannes, by the way. I told Simon Cook, I said, simon, I think that's a pretty good line for Cannes. Everything happens in Cannes. Agencies are born. You meet, you know, CMOs. Like, you can dream, like, about anything. But anyway, got started in Cannes eight years ago at Table 57 at the Martinez. And, you know, it was a feeling that we had to start our own shop. We were at David at that point, and David was a great experience. We learned so much, right? And we learned how to open an agency on WPP's dime. So we didn't have to put any money down. All we had to work to worry about was looking for clients and do great work. But after five years, we said, we think we can do this, you know, just by ourselves. Let's try, right? So, yeah, it was a very. Again, was just like a conversation in Cannes. We decided the name in 10 seconds because we said, okay, we need a name. And then we went back to the list of names that we had, like, five years ago, and we chose David because it was David and Ogilvy and all that, but Gat was there. And we said, gut. That's the name, because it just captures the kind of work that we like to do, which is brave and courageous and gutsy, intuitive. It has so many meanings, and it's just us. And it felt right. And we said, that's the name. So I went. I grabbed my phone, I went to GoDaddy.com and gut.com was taking, obviously. So I got Gut agency, I bought it, and I show it to Gaston. And he was just freaking out. Oh, my God. You know, that was the moment that, okay, we have a domain now. That's it. So that's how. That's how we started. And then I spent that night, the whole night reserving social media handles. You know, gut, you know, name of a city. So I reserve every handle. Like, you know, got Sao Paulo, got New York, got la, got Toronto, got Madrid, got Mumbai, got Tokyo. Like, every city, right? Next morning, the breakfast. I like Gaston. I want to show you something. And I show him the list with, I know, 35 handles. And he's like, you are crazy, man. We don't have even one client. Why are we doing this? You know, Like, I'm like, I know, man. We need to, you know, at least we have the handles.

[John]

So eight years later, how many of those handles?

[Anselmo Ramos]

We have 12 now.

[John]

You have 12 of those handles.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

Are now active.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And I all had them, you know, since eight years ago. So, yeah, I think you have to. You have to dream big, man.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Otherwise it's the same cost. Dream big and dreaming small, Same energy. And. And that's the dynamic. I love to dream big. Right. And Gaston, he's more, you know, the grounded person. He's more intense. And my brand, one word is dreamer. Right. So I'm always dreaming about what's next. And Gaston's brand, one word is intensity. And that's why it works, actually. At the beginning of God, we would fight a lot. Why? Because I was dreaming like crazy. You know, on the dreamer scale, I was at 10. And Gaston, in the intensity scale, he was a 10. So we were just fighting all the time. And then we got to a point where we said, you know what? We need to work better with each other, right? I'm a dreamer. You are, you know, the intense person. So when I'm dreaming, you need to lower your intensity. You need to allow me to dream. But the same, you know, the reverse is also true when you are being super intense, helping me to execute all my dreams. I need to dream a little less. I need to allow you to be intense. And then it became this beautiful balance, you know, and then we. We started to apply conscious dreaming. And conscious intensity is like, okay, I'm going to dream really big right now, okay? And then he'll say, I'm going to be really intense right now. And then from that moment on, it just worked. So I always tell everyone, you need to know your brand, one word, who you are, your essence. Right? But also the brand, one word of your partner and your client, you know, because we're all complementing each other, right? But. But yeah, so now we have 12 offices, man. You know, we have 12, 12 handles, you know, so it's crazy.

[John]

I mean, that's an incredible lesson about dreaming big. And also the way you work together. It sounds like a seriously important part of success. What would be the two or three, as you look back over eight years, the two or three really big lessons that you've learned about creating an agency and scaling it?

[Anselmo Ramos]

I think the first thing is you need to know who you are. Right? Right after that meeting, we sat down for our first meeting about God, and we wrote down everything, and everything's still true. We wrote down. Okay, what's our name? Gut. Okay, cool. What's the simplest way to explain the agency? We are a brave agency for brave clients. That's it. Okay, what's our brand? One word. Bravery. We need three values. Courage, transparency, intuition. And they all come from our name. Courage is about having the guts to do something that hasn't been done before. Transparency is about spitting your guts inside and out. Just telling the truth internally and externally. And the most important one, Intuition, which is about following your gut no matter what, because your gut knows something that you don't. Your gut always is two steps ahead of you. That was it. And we're still living up to those values. We're hiring by them. That's how we find people. The best people got, they live up to those values. And then we wrote also our mission, which is we want to inspire everyone to Follow their gut. Because we believe that there will be a better world. And the vision was to become the most diverse, creative and influential agencies in the world. Right? One of the most diverse, creative and influential agencies. And why? In that order? Because it's very intentional. The more diverse we are, the more creative we're going to be. And the more creative we are, the more influential we're going to be. So diversity drives creativity, and creativity drives influence. That's it. That was basically what we wrote down eight years ago. That's still what Asia is all about today. It hasn't changed. Right. So I think you need to know who you are, you know, and. And that drives everything. Okay? If I'm a. If I'm about bravery, I need to hire brave people, okay? And then I need to look for brave clients and I need to do brave work. That's it. And then, you know, you. You need to stand behind your values. You're not for everyone. Not every client will call you when you say, I'm super brave. Right? It's okay. You need to be okay with that. Right? And so you need to know who you are. And, and I think a lot of times, you know, and some agencies, they just don't know what they stand for. I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the best agencies today, they don't have names that are after their founders. They stand for something. If you think about Rethink, Uncommon mischief, they stand for something. And, and I don't think it's a coincidence that they are, you know, some of these is doing the best work out there.

[John]

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense. I couldn't agree with you more. What would be some of the surprising challenges that people don't realize about starting a company that you've had to overcome on your journey? What do people not talk about?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Man, it's super hard. You really need to like this business because it's a hard business, right? You get a lot of rejection. It takes time. You know, it's not easy. It's a lot of work. You need to love it. And everything takes longer than you think. But you need to. You need to wake up every day and go back to work, and that's what we believe in. You need to stay really close to your belief system because sometimes, you know, you say, well, if we do that, this is going to be easier. Or, you know, what if we work with a client that's not that brave? No, stay. Stay on your path. You know, follow always like what you believe, but it's hard, it's hard to, it's hard to stay true to, you know, what you want to accomplish. But that's the, that's a challenge, you know, and, and then, you know, sometimes people ask me, what do you need to start an agency? And I think that basically you need two things. You need reputation and you need relationships. And reputation takes time. You know, I started David when I was 42. It takes time. And then I started guy when I was 47. So, you know, so it took me years, like decades of working many countries and many agencies to, you know, build some reputation and also some relationships. And their relationships are based on creative work. They're not based on golfing or, or boating or, you know, it's just based on great work. And those are powerful relationships because you have shared values, you know, you want to do the same things. So if you have those two things, if you spent like decades, you know, building your reputation and if you have relationships based on reputation, it's easier. It's too hard. But it's just slightly easier to start an agency.

[John]

Well, one of my biggest lessons actually just echoing we just said, is the power of compounding relationships. That relationships are like a superpower, aren't they? And they just compound over time as you build more trust and do more work and.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And they just multiply. And also the, I kind of call it the trust transfer. That when you do great work and build a great relationship, it's what people are saying about you when you're not in the room.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Totally.

[John]

That is amazing. So people are selling on your behalf.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Totally.

[John]

To people you don't even know yet that will one day turn, knock on the door and say, I want to work with you.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

And that sort of second degree, third degree.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

Is so powerful.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Super. I, you know, sometimes people ask, hey, what's your dream client do you want? You know, what kind of brands you love to work with? For me, it's not about the brand, is about people. So a CMO is way more important than the brand, you know, so I, you know, it's not about, I want to work with Nike. It depends. It's about the cmo. A great CMO with a grace mo. I can work with any brand. But if I, if I work with the best brand ever with an average cmo, I won't be able to do great work. So it's always about the people. Yeah, it's a, every business is a people business. But I think in our business even

[John]

more, I found that so true. Follow the person Never follow the brand totally. And also, you back the person and they're successful, they'll end up at bigger places doing bigger work and bigger things. And you'll be there on that journey with them. If you back the brand, you'll find them replaced by somebody that doesn't know you've got a loyalty to somebody else, and then it'll disappear in front of you.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah. The other thing is, like, I think life is short, man. We need to work with people that we like, you know, that's true. And so we're always trying to work with people that we like because, you know, it's just easier. And in a lot of cases, we become friends with our clients. It's a very close relationship. So it's not corporate. It's not like, oh, we are the agency, you are the client. We become very close. You know, it's a very intense business and we have a lot of passion for creativity. So we get closer and we just like each other.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You know, and I think that makes the work better. So it's not. I think sometimes in this industry, the relationships are very cold. You know, it's like, well, you are the agency, I'm the client. I don't know. It's like we just trying to create great content.

[John]

It's so true. You need to create the conditions for creativity to thrive. And it doesn't thrive if it's a procurement relationship where it's about, how much is it going to cost me? And when you're going to do it and can you fit, you know, can you fit into my box of criteria? Yeah. I mean, talking of, you know, kind of, you've obviously won a lot of clients in your journey. What's been your approach to pitching?

[Anselmo Ramos]

So our approach to pitching has changed over time. At the beginning of God, we were like. We were like, we are super gutsy. You know, we are not going to pitch ever. We were super radical. You know, I guess it was a phase where we just had left, you know, a holding company and we were like, let's just go, you know, Black tees. We are independent. We are not going to pitch. And we actually didn't pitch for the first two, three years. We didn't. We just got projects and then, you know, projects became accounts and AORs, and we didn't pitch. And we were very radical about it, you know, and. And it worked for a while. And at that point, we had something that I talked about in the. In the first time that we. That I was here, which was the reverse RFI or the reverse RFP, which was very interesting. You know, we'll get 20 questions from the client for RFP, and then we are going to. We would send one back, you know, the reverse rfp, because we had questions, too. And the questions were things like, okay, what's your favorite ad of all time? What kind of communications you admire, and what's your creative ambition? And do you. Do you really want to do great work? Do you realize that the name of the agency is God? It was playful. And sometimes clients will answer every question and we go, oh, that's a great client. Sometimes they'll. They wouldn't. And they'll be like, well, we are the ones asking the questions here. Why you are sending me questions? That already says a lot about the kind of client that would be. So it was a great tool. We're bringing that back a little bit. But for me, the most important thing is chemistry, is to really see if we like each other and if we have shared values and common goals. It's all about that. You know, if we do, everything else is going to be easier. So what we try to do is to also assess if we like them, if they want to do great work. You know, so. So we got, after, you know, three years later, we said, we got to a point where big brands started to call us. And they. They were like, listen, we love all the black tea and, you know, the bravery thing, but if you want to work with us because of, you know, procurement, you have to pitch. And then we said, okay, let's pitch, but let's pitch our way. And then, you know, in many cases, what we do is we just go with one idea. Sometimes we go with two or three. But I. From, from our experience, every time you go to a pitch with just one thing, it means a lot. It means that that's your opinion, that's what you would do if you had the brand, if you had that account. And I think that's very powerful. It's not. We have five options here to choose from, and whatever you choose, we're going to be happy with. No. We actually worked a lot from a strategic perspective, research creative, and we found that this is what we would do. Just one. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. But I like their approach to pitching because it shows conviction, and conviction is everything in life. So I really like that.

[John]

I love that. I'm glad you're bringing the reverse RFP back, by the way, because I think, although it might feel uncomfortable to send the client back, oh, by the way, you have questions, we have questions. Right. And we're going to ask them back. In a way, you're doing the client a favor because I think you're accelerating the time it takes to really understand whether you can work together. And actually, what I found as a client, you don't spend enough time and care on the brief as you should. It's probably written by somebody junior. It's probably written to a template. The template doesn't describe everything that's going on. There's a business context that might not be in the brief. Not everything in the brief is as important as everything else. You only get to that by asking questions. And I used to do some pitch training when I was out of a job a few years ago. I thought, what can I do? And so I phoned up all the agencies I worked with and said, well, I used to be your client. You want me to help you pitch? And they all bit my hand off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us what. Tell us what a CMO really thinks. And the bit of advice I gave them, slide one, was the brief is never actually the brief. There is way more behind the brief than you might realize. My first tip was the moment you get the brief, phone them up and ask them for 15 minutes. And they go, well, we can't phone the client up. We know. We got to. We got to answer the brief. And I said, well, you. You can choose the pain now, the pain later, but it'd be much easier to go through the pain now of understanding why have you included this in the brief? Who's going to make the decision? What's the business context behind what's going on? How will you evaluate between the different, et cetera, et cetera? There's five or ten questions that I think if you ask, you almost guarantee the win, or at least you will guarantee to know why you didn't win, but you can probably guarantee the win. And it surprised me, actually, the number of agencies I spoke to that just didn't have that bravery of going, I'm going to ask you some questions. But the way I positioned to them is, give me 15 minutes and I'll save you days, weeks, and, you know, days, weeks and months of time. It's a very, very sensible investment. So I like that. I think, yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And the brief is so important, man. Yeah, the brief is like, is halfway there. Inspiring. Brief is halfway there. And sometimes we don't spend enough time on the brief. The other thing about briefs is, yes, we have the official client briefs, but another principle that we have is when you know the brand, you're briefed already. Okay. And I really believe that if you really know the brand deeply, the brand values and personality, the brand history and everything about the brand, you're briefed, man. You know, of course, you can always communicate, like, a new flavor or a new product or. But the brief is always on.

[John]

Yeah. You've reduced the distance between you and the customer.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Oh, yeah.

[John]

And that's the challenge, isn't it? If you've got zero distance between those two things, you know, you will already know.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah. And then, you know, productivity happens because you always think about the brand, and pop culture happens every day. So, you know, we are extremely proactive. You know, it comes to a point that clients tell us, please stop, you know, because it's too much. We don't have the time or the money to execute all the ideas. But it's beyond our control because we're a bunch of ad nerds, and we love this business, and we always think about advertising. You know, everything. Everything we watch, every TV show, you know, plyibus, whatever. Everything we watch, every trip we take, every book we read, every movie we watch. We're thinking, how can I use this for an ad for one of our brands? It's a very sad life. Okay. But that's our life.

[John]

But that's where inspiration comes from. Inspiration comes from outside the environment you're currently in. Right. Most problems have been solved by somebody else in a different category in a different part of the world in a different situation.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

You only discover that by leaving the. Leaving the four walls.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah. And I think productivity for us is not an option for us is how we operate as an agency. There's always productivity. And of course, you know, when you bring unsolicited idea to our client, like, hey, what if we do this and it's not in the pipeline? Right. It takes a brave client to say, okay, let's find the time and the budget to make that happen, because that wasn't part of our plans. So we always tell our clients at the beginning of the relationship, try to set aside some budget for proactive ideas, because they will come, you know, and it's very powerful, man. Some of our best ideas were proactive ideas. They were not about our brief. It's just, what if you do this, you know, and sometimes you have to act fast because it's happening right now in pop culture, sometimes you can wait a little bit because the idea drives the timing, the idea drives the budget, the idea. The idea drives everything. Right. But, yeah, I think Productivity is so powerful. Sometimes we're, we're still too structured, you know, we're just. Agents are always waiting, man. You know, ages are waiting for the brief, waiting for the approval, waiting for the feedback, waiting for internal alignment. It's just. I think the best agencies today, they don't wait, they just go, you know, they make it happen and they show something that's almost ready. Especially now with AI so easy, you know, just watch this, you know, it's not a. It's not a deck, it's a file. Just watch this.

[John]

It's almost your idea to life in, in five seconds, right? Just, just to get that.

[Anselmo Ramos]

So easy.

[John]

It's interesting actually, because the, the best work I've ever been part of, as I look back, was the work where I had spare budget, which is a bit odd, right, but where I went to my creative partner and said, I've got 250,000 pound rebate here from my media buy. I've got to spend it in the next two weeks. Like it sounds crazy, but, you know, throw me an idea.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Totally.

[John]

And in fact, that's what. So I've only won two lines, right? So I know, you know, you're the king of Cannes here, so. But I've only entered twice, I should just make that clear. But actually, the two lines I won was speculatively spending some money that I had left over at the end of the year. And I spoke to the ECD and I said, Dude, I got £250,000. Give me the best idea you got. And I also said, I don't need to approve it. You have complete freedom to just make the vision that's in your head.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And, man, that was the most successful thing creatively in terms of, you know, advertising I've ever done.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Just goes to show, I think, you know, talking about approvals, right, that's one of the biggest struggles that we have. It's that the approval that happens in the meeting. It's becoming like super rare, man. It never happens. You know, it's like, I love it. Let's make it happen. It's so rare because sometimes, you know, you have, especially big companies, they have to align internally. They have to show to someone that needs to give a final blessing. And there are a lot of layers and I think we're missing that beautiful moment, almost like a madman moment, where I love this idea, let's make it happen.

[John]

But I think it's going back to what we've talked about. In terms of your gut, you're exactly right. The best ad I never made. Didn't get made because I didn't approve it immediately on the spot. So I remember it got pitched to me. I had tingles down my spine. It was a magic. It was culturally, it was such a good idea. It would have. It was at a particular moment, it was leaning into attention and culture. It was on brand. It was surprising. It was during a World Cup. Whole things. Right. All the things. Tingles down my spine. And they pitched it and I'm just like, that's a five star ad. I've just. That is a five star guaranteed. Right. We have to do this. And we didn't. And because I let myself after leaving the room going, oh, I must just check. And it killed it because by the time I went through the. Oh, does it align with our strategy? Oh, does the CEO think this is a good idea? Oh, what, you know, do you know what I mean? The moment I went through that cycle, within a week or two, we'd end up making the plan B idea, which was the safe idea.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, yeah.

[John]

And we didn't even make that idea in the end because it just felt so underwhelming that at the end of it, we rerun the previous year's ad. And I'm just so gutted because I just didn't trust my gut in that moment. And I allowed the rational part just to take over and go through the approval process.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And actually looking back as well, I think I had the authority to sign it off. I was doubting myself. It wasn't the case of I was the cmo.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, right.

[John]

I could have done it. And in fact, with the previous example where I did do it, I signed it off. I remember saying to my CEO, the first time you see this ad, you'll see it on TV as a viewer. And he was like, I like it. He said, I like it. And it was the opposite to what I expect. I was expecting to get into trouble. And he was like, no. Yeah, great. I love the fact that you're confident about it.

[Anselmo Ramos]

I love that.

[John]

And I didn't bat myself the second time. And it's so annoying.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, it's. It's really powerful when a client says, I love this idea, let's make it happen. Yeah, it's very powerful.

[John]

So powerful.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And it doesn't happen that often. And you know, it's a lot of back and forth and overthinking in our job. Also part of our job is to try to instill confidence, you know, in the clients to make, to make it happen, you know, and Also, you know, it's tricky because, you know, at the beginning of the agency, because we are a brave agency for brave clients, a lot of clients wouldn't come to us because they would say, well, we're not ready. We're not a brave organization. And it was very binary, right? Oh, people tend to think you're either brave or you're not brave in a very binary way. And at that point we realized, well, it's not. It doesn't work like that. It's a journey, it's a choice. So at that point, I think was year four, we create a bravery scale. And the bravery scale is such a helpful tool because it goes from 0 to 10. And 0 is you are just completely fearful of life. You don't even leave your bed in the morning. And 10 is there's no other way to live. And five is sometimes brave, sometimes safe.

[John]

And.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And then, you know, we have conversations with clients and we ask them two things. We say, hey, where are you on the bravery scale? And, you know, from 0 to 10? And there's no right answer. Right. It's a feeling from a personal perspective, you forget your brand from a very personal perspective as a marketer. And they'll say, like, well, I'm a six example, or I'm a seven. Okay, cool. What about your brand now? Where's your brand on the braver scale? And they'll say, well, my brand, right now it's a four. Is it three? And that's usually what happens. We've done that hundreds of times with many, many clients and brands, and the average is always 6, 7 for a personal perspective and 3, 4 from a brand perspective. That's just data.

[John]

You just described the problem.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Right, that. Exactly. That's the problem.

[John]

That's between personal ambition.

[Anselmo Ramos]

We call that. Yeah, we call that the bravery gap. The gap between your own bravery as a person, how you rate yourself, and the bravery of your brand that you are responsible for. And our job as an agency is to close that bravery gap. And from our experience, it takes one year to move up one stage. So if you are a three now, you can become an eight in five years. Not overnight. Because. Because it's a process and it's not easy, but for us, it's a very interesting conversation to have at the beginning of the relationship. But also once a year. Because once a year, say, hey, we were three. Next year, are we a four now? I think we are. Okay, cool. Next year, five.

[John]

That's such a good framework. In fact, funnily enough, actually, you've Sort of resolved something in my head actually because, because I spent seven years working at System One, which is kind of creative ad testing and people like, but John, you're a really creative person. Why are you spending time testing creative. Which is a very rational thing to do.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And I said you slightly misunderstanding the why here. Because actually as a client I. On the bravery scale I'd be 6, 7. The business would be 3, 4. Right. That would be the reality I'd face.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

What I was doing was giving my internal stakeholders the rational case for bravery. So it wasn't necessarily, it wasn't, I was marking the work. It wasn't that I was kind of like giving the creatives loads of feedback on their ideas is that I wanted permission from the organization to raise that bar and go, you know, so people misunderstood often because you know, they'd be like, yeah, we don't want creative testing involved in this. And I'd be like, there's a different reason for doing it.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

You know, and, and, and what you've articulated brilliantly for me actually I was unconsciously doing this was, I was trying to, I was trying to close the bravery gap by taking away the fear by put by, by using corporate measures and rational numbers to make the emotional happen.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, yeah. Also it's really interesting. We have a whole presentation, a two hour presentation about the bravery scale and it's like, okay, if you're a two, here are like three or four things you can do if you're a two to become a three or if you're a nine here, what you should be doing to stay at nine and don't go back to, you know, down the scale. So for every stage it's like three to four things you should be doing to move up or to stay up there.

[John]

So give me an example of what sort of things would you ask at the bottom of the scale versus top of the scale as an example.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Like examples. If you are at the bottom of the scale, like really before, like a 2, you need to start just, you know, example watching everything, you know and getting to know the industry and it's about advertising knowledge. Just watch everything. For the category from, you know, from can lions from, you know, and then, you know, at the bottom of the scale, invite guest speakers, you know, to come to your company and talk about it. You know, it's like really basic, basic stuff. And then if you move up a little bit, let's say if you are a five, we start saying things like okay, maybe start, maybe start internal awards to create healthy Competition for your internal marketing teams for different brands and, and countries. That's one thing you can do or you create. Like, ABI has the creative spectrum, like a system that helps people talk about an idea. Oh, is this like stereotypical or is this iconic? Oh, this is a.4 is stereotypical, this is 10 is iconic. You need common language internally and also with your partners. What's your creative ambition as a company? You know, so write down the creative ambition. So many tips. Right. That a lot of clients don't have, a lot of brands don't have. And we are lucky. We work with great organizations and sometimes we take those tools and systems, you know, for granted. But a lot of companies don't have that. So it's like, okay, at this stage you should be doing this, you should be thinking about that. But yeah, it's, it's a, it's a journey. It is, you know, and it's daily. It's a conscious, daily choice.

[John]

The unexpected surprise for me going back to Kat, I did a talk two years ago with Adam Morgan called the Extraordinary Cost of Being Dull.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Oh, yeah.

[John]

And I was blown away by how many businesses who are three, four.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Wanted me and Adam to come and present to them because as soon as they framed not being brave as a cost, they got it.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And they said, oh, can you present it to our finance team? Can you present it to our commercial team? Because suddenly it was language they understood.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

It's a costly thing to be at the bottom of that scale.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Exactly.

[John]

And it's not a risky thing to be at the top of the scale. The risky thing is not to be at the top of the scale.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Exactly.

[John]

The riskiest thing you can do is to be.

[Anselmo Ramos]

And John, which, which brings me to our business proposition. As an agency. Our business proposition is very simple. Is bravery means business. Okay, that's it. What do we mean by that? We believe the brave creativity, the brave work drives business results. As simple as that. So if you understand that from a client perspective, from a CFO perspective, it's very effective because I'm going to spend less money and more people who talk about it.

[John]

100 great.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Who doesn't want that? Now, in order for me to deliver that bravery means business, I need to reverse that line and I need to understand your business to deliver bravery. Right. The more I understand about your business, you know, client, like your brand, your category, like, you know, the factory, how your product is made and price point, distribution, like everything, the more I can find opportunities to be brave for your brand and for your company. So that's how it works. We believe bravery means business. But the more I understand about your business, the more the braver we can be together. I love as simple as that.

[John]

It reminds me of the iconic story Sir John Hagerty tells of audi in a BBH. Had Audi for I think 30 years old. May still do actually. And Vorsprung Duck Technik as an idea came from him being on a factory too and he saw the manual for how the machine was operated.

[Anselmo Ramos]

So good, isn't it?

[John]

Like that closeness. So good closeness.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Such an iconic line.

[John]

It is, isn't it? Yeah. And just shows there's, there's a. There's a Japanese word called gemba which is basically being where the decisions know being on the front line, effectively. So whether it's in the factory floor, whether it's in front of your customers, in the store, whatever. But they have this philosophy of make the decision where the action happens. Because the closer you are to the Gemba, you know, the shop floor, I love that there's no distance between you and the information you need to make a decision. And I think as you get bigger as an organization, as a brand gets bigger, you get, you start looking in, you start, you know, having internal politics and discussions. The more you spend time at the Gemba, every decision becomes obvious.

[Anselmo Ramos]

I love that.

[John]

And yeah, such a good concept.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Stay close to the factory floor.

[John]

Yeah, stay close to the factory floor. Now I must talk about black T shirts. You mentioned black T shirts twice right now. Also going back to Cannes, I remember actually sticking on the Sir John Hegarty theme. So Orlando Wood and John Hegarty got together and they created this new course called Advertising Principles Explained. Trying to kind of train the industry and how to think and all the evidence base for the kind of stuff we're talking about. Now the reason I tell that is to story is because I was in the big auditorium in the Palais when they announced this. It was amazing. As I walked out, I saw you and the entire gut team and what I think was about 500 black T shirts piled up outside.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

So you've taken the black T shirt idea to the extreme. But yeah, talk to me about where the black T shirt idea came from.

[Anselmo Ramos]

It's a couple things. First of all, it's so interesting how you, Nils and I, you know, we have this black tea club and we're all like fighting to see who started that trend. Nils, if you're listening to this, it wasn't you. I know you think you are the og, but I don't think so. Anyway, for us, it started for a couple reasons. One, when we had Stefan Zachmeister and Jessica Walsh to design our logo, which was very expensive because we had nothing. And we were starting the agency and took me, like, two months to convince Gaston to, you know, to spend money on that logo. On that beautiful logo. You know, when. When they were presenting the logo to us, we were like, oh, my God, we were so nervous because, oh, we are clients now. You know, we need to be brave clients. But we have a question. We said, listen, it's a beautiful logo, but have you considered colors in Jessica? And Stefan said, no, it's got. You are about bravery. It's black and white. That's it. It's black. Secondary white. Okay. From that moment on, you know, that's all I wear. Wow. Because that's the brand. It's about bravery.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

So that's one thing. The second thing is, like, when Gaston and I, you know, we had to take a picture for Ad Age, and then the photographer said, okay, that's the logo. It's about bravery. Just wear black tees. Okay. And that was it. And then became a thing. You know, it's really interesting. Like, it's just to clarify, okay, it's not mandatory, it's optional, but if you go to any gun office, like the 12 offices that we have, you know, across the globe, I would say that at any given time, there's like half of the people wearing black tees because they won, not because it's just a thing. It became a thing, but now it's part of our identity. And I think it's really powerful. You know, it's not a uniform. It's just something that we like.

[John]

I love it.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You know, and, you know, it's really cute when we see sometimes a young team coming for an interview already wearing black tees.

[John]

It's amazing. It's really cute. That is amazing. Yeah. Love it. Well, long live the black T shirt.

[Anselmo Ramos]

That's for sure. For sure.

[John]

Now, when we last met, we went out for a beer afterwards.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And we had a lovely chat because you were right in the middle of making probably one of the biggest decisions of your entire life. Yeah. You'd been approached, I think, at that point by Globe and to acquire the business. And you were 50. 50, and you and Gaston were thinking it through, and it was lovely, actually, to kind of be let inside the, you know, the sort of your thought process in it. And then a few weeks later, you did the deal. Looking back, what has changed as a result of that acquisition.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, I remember that. I remember that beer that we had. And when I was sharing with you, I was 50. 50. For me, it was a process. Right when I started, God, I was like, yeah, I was so happy to be independent. For the first time in my career, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. So I was just enjoying the moment. I was like, I want to be indie forever. You know, like, why then? Let's just be indie forever. So when global. And by the way, they were. They were. They still are one of our clients. So, yeah, so we had a call. Gaston and I, we had a call with them. It was like, okay, I think it's a call about, you know, the relationship or the campaign. And they said, yeah, we. We want to acquire. God. I was like, what? It's kind of too soon? You know, it's been like five years. And it's not common for a client to consider. Even consider acquiring, you know, its own agency. And then, you know, at first I didn't want to and Gaston wanted to, and then we talked about it. We, we, you know, we spent a weekend together with them asking everything, and it was great. You know, we had some approaches over the years from typical holding companies. We always had no, but in this case was different. It's a tech company. It's one of our clients. We actually know them. For three years, you know, we've been selling ideas to them. We know them, and it's one of our clients. It's a tech company. They don't do what we do. It's very complementary, actually, because it's very strategic and complementary because now if you think about, you know, creativity and tech, we can offer both to our clients. We can do everything you need from, you know, everything brands need from a tech perspective, from a digital perspective and also comms. So it's very complimentary, very strategic. So, yeah, we. That happened like three years ago, and it has been incredible because they leave us alone. They don't do what we do, we don't do what they do. It's very different, right? We are learning a lot. Like, a lot from a tech perspective, from an AI perspective now. Like, it's incredible the amount of stuff we're learning, like, new things. The language is completely different, the way they talk. You know, they are engineers, and it's really interesting. We're learning a lot. They're also learning with us how to sell better, what they do, how to package in a more interesting way what they do. So it's, It's. It's been incredible.

[John]

Haven't they brought the marketing services under gut? Yes, in terms of positioning as well. So does that mean that GUT is the brand that customers engage with, then you provide?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes. So that happened. Exactly. So that happened last year. In the middle of last year, they had acquired a couple companies before, got a digital marketing company, a media company, you know, health and pharma. And at some point, they. They offered us, why don't, you know, you. You guys take care of everything. And we. We call that the GUT Network. And we said, okay, I love saying yes to things that I haven't done before. For me, it's one of the secrets of life. You know, it's something that we haven't done before. And it felt right. So we said yes. And that's exactly what we're doing right now. You know, so got now because of that deal, we have 2,000 people and we have 12 offices. And it's crazy. And now what's happening is we are learning a lot with marketing services because they are bringing capabilities that we didn't have before, and they're very smart, very talented. So we're learning a lot. And now we are just a more interesting agency for our clients because we can offer a lot of things that we couldn't before. At the same time, we're teaching them the gutsy way of doing things, you know, like, okay, our values, our principles, and we have everything written down. We. I think we do a lot of things wrong, but one thing that we do right is we capture everything. We do.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

We have lots of decks and documents and, you know, everything. There's, you know, we have a name for everything. We have a label for everything. So we capture everything. And now we're teaching them and trying to inspire them in, okay, this is God, and this is how we operate. So it's being a beautiful exchange of, you know, knowledge and experiences. And we are still doing it. It's been like six months, eight months. We're still doing it because it's a lot of people, a lot of markets, you know, a lot of capabilities, and it's a beautiful challenge. The other day, I was talking to Gaston. When I joined Ogilvy Brazil, like, a long time ago, my challenge was to revive a culture. You know, no one was talking about Dave Ogilvy, so the job number one was, hey, David Ogilvy said amazing things. All we had to do was live up to everything that he said. The culture was there. It was just no one was talking about it. Right when we started, David was about starting a culture Within a culture because it was about the first name of the same person. So it was like a subculture. That was David Gut was the first time that we started culture from scratch. Blank page, you can design whatever you want. And it was a beautiful experience. Right. You design from scratch whatever you want. Now it's like, okay, it's about expanding a culture, which is a new phase for us. How do you expand the Gut culture to new markets, to new capabilities, but also how do you assimilate other cultures? So we are learning a lot. You know, we're obsessed about culture. You know, everything's about culture. You have a strong culture as a company. Everything else is a consequence of that. Every decision, the way you operate, how you present, how you talk to clients, it's all about your culture. So that's what's happening right now. I'm super excited.

[John]

That's so important. I mean, the other, the other thing thought that curses you talk about that is we rarely think about what kind of exit we want when we start something. Because when you start a business, I guess like me with this, is that, you know, you're so excited about doing yes and nothing where you're going. And I mean, one of the best experience ever had in private equity.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Was where on day one, literally turning up at the factory with the team, very first day, the private equity company said, we're going to write the exit document. Yeah. They called it the investment memorandum. You know, that would be sent out to potential people to buy. The first question was, who would we like to buy us in what circumstances, why and what would have to be true for them to acquire us at this level? And then we wrote what people would we need? What factory capacity would we need? What brand would we need? What innovation would we need to demonstrate what supply chain skills would we need to have? And what was amazing about it is we ended up after a day workshopping was one page. And I've never been so clear about what I'm here to do. So almost if you start with the end in mind and work back, suddenly all your decisions become very obvious. Well, of course we'd do this, of course we'd enter this market in this way. By doing it like this, we'd bring forward this capital investment, we'd hire these kind of people. But it's a question, I think when I meet founders and people in the scale ups that you rarely ask the question, what happens next? Where does this go? It's important to ask.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, it's an important question because there's no One model. Right. There are many models. You can be indie forever. You can get acquired, you can, you know, prepare the second generation. It could become a family business. You have so many different business models and they're all valid. It depends on what's right for you. In our case, we chose to get acquired. Not by the whole company. No, we didn't want that. But a tech company, that was interesting.

[John]

That's interesting.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Especially if you look at what's happening now, you know, with tech and AI. So yes, it makes a lot of

[John]

sense, you know, so much sense. Because the amount of squeeze on the creative industries as well and the amount of expansion in tech.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Kind of positioning the creative insight and opportunity and thinking into that tech space. I can.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

So it's very cool.

[Anselmo Ramos]

It's about creativity and tech together like never before. So there's nothing we can do really.

[John]

I love that. Now we must talk a bit about the work. Yeah, I don't want to miss the opportunity to talk about the work and I'd love to talk about Stella, but partly because it's a brand I love and I'm a big fan of the kind of work you do. And I think your work on Stella shows a strength in depth as well, creatively because you've done so many things and you've touched in so many areas. And partly as well, while I like it is a real example of guts. Everything you've done on that brand has emotion at the heart. And my colleague Orlando, who wrote this amazing book called look out, would describe it as. Right brain featured. Yeah, right brain features. So I mean, he talks about, you know, stories and characters and music and humor and references to the past. All these things that are true in culture, whether it's going to the movie, the theater, books, literature, all those kind of things which are really good. Let's start with the Artois probability. Yeah, this is probably the first. Well, you tell me, actually. I mean, this was the first bit of your work that got on my radar.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

It won a Grand Prix at Cannes.

[Anselmo Ramos]

It was a Grand Prix, yes.

[John]

Was that one of you? Because Stella, I think it was your first global account as well, wasn't it?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

Was that the first breakthrough bit of work on the brand? Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Stella to us is very special for us for many reasons. Well, first of all, as an ad nerd, I grew up in this business admiring all the stellar work from the uk. Reassuringly expensive. It was incredible. My first gold at the one show was for Stella and that was the year that my second daughter was born. And she's named Stella.

[John]

Is she?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, so my Edgard. Yeah, so my Ednard friends tell me. I think we think we know what she's named Stella, you know? You know, so the fact that now we are the global AOR for Stella is very emotional for me. And yes, it was our first global aor. So we work with Stella in many countries and we many gut offices and it's a very special relationship. We have a group of people called House of Stella and is half clients, half agency and we just are the. The guardians of the brand.

[John]

Love that.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, it's beautiful and it works beautifully and it's very special, you know, and the auto operability was one of the first ideas we did. And yes, it got a grand prank.

[John]

Very surprising as well. Just explain it briefly because anyone who's not seen it and go check it out if you haven't seen it. It's very, very clever. It's quite a surprising idea.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, but clap.

[John]

But very clever.

[Anselmo Ramos]

It's a very simple idea. It's tell Artois. It's. They've been around forever, since the 1300s. And it's a very simple observation. If you look at classic paintings, oil paintings, in a lot of them you see beer, a glass of beer, and we said, wait a minute, if Stella has been around since the 1300s, maybe that beer could be a Stellartois. It's just a very simple observation. And by the way, the best ideas, they are born like that, right? And then we said, okay, what if we just go deeper and using tech, we actually create the Artois probability. What's the probability of that beer in that painting be Estelle Artois? Based on many different kinds of data. Proximity, you know, from the brewery or the color of the liquidity. And it's just like a different data. Right. And then we created that there to our probability. So we'll see like a painting from Renoir and say, well, that painting has a 75% of Artois probability. That's it.

[John]

That's brilliant.

[Anselmo Ramos]

That's the idea. Very simple. And it also, it's very interesting because that's creative. Data is creative and tech. That's the core of the idea. And also that painting is worth more. Right, which is. Yes, which is the concept. Yeah, which is the concept of the brand. You know, this beer is worth more. So yeah, that's one of the first ideas.

[John]

And what I like about that as well is it does something that so few brands do, which is look into its past to guide its future. And like so many brands have got this rich history and heritage, but everyone wants to change rather than going, what have I already got? Yes, in my brand DNA history, in the archives I can use. It's such a creative.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes, John. Some. In most cases the answer is in the past. When you look at brands, right? Because sometimes we are like obsessed with the new, obsessed with the next, and we try to reinvent too much. Like, hey, what if the brand is about this now? It's completely not related to the foundations of the brand. So when you go back in history and you really study what the brand is all about and why the brand was founded and the founder story, usually the answer is there. But yes, you're right now talking about history.

[John]

Another one, I love this one from last year where you took Wimbledon as well as an idea. Now Wimbledon is so British, so consistent, so much about heritage and tradition. And when you watch tennis players anywhere else in the world, they're wearing bright colors. You know, everyone wears different kit. You go to Wimbledon and everyone has to wear whites. The umpire has to wear the green and purple and all the rest of it. And it's the Wimbledon brand must have the tightest brand guidelines on the planet. And in fact, years ago I worked on the Robinsons brand and we were a sponsor for 80 years, you know, so there's always a bottle of Robinsons under the umpire's chair and they have a, you know, back in the day, these two players used to have a drink of it before they played. But I love how you took the constraint of the Wimbledon tradition and actually used it for some packaging and comms inspiration, didn't you?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, that was such a great idea. It was very simple. Again, to your point, Wimbledon has a lot of rules. Okay, what if we just embrace them, you know, and that was a very simple idea. The white can for Estelle Artois. And it's, it's very design driven and it was a beautiful, beautiful collaboration with jkr. So thanks jkr, we love working with you. And I think it's a great example of two agencies were collaborating, you know, for a brand and it was just like a very simple idea. But the idea kept growing and growing, you know, like the whole thing became about that and we did our home and social posts, everything about around the white can. And now this year we're going even bigger with the idea, right? So it almost becomes a platform. So yeah, we love that one. It's very simple and I think people,

[John]

people often forget how important packaging is as a media channel is your biggest media channel and you Combine your media and packaging together, boom, you've got something that just works brilliantly. A great example of that. The other thing, the other partnership as well, that you've created, which I think has been amazing, is the Beckham partnership.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Oh, yeah.

[John]

And I loved your Times Square outdoor poster, which just had his hand.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

And even Beckham's hand was recognizable.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yes.

[John]

In that shot as well.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah. That was a great. That was a simple idea. It was a gold lion. Very simple idea. That was like, you know, a partnership with Dave Beckham. And this. The. The execution is so simple. It's just his hand holding the beer. And it's about, you know, this is the new face for Stella Artois. Unfortunately, his face was a bit distracting. Right. That it's. It's simple. It's very simple because you can see it's him. You don't need to see his face. It's his hand, his tattoos. Right. Very, very simple. But, yeah, it's. It's a great relationship. You know, it's a great beer, it's a great brand. But also, again, going back to relationships, we have a great relationship and we all want the same things.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

So it's easier that way. It's always hard, but it's slightly easier. Right. When you have all those things in place.

[John]

And the other thing you're doing there as well, which. Which comes onto my next one is the role of humor.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Oh, yeah.

[John]

And I noticed it. I know this from spending seven years on the system. One database is we don't use humor enough. And if you were to divide that. Divide all the 120,000 ads, whatever is on that database, between those that use humor and those that don't, the humor ads score an average of 3.4 versus 2.4, that you got a whole star uplift. Because as human beings, we'd love to be entertained. And humor makes us feel more. It makes us things more memorable. We're more likely to tell other people if we've got a joke.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Now, your most recent campaign as well, I really love this, and it demonstrates probably everything we've talked about in terms of emotion and creating that. But it's so simple. A lot of your ideas are. You make a really simple idea and really focus on execution. But your recent one about celebrations, where you've got David in a bar drinking the beer, and then it's like this slow motion. You can see everyone's faces and reactions, and you've got this amazing music. And that's something I think as well, actually, going into what Makes advertising work. Is the power of music as well? Well, yeah, it's huge, isn't it? 50%. Yeah. I mean, I checked this one out in the system on database. It was the. It was the. It was number 58 out of 2518 beer ads in the. In the. In the U.S. wow. So it's in the top. Tiny little percentage.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Okay, good.

[John]

So really, really cut through. But that was so emotive. Isn't it? And how, you know, taking one scene and making people feel.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah, something. And again, when you have clear brand positioning and brand line, like in this case worth more, everything is easier. So. Okay, we have. David, is the World Cup. What happens when you celebrate a goal? Well, you spill beer because you jump and then you are super happy and just spilling beer all over. Not if you have a stellar draw. You're gonna be a little more contained. Right. So that's basically the idea. Everyone's jumping up and down and spilling beer everywhere. And David is just holding to his Stella because it's worth it.

[John]

I love the craft though, in that. Because it's the juxtaposition because that moment is chaotic, noisy, disruptive slow motion music.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You know, it's all about execution.

[John]

And you've done the opposite.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Which is everything goes in slow motion.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

The or kind of music over the top makes it feel like it's the end of a.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You know, it's a simple premise. You know. You know, the best ideas are what if we just do that? You know, it's just one line. It's just a nugget. And then. Yes. Is how we're going to bring that to life.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Which is the craft. But they always start with just a simple thought. It's just like. Yeah. What. I think this is something here, you know, But.

[John]

Yeah, but I think what's interesting about this and actually all the stellar examples we've given is there you actually reduce. The idea is reduced first, isn't it?

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

And then you. Then you sort of blow up the execution. But you come down to what's the simple, simplest articulation of the idea and the insight. And then how do we exaggerate that? Yeah, in beautiful ways.

[Anselmo Ramos]

We're always looking for a simple idea. So it's just a line, but then the execution, the craft, it's everything. How do you bring that to life? Yeah, you know, I've learned that a

[John]

lot actually in my career is how important this is where I think AI doesn't work because often you start with a nugget of an idea, but Actually, the process you go through, even like picking a director or the treatment or the editing, so much of the idea either grows or reduces in that process of back and forwards and inputs and testing and so on. And I think in the age of AI, we're losing that because you go straight to the execution.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Right. And you lose the ability to. For that craft, that process of craft.

[Anselmo Ramos]

For me, AI is a great selling tool. That's basically what it is for now for us as an agency, it's not a creative tool. Sunny humans to come up. You know, I, you know, I asked the creatives, Hi, guys. You try to use AI, right? To answer this brief. Yeah. But they. It doesn't work. It's not good. It's not fresh enough. It's not guts enough. It's not brave enough. It's just. It's not. But to help you to sell an idea. Amazing. It's incredible. It helps a lot. You know, it's just. Everything's faster. And it helps clients to visualize things. Right. So they don't have to. You don't have to read a script. You can just show a video.

[John]

Oh, that's. That's. You've hit something there. Because actually, one of the. One of the challenges I've always had selling in creative ideas is I've been able in my head to imagine how this ends up. Yeah. What I realize when I'm presenting to people that aren't as creative, let's say they're more rational. They react to the stimulus.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

They go, why have you got this, like, cartoon image? I might forget about the cartoon image.

[Anselmo Ramos]

I know.

[John]

That's just like a. You know, that's just like a scamp or it's a sketch.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Right. Yeah.

[John]

Think about the idea and how, you know, all that sort of thing. But so many people get stuck in the execution of the early stage of the idea, and they can't make the mental leap to the possibilities. And I just jumps over that. Because you just create this. What looks like a Hollywood movie.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Oh, I love it. It's amazing.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You know, the thing we sell. We sell ideas for a living. That's what we do. Ideas are very fragile, and they're very hard to explain. They're hard to visualize and to see the potential behind it. It's so hard to sell ideas. Right. And AI helps you because. Okay, it's more tangible. I can see it. I can feel something. Also, it's easier to sell internally. Right. So a client takes that video and just. They can just forward to The CEO or to whoever needs to see it. It's just easier, right? You don't rely on a creative performing and reading a script. Sometimes there's still value on that, but it's just, I think AI accelerates the selling process and that's great.

[John]

I love that. Yeah, that's really spot on. Well, maybe to round us off then. And thank you. This has been such a cool conversation. Always a pleasure on so many things.

[Anselmo Ramos]

I could talk for hours.

[John]

I know, I know. I'm feeling that too. I hardly touched on loads of your great work, but anyone listening and watching this, go to the GUT website, download it, lose yourself in the case studies. I mean, I haven't even talked about my favorite ones from Doordash even. Anyway, go look up Doordash and be inspired. It's very, very cool stuff. Maybe just to round us off, what's the single best bit of advice you've ever been given in your life?

[Anselmo Ramos]

I think, you know, to not be afraid to think big, right? Like, don't be afraid and just think as big as you can. And I think I'm pretty good at that. But, you know, I think that nowadays, right, when I think about young talent starting the business, I think that's very important, you know, like dream big. Like really do just dream as big as you can, you know, because without a dream, you do know what to do with your life. You know, you wake up every day, it's like, what's the point? You know what I'm doing this, why I'm going to work. You know, you put on alarm clock and you dress yourself and you go to work. Why? What's the dream that's driving you? Like, because it's very hard. So I think when you dream big, it just. Everything else, it's easier because you have a goal and anything that's not helping you achieving that dream, you should eliminate. I think that was a very good advice. But you know, I think when it. My advice for young people starting the business right now is dream big, have a focus. Because sometimes, you know, oh, I, I can do everything. Well, yes, but when you focus on something, just one thing, it's just easier, you know, to get somewhere. Because just doing one thing, you're not doing 10 different things. The other thing I feel is, and I feel that with my daughters and, you know, and their friends, I. I'll try to find, especially in the creative industry, you know, I'll try to find a balance between consuming and creating because we consume so much and so easy and it's Amazing. The amount of, you know, memes and videos and TV shows and films. It's so easy. So you're always consuming but if you don't stop and create, you're not creating value for your life.

[John]

I agree.

[Anselmo Ramos]

So I think you need to find in a very conscious way, if you're young, yeah, like a balance between consuming and creating. I'm going to consume this in a very conscious way because I think there is value here. I'm learning but, but I'm going to set it set aside time to create, to write a script, to write a movie, to shoot something. I think that's very important. And the other thing that, you know, I was talking to that, I was talking about that with Gaston yesterday at this very same table because we had a founders retreat yesterday at this table in Miami, I think. And maybe because of social media, I feel that a lot of young talent lack self esteem and I think they should believe in themselves. You know, just have more self esteem in what you do and in what you're writing, you're drawing, you're writing your photo, your film. Just have a little more confidence. You know, don't, don't allow social media to undermine your self esteem. You know, just be yourself. There's no one else like you. Right. So be yourself. Express that in whatever form you want. Have a little more self esteem. Don't, don't allow, you know, social media to, to undermine that because we need more self esteem in the, in the creative industry. We really do.

[John]

We really do. Amen to that. The only thing I was going to add actually is you're talking, I was thinking what would I say to that is don't wait because as a, as a. So I started my business full time, age of 51.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Yeah.

[John]

Imagine if I'd done at the age of 31, you know what I mean? And yeah, you know, I've waited too long, too long for the perfect circumstances to come around. And you learn by taking the jump when you batch your self esteem point. Even though you don't feel ready when you take the jump, you become ready and you learn so much more by taking the jump.

[Anselmo Ramos]

I agree.

[John]

Go so much quicker.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Couldn't agree more. Do not wait. I took too long. I started David when I was 42. I started God when I was 47. It's been amazing. Cannot complain, but start earlier.

[John]

Yeah.

[Anselmo Ramos]

You are never ready. Yeah, no one is ever ready. There's no perfect condition. Never. It's always are in perfect condition like forever. And there's no perfect timing. So if there's no perfect timing and if there's always an imperfect condition, do it now. Start now. Don't wait too long. It's never going to be perfect there. There's always something to fix, by the way. You have to embrace that, right? If you're going to start something, you have to learn how to love problems because you're always fixing things. There's always something broken or that needs to. Needs our attention. And that's part of having a business, that's part of, you know, creating something. So it's beautiful.

[John]

Love it. And so, my mate, thank you so much.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Thanks, John.

[John]

It's been such a blast to catch up again. Hopefully won't leave it quite so long next time for the next installment, but congratulations on the continued success of Guts. Thank you and everything you're doing and thanks for showing us what's possible.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me again for the second time and congrats.

[John]

Thanks, man.

[Anselmo Ramos]

On everything. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

[John]

So I hope you enjoyed that episode of Uncensored CMO as much as I enjoyed making it. Now, by the way, I've got a new newsletter, so if you'd like to get my thoughts on the One Thing that I take out from each episode every week, then do subscribe to the One Thing newsletter. I'd really appreciate it. Also, I have another podcast just launched, Uncensored Renegades, with the fabulous Corey Marchisoto. She is one of the world's best CMOs. She's an absolute rockstar. Every week we pick one topic, spend 20 minutes trying to fix it. So check out that it's in your feed. Uncensored Renegades. And finally, I want to give a huge thank you to my sponsor, System One. They generously provide so much support for this podcast, it would not happen without them. So big thanks and lots of love to System One. I'll see you next time.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Where'd you get your black T shirts from? Oh, you want the. The brand. Buck Mason. You Buck Mason. What about you, John?

[John]

Reese.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Interesting.

[John]

Have you got a Reese T shirt? No. I should send you one because I know that's a British brand, but.

[Anselmo Ramos]

But I think I don't know this one.

[John]

We'll compare.

[Anselmo Ramos]

Let's compare brands of black teeth. That's the next step of the black tea discussion. Today. We're gonna compare brands of black te.