5 Minutes with… Xisela López

XL> I was born in Galicia, in a town in the northwestern part of Spain. The truth is that I was a very happy child, a little clueless, always playing outside and making up stories. 

 

XL> I was pretty young. I was probably around eight or nine when I started paying attention to ads on TV. Specifically I remember I loved the commercials for Schweppes Tonic and Trex gum. I also started paying attention to the billboards on the streets and when I got to high school and they asked what I wanted to study, I was sure. The first cassette I got as a gift was ‘Hit Television Commercials.’ In order to study advertising, I had to leave home and my hometown at 18. But I knew this was what I wanted to do. 

XL> The first piece I created was a sign about sponsoring a tennis tournament in a mall on the outskirts of Madrid. I went to see it; it was placed at all of the registers in the supermarket. I was so excited, I loved seeing it in print. 

I remember a viral video we put together for Alzheimer’s research. I literally dreamed of the idea. I presented it to three different agencies, and finally after a few years, I managed to get it made. That campaign opened a lot of doors for me and helped me at a time when it looked like following my career goals was going to be very complicated. 

XL> “Be honest with the brief.” Once I learned this way of confronting my work, everything became much easier, but also much more stimulating. At the beginning, I repeated patterns that had been successful in festivals - it was simple. But I think that the exciting part of this job is getting to “that special something” that answers the brief and is interesting for the audience. 

XL> Above everything else, all of the work we’ve done for Alzheimer’s research. We haven’t fallen into using easy appeals in order to talk about memory loss. In each campaign, we’ve tried to reach our objective (raise awareness, raise money…) in a very sincere way. 

XL> ‘Parlem’ [Catalan for “let’s talk”] was an initiative begun by some people in the agency, whom I joined. It was no more than a word hung from a piece of canvas. But it’s a word that many of us believed was necessary at the moment, when the tension with Catalonia was very intense. It became an emblem of the people that opted for dialogue as a solution to this problem.  

XL> Reaching an idea and writing it out. It’s the most stimulating and enjoyable part of the process. It’s not that after that part I lose interest, but I do lose a little of the energy.

XL> This is a tough one; every year, there are more. There are so many creative minds in advertising in Spain and beyond that I admire. But there are also people I find on the Internet, every day, that surprise me with their incredible creative talent in the things they create, even if they aren’t advertising pieces. 

XL> Sra. Rushmore has always opted for raising the bar in publicity, of the things people see on TV, in the street…There is no “awards culture,” and the creatives are not judged based on the prizes that win at Cannes. Creative teams are valued for their talent when it comes to tackling briefs in the most creative and notable ways. Moreover, it’s not an agency of “creative stars.” All of us who work at Sra Rushmore understand that from the first day it's the great working environment created amongst co-workers that is intangible but very important in the agency. 

XL> I expect to see ideas, clear ideas, and insights that haven’t been exploited yet. I think that this year we’re going to see some campaigns that remind us all that a good idea/story is the only guarantee that we’re doing a good job. Innovation in different ways and formats is very necessary, especially nowadays, but there always has to be a strong idea behind them. 

 

XL> I was writing at my home computer about a love story told only in text messages, out of curiosity, just to see if it made sense and could be done. Then one day my partner took me to a small bookstore and I saw my story had been published in a book, as a birthday surprise! This book ended up in the hands of a large publisher, and they decided to publish it in Spain, Italy, and Germany. 

No, I haven’t written anything else so far, in order to avoid finding it published in another book store.

XL> Well, right now I’m six months pregnant. My only obsession currently is sleeping and eating…