There is no one who is unaware of the fierce and predatory competition among advertising agencies in the country and around the world. It would seem that the time of ladies and gentlemen has passed and it has become, as they say now, an eighties’ wave.
Truth be told, as they used to say at McCann, we’ve given ourselves a hard time. When I think of the accounts that have been ripped from me, the people that have been taken away, the noble blows and the low blows received, I remember then the accounts that we have won, the people that we have brought to us and the legal and ignoble blows that we have given. So it has been for many years.
However, when I think of Jaime, Manolo, Dirk, Rodolfo, Rodrigo, Enrique, Javier, Gerardo, Carlos, Gustavo, Luis Pedro, I think of life friends and formidable competitors, all of them my competitors for no less than 15 to 25 years! Advertising is a contact sport, it is strong and aggressive, but in the midst of it all, it has unwritten rules and ethics that guide our competition. We have competed so much that today I know them better than I know many of my friends.
For example, here’s a button. I couldn’t even see Jaime Jiménez, I wouldn’t put him down, I wouldn’t trade him (I think I was jealous of so much success, so many awards, so much growth in JBQ). Although for different reasons, I am sure, the same thing happened to Jaime with me. We hit each other many times and not always pleasantly. I recognize that with JBQ I went hard several times, in my crude intention to polarize myself with the hottest agency of the moment and thus achieve legitimacy. A strange way, I admit, but also loaded with youth, vehemence and passion, as well as error or simple mistake.
Today, because of a concern we shared in the media, we are partners and friends as well. We have a partnership in a successful company, like :CAMedia, we have been in the adventure for a couple of years now and today I can say that few people I enjoy as much as Jaime. I celebrate how much I have learned from his vision in business, the way he approaches the big issues, the positive and the negative. I have found in one of my most difficult competitors a partner as special as the best you can get. I have no doubt that Alberto and Marcos will agree with me. However, what I celebrate most is their friendship and of course that of Carmen, his wife, who is undoubtedly wonderful, to put it in a word.
The special thing about all of this is that at the creative agency level, we continue to give each other a good deal of stick and confront each other as we have always done. Because of this experience, and because I feel this way, I am sure that with the absolute majority of my advertising agency competitors, we could also coincide in business, travels and adventures, because we have known each other closely. Face to face, but very close.
In my direct competitors I have found very interesting friends. When we meet at the agency association, I enjoy them very much, when we see each other at events, I celebrate with them. It is truly a privilege to compete with people of such quality and human values.
We are competitors and friends of life.