Artículo original publicado por Caribbean Business.
Arteaga & Arteaga’s top creative says it’s all about hunger.
What makes good advertising creative? “Hunger,” answered Laura Figueroa Llinás, creative director at Arteaga & Arteaga advertising agency in San Juan.
“You have to hunger for the idea that will take you and your team further, help you outdo yourselves and surpass clients’ expectations,” said Figueroa Llinás, who has headed Arteaga & Arteaga’s creative department since 2009, and is part of a young crop of advertising professionals who head or work in the various departments that comprise an advertising agency. “In this profession, you have the chance to keep that hunger alive because there is always something new to work on,” she added.
In the advertising industry, the word “creative” has evolved to not only mean the department within an agency that develops the creative aspects of a campaign, such as visuals and written copy, but also the men and women who work in that department. A team of creatives at an ad agency usually includes a director, associate directors and senior and junior graphic artists, copywriters and digital media developers. Some may have studied communications or advertising in college, while others may have studied the arts or humanities.
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For Figueroa Llinás, it was a matter of identifying a field where a career path and her passion for the written word could come together. After completing a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the University of Puerto Rico, she went on to graduate with a master’s degree in advertising from Syracuse University in 1996, and immediately began her career as a junior copywriter at Wunderman Cato Johnson agency in Guaynabo. After being part of creative teams in agencies such as Lopito, Ileana & Howie and BBDO, she joined Arteaga & Arteaga in 2005. Her work has received recognition in local and international competitions such as the Cúspide local advertising festival, the New York Festival, FIAP (Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad), and reached the shortlist at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
She said to be a good creative, a person needs to have a natural tendency toward creativity, and learn other important skills on the job. “You have to learn and know a bit of everything to be able to communicate with the people who make up the whole process within the agency and with the clients,” said Figueroa Llinás, who recently served as a judge for this year’s Cúspide festival, which takes place tomorrow (Friday, May 15) night at the Puerto Rico Convention Center. “You also have to develop other skills such as setting some distance between you and the work as you create it, so you can present it to the client,” she added.
Figueroa Llinás explained that more than a sales pitch, presenting work to a client is like having a conversation. “The client gives us an assignment and we are there to show and explain the creative journey we developed to fulfill that task,” she said. “Hopefully, the team has done such a good job that the work will ‘click’ with a client, and if not, the conversation continues as part of the process of understanding what is needed.”
She went on to add that other skills are also needed to be the director of a creative department, which are certainly learned or honed on the job. “The collective work of a creative department is a result of each person in the department, and you have to know everyone’s abilities so the entire team can contribute its best to the task at hand,” said Figueroa Llinás. “You also have to learn how to delegate tasks to the team, know that you can’t do everything and respect the criteria of others.”
