Ever since I started in advertising I have heard of Tony Fergo. Today I have the immense honor and the joy of being his friend. Also his fan, his admirer and his tico follower in all his creativity and energy. Among the great satisfactions that have linked me for years with Tony, besides colleagues we were partners. Today his daughter Vivian de Torrijos is the president of Tribu DDB Panama and our dear partner as well.

Last February 15, the Panamanian Association of Advertising Agencies, APAP, named him Life President and created the Tony Fergo Creative Award. What a thrill, how well deserved! And what a beautiful gesture of Panamanian advertisers to recognize the trajectory, influence and contribution that Tony has made for more than 7 decades.

His presentation at the ceremony was like everything Tony has written: a beauty. That is why I asked him for it, he sent it to me and here I publish it so that you too can learn about this great Latin American figure born in Panama.

Tony Fergo in his speech:

• After 17 uninterrupted years in Cuba, (I started at the age of 17 in January 1940) and 55 years, uninterrupted also in Panama (started its interruptions from 1957 to 2012) added up my advertising years: 72.
• My colleagues commented – before and after – that the profession, hard in itself, could not resist more than 30 years. 35 at the most.
• I confessed that in addition to my human marriage, which is now 65 years old, I had a professional marriage with advertising, when I entered through its small door in 1940. A world that did not know media communication and tireless technology.
• This professional marriage was possible thanks to maintaining, since 1940, three wonderful lovers: music, which with 500 songs and 250 recordings, has been the favorite of the working harem. Humor through chronicles and books. “La Nación de Costa Rica had for several years my chronicle “Me Muero de la Risa” which reached more than 8 countries (Humor and optimism are very compatible). This mistress also gave me satisfaction. I launched 6 humor books this year 2011. And finally the virginal, romantic and sweet lover: poetry. Two books and two CDs are in the bed of my dreamy rest.
• I lived the best – and worst – years of advertising.
• a) Small world.
• b) Lack of knowledge of the profession.
• c) Shortage of manpower.
• d) Lack of knowledge of general ideas for orientation.
• e) Misunderstanding of the media.
• f) Radio as a base.
• g) Newspapers without color and without interest of a salesman of all when each one had his own.
• h) No idea what television was. And when it came, what to do with it.
• i) The hand calculator and the fax. The incredible fax, how far we will go!
• And everything was born and grew in those 72 years.
• Now:
• (a) The one-on-one between the advertising owner and the client owner was lost. The talk of second and third parties, of those over there, with those over here, we read it in one of the 20 daily reports that we must read – and analyze? –
• b) The new obsolete equipment we bought last month, while the newer equipment arrives, which will be old three months later, we must read – or be read – how the purchased equipment works and how the future equipment will work.
• c) The great idea of a creative that passes to the chief creative, who relies on the account director, after consulting with his duo, for the final art collaborator. And that, after the post research and post research brief, in order to plan the logical brief.
• d) And to negotiate with the media. If I bill little, I buy expensive. If I bill a lot, I get paid less.
• e) Maybe fire a creative – not for his idea – but for having gone to a barber and weakening the company’s creative image.

Tony tells me that when he was introduced by Enrique Fernandez of PISA, given the words of praise very well deserved in my opinion, he had to clarify that Advertising is the art of telling the truth, enlarged and well-dressed. Apap is today presided by the young Gabriel Barletta, so I am sure that he also had a lot to do with this heartfelt tribute to the great Tony.

From Costa Rica and through this space on the net, I send one more hug to Tony Fergo and to everyone in his family. A hug to all the Panamanian colleagues who made this emotional recognition possible. And to you dear reader, an invitation to discover Tony, the publicist, the friend, the example, the poet, the creative, the promoter, the entrepreneur, because he is 100% inspiration.