Raúl Cardós was born in Mexico City in 1968. At the age of 22, he began his working life as trainee at Leo Burnett, while he was studying Marketing at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. Today he is a benchmark in the advertising industry.
During his career, he has worked for brands such as Bimbo, Kellogg’s, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Mattel, Kimberly Klarck, Duracell, Kraft, McDonald’s, Danone, Dormimundo, Volkswagen, Herdez, SCA, Casa Cuervo, Cuahutémoc Moctezuma, Nike and Coca Cola. .
He has been a speaker at advertising symposiums and festivals in Mexico and abroad, president of the Círculo Creativo de México and a jury at festivals such as Cannes, Fiap, San Sebastián and Ojo de Iberoamérica. In 1994, he was appointed creative director of Grupo when he was already one of the most awarded copywriters in the country, in addition to the Mexican who won the first Creative Lion for Ogilvy.
Expansion (E): You were a student when you entered Leo Burnett on the recommendation of a friend. How was this first work experience and what did it mean in your life?
Raul Cardós (RC): I fell into Leo Burnett by accident. In theory, I would work for two months to be released from social service because a friend who worked there went on a trip. I believe that the first work experience marks you for better or for worse. Your first boss may be a great teacher or someone who lets you down and makes you not trust yourself. Without experience nobody can be good, that’s why you have to have great confidence in yourself.
Lourdes Lamasney, the creative director, did not make hierarchical differences. Although I was an intern, I was lucky that very quickly they put me to rallying campaigns, writing texts and generating ideas. It marked me for good, that made me fall in love with advertising. For me it was like studying for a master’s degree.
When I finished my degree they made me associate creative director. At 24, I was a group creative director. At 27 he was creative vice president at DDB and at 31 president of this agency.
E: Did you have a career plan to climb in this way or to what do you attribute this rapid growth in your professional career?
RC: Now that I look back, I would have liked to have been a creative director for longer. It was a position that I liked and I feel that it is where one influences the most within an agency. I liked to understand the clients’ business, which gave me a different angle and enhanced my career. He was not just a creative who liked to think of ideas, but all the things he thought he did for the business.
I think that making advertisements is very easy, very hackneyed and that is why one turns on the TV or goes on the Internet and sees that all advertising is similar, mediocre and rare. I became obsessed with convincing the other to buy my ideas and this led me to Leo Burnett, being an editor, suddenly Pancho Cárdenas, president of the agency, or Polo Garza, VP of accounts, came to ask me to present ideas that weren’t even mine. And it is that you can have a very good idea, but if you do not know how to sell it, it will not transcend.
E: Do you remember what your first ad was?
RC: It’s a commercial I did for Crusli, a Kellogg’s cereal at the time. It was a joke that occurred to me and it had to do with Robin Hood, who took money from a poor man to give it to a rich man and said Crusli gives you Cruslimanía. I was terrible and I thought they were going to fire me, but I started winning prizes with the first announcement I made and without knowing. For me it was something very magical.
E: How did you manage to chair and manage an agency like DDB?
RC: When you lead a company, it does not necessarily mean that you must manage it, but that you ensure that it takes the direction that you want. The head has to permeate the culture, inspire people, make it easier for things to be done well. Never in history was there a creative directing an agency in this country, much less than 31 years.
Pepe Castañeda, was the financial director of the agency, I don’t know anything about finances, what I know is that if you generate good ideas, if you have passionate people working, you foster a good atmosphere and inspire people and get them to give 100 %, that will make your business profitable. If you focus on just making money, you will probably lose.
You need to hire people who are very good at doing something that you don’t know how to do or who are better than you and then you have to let them work because if you want to do everything you end up bankrupting the company. I had some cards made that said president trainee. I undid the positions in the company and gave everyone the title of creative. So I was creating a philosophy that made the agency focus on ideas.