Martín Cerri de Upstreamers
Along with the return of a simple gaze in creativity, operating mechanisms in agencies are also being simplified. According to Martin Cerri, Co-Founder & Chief Creative Strategist of Upstreamers, there must be an “uncomplication” of structures that in the past were plagued with bureaucracy. “Our job is actually very simple – we must produce good ideas that generate empathy so consumers buy what our clients are selling,” Cerri said. “Many clients have already caught onto the fact that inflating hours and making processes more complex is an abuse that agencies have long imposed on them. A comeback to what is simple will boost agencies that have good ideas and will expose those that don´t.” He said, for example, that when the quarantine was declared in the U.S., the team at Upstreamers was in the middle of a pitch, which meant “we had to coordinate with the client on how to make our presentation with a video call while making it as normal as possible. The true challenge was that in a pitch there isn`t the same level of trust you would have with a client in a day-to-day relationship. So we worked a lot on having everything well orchestrated in terms of the presentation and timing. Luckily it all went very well.” According to Cerri, being creative means knowing how to live with uncertainty: “Those of us who love advertising chose it precisely because we’re not afraid of starting with a clean slate. In this industry you never know what might happen the next day – this adrenaline is what makes our job far from routine. Obviously, what is happening now is going to change many things, and when things change, we must simply be flexible enough to adapt.”
