High Five: Fede Garcia

This is actually one of those from when I was a kid. Back then, there was an agency in Argentina called De Luca, and they handled the Renault account. They used to make some of the finest car advertising in the country, but this was my favourite. The fox and its hunters in the middle of the forest, except the fox was a gorgeous red Renault 18, and the hunters were other Renault 18s in different, more subdued colours. The photography, the music, the art direction...to me, it was a movie. Pure entertainment, and it made the cars look so cool. Years later, my Dad bought one, used, in red. Riding shotgun, looking out the window with the wind in my hair (yes, I had hair back then), I’ve never felt so cool in my life. This ad is probably the reason why I do this.

I’m a copywriter by trade, and in the early 2000's, I came to New York as a tourist for the first time. I remember standing up at 34th and seven and looking up. Four words. Just four words. They were enough to tell the whole story. Four simple words, but with such devastating power! I would have gladly gone to the nearest Nike store to buy some shoes and start running, right there. In my humble opinion, to this day, the best headline ever written.

Yes, it was a 60-second ad, but it also was a 150-second ad. Unthinkable at that time. And it had the backstage video, the making-of. 'Balls' was not an ad, it was a music video. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was mesmerising. I remember that, at that time, I had a second job as a teacher in an ad school. I showed the ad to the kids, among many others, and then gave them an exercise to complete during class. They had one hour to do it. One of the kids asked me if I could play the 2:30 version of the ad on repeat for the whole hour. San Francisco, Juan Cabral, Nicolai Fuglsig, Jose Gonzalez. It wasn’t just a spot. It was entertainment. Sony Bravia 'Balls': advertising like no other. 

As stated before, I’m a copywriter. So obviously, I find words a source of entertainment. Words move me, inspire me, make me wanna take action, kick some doors down. I’m a massive fan of big movie speeches: Pacino in 'Any Given Sunday', Bill Pullman in 'Independence Day', Stallone talking to his kid in 'Rocky Balboa', Billy Bob Thornton in 'Friday Night Lights', Pacino (again!) in 'Scent of a Woman'. Call me corny, but to me, this is what life is about, and in that sense, 'Think Different' holds its own against any of the speeches mentioned beforehand. It almost served me as a moral compass throughout my career. More than a manifesto, a rallying cry that demands you to pick one side. Are you with the ones who call others crazy, or are you with the ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world?

Hard to pick the last one. The first four were almost obvious to me, but having only one left when there is so much work that I have loved and admired? A nearly impossible task. Should I choose something that changed the history of advertising? Something that made a dent in pop culture? I let my gut pick, and my gut goes for entertainment. Because I feel that today, our work competes with everything. With a TikTok dance, with an Instagram reel, with a text from your Mum, with the music in your ears, with Netflix, Apple TV+, and the likes. How can we compete? By making something that gives a run for their money to all the mentioned above. And to me, this one did it. An Academy Award-nominated director film, starring movie stars, soccer stars, tennis stars, basketball stars and Homer Simpson. I watched this ad a gazillion times, exactly like I do with my favourite movies...