5 Minutes with… Ana Noriega
Ana Noriega has been chief creative officer of FCB Mexico since 2019, when she was promoted after four year years with the agency. Over the course of her stewardship - and more specifically since the start of covid - FCB Mexico has tripled in size from 50 people to more than 150. Ana, along with the team at FCB, led and won the BMW Group pitch for Mexico and LATAM in 2020, as well as the regional pitch for Little Caesars in 2021.
Prior to joining FCB, Ana spent time at agencies such as Leo Burnett, BBDO and Ogilvy, developing ideas for local, regional and global brands including: Bissú, BMW, SC Johnson and Bud Light. She grew up in Mexico City, in a household that encouraged freedom and creativity.
LBB's Addison Capper chats with her about that creative childhood and much more.
LBB> Where did you grow up and what sort of kid were you? How did you feel about advertising?
Ana> As a little girl growing up in Mexico City, I was constantly looking for unique objects and ideas. I vividly remember every sunday when my parents took my sister and I to the city’s biggest flea market. I now recognise this was key to developing my passion for creativity. During my upbringing, I always had the freedom to explore with my clothes, decorate my own room and even experiment with our whole house. My mom would always invent arts and crafts and my dad always had the craziest ideas too.
A very peculiar example at my house were five giant robot birds that my dad rescued from an abandoned theme park. These birds were the main attraction because whenever I had friends over, my dad staged an incredible show. Basically, I grew up creating - games, toys, stories, jokes, etc. However, we had a strict no videogame policy which allowed me to play with my own ideas. It was truly a marvellous childhood. Honestly at that point, advertising wasn’t as present in my life beyond catching the 30-second stories I sometimes saw on TV.
LBB> How did you get into this industry? Was it something you planned or more a happy accident?
Ana> It was totally a happy accident, like almost everything in my life. I'm not the kind of person who has clear goals; I just play it by ear. To be totally honest, I was a bad student. I decided to study graphic design, but I wasn't that good. When I finished my degree, I moved to London. I worked as a bartender to save money and took a trip to India. When I came back, I had a big fight with my parents, and they stopped supporting me financially.
That forced me to look for a job, and coincidentally one of my friends from my college got me an interview at Ogilvy. However, the trainee salary was pretty modest. I turned it down and went to Pepsi to work as a receptionist. A couple of weeks later, Ogilvy contacted me, and they said that they could pay me a little more, so I quit Pepsi and accepted. I didn't have much of an idea of what an advertising agency was. On my first day, I did some touch-ups, and when I finished they put me in a room to brainstorm. It was at that moment that I understood that bouncing ideas around was what I wanted to do - not to design, but to brainstorm ideas and solve briefs. It was like Disneyland in my head. I remember rushing through my design assignments so I could spend time brainstorming with the copies.
My creative director, with whom I got along great, came up to me one day and half-jokingly asked me:
-Boss: Ana, why did I hire you? You're a lousy designer.
-Me: I don't know!
-Boss: Well, but you're not a bad thinker, try brainstorming more and designing less.
-Me: Sure!
And at that point, I moved away from design to think about concepts, ideas and stories.
LBB> What are your general thoughts on advertising in Mexico right now? Do you feel like it's in a good place creatively?
Ana> I think Mexico has always been in a good place creatively speaking, but I believe we have failed to fully sell pioneering creativity to our clients. The level of rejection of ideas is extremely high. We have the talent, but in general, I believe that good ideas are saved for out-of-scope - as a plus. Therefore we must convince brand owners to invest their time and effort with little or no budget. Personally, I believe it is imperative to permeate the creative drive in the always-on work, versus viewing it as an occasional ‘invisible hero’.
My country has an enormous cultural richness that sometimes as Mexicans we take for granted. I think that it’s sometimes necessary to put on the glasses of foreigners to surprise ourselves again.
LBB> Which pieces of recent work are you most proud of and why?
Ana> Definitely ‘Empty Rooms’. It is a simple idea with a powerful insight that has caused such mediatic pressure that authorities had to reopen one of the cases and found one of the missing girls alive.
More than ten women go missing in Mexico every day, a problem that is so common that it has become a daily occurrence. Tomás Bejarano, an art director on my team, arrived with this novel idea for approaching this problem. The campaign received incredible organic coverage not only in Mexico, but also in other countries such as the United States and Spain.
I am not only proud of the idea for being the idea, but also for the decisions we made as an agency. We decided that the idea would not be entered into any festival that required payment because we would rather donate the money to the cause than use it for registration. And, as I mentioned before, the biggest prize was something we didn't expect: a girl was found alive after being missing for more than a year.
LBB> When it comes to the hard bits of a project, when you’re stumped, do you have a process or something you like to do to get past those tricky bits?
Ana> What works for me is to avoid advertising. My favourite ways to unwind are to go for a walk in the woods, play board games, go for a walk, converse with friends, go to a therapist (psychologist), travel, take a nice relaxing bath, and watch documentaries.
LBB> As a CCO, I imagine you don't spend so much time ‘writing’ and a chunk of your responsibilities involve nurturing talent and listening to your teams to ensure they're able to work to the best of their abilities. What is your approach to this side of the job?
Ana> I'm still writing, both professionally and personally - I'm fascinated by micro-stories. Before the pandemic, there were 50 people in our agency. Now there are more than 150, and it's difficult for me to connect online with new people. I connect more in person and through brainstorming. We haven't returned to the office 100% and we only see each other a few days a week. What I'm doing now, to get to know and mentor my team, is organise in-person creative brainstorms for our most ambitious projects.
LBB> Do you have creative heroes? Who are they?
Ana> My creative heroes are not advertisers. I believe that everyone in this world is creative, and I admire people who use their creativity for good. I adore Mara Elena Solís, the founder of AMNRDAC, a charity that searches for missing people; her bravery has truly touched me.
LBB> Outside of work, what inspires you / what do you enjoy getting up to?
Ana> I think I already said this, but I love walking around the city, aimlessly and without pressure. I enjoy writing, I love broadcasting, I love being in the woods with a fireplace and friends. I have a favourite board game called Azul, but when no one wants to play with me, I play Sudoku. I prefer true stories more than fiction, so any given day you’ll find me bingeing on a documentary too.
