Gerry Graf

Think on the funniest campaigns you have seen lately from USA: "Combo´s man-mom", the latest crazy Skittles ideas, Fedex office commercials, and Crest campaign of smile. Gerry Graf has made them all. Gerry is all about humour since before starting his carreer, writing comedy sketches at college. Living in New York didn´t hurt too... Like Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld, he knew how to find comedy in every aspect of life.

Gerry started as a junior in Saatchi & Saatchi, but only when he reached BBDO NY, he started to create the called "effective advertising". His career gave its highes jump when he created the legendary campaign for E-Trade in the beggining of cyber-era, end of 90s.

Last year, Gerry Graf has received the tough challenge to charge Tony Granger´s place in Saatchi & Saatchi New York, which was named the agency of the year in the previous Cannes edition. Gerry has been doing great work, even without the top names Granger had in his team. Last year, he captured a Gold Press Lion and a Silver Film Lion for Miller. On the other hand, Granger is struggling in boring Y&R.

Ad Genius 14: Gerry Graf.
Country: USA.
Agencies: BBDO NY, Goodby Silverstein Partners, TBWA Chiat/Day, Saatchi NY.
At Cannes: 20 lions, 7 Gold.
Strong Points: Nonsense humour.

Eugene Cheong

Ogilvy´s Worldwide Chief Creative Officer, Tham Khai Meng, is the most famous name of Singapore. But the real talent from the Southeast country lies on Eugene Cheong. From the many Neil French´s Asian Pupils, he was, definitely, the one who shined most.

Cheong is working at Ogilvy since 1981, from the time David Ogilvy himself was still there, and has also spent a brief time in some hot shops in the middle of the 90s. Eugene has worked in London´s office, which puts his thinking much closer to West than East. His ideas are usually very high-class, always using the combination great copy + long text, instead of visual puzzles.

Respected as a big talent, Eugene finally got a well deserved recognition at Ogilvy and was named Top Creative of the office in Asia. Neil French refers him as the world´s second best writer and some say he can write speeches better than Obama. From his more than 300 awards around, we will highlights the ones he has won in Cannes.

Ad Genius 13: Eugene Cheong.

Countries: Singapore and UK.

Agencies: Ogilvy, Bates, the Ball partnership.

In Cannes: 14 lions, 6 gold.

Strong Points: Long Copy.

Antonio Montero

It´s not possible to determine how responsible Antonio Montero López is for the success of Contrapunto in the last eight years he has been there. The only thing we know is that he has won, during that period, over 20 lions. We are not considering the other 3 lions Antonio has won in his previous agency, "AVA".

The true thing is that, more than a homage to Antonio himself, this post would like to highlight Contrapunto and Spain in this post. The country is always between the ten most awarded in the world, but it has a lack of big stars, different than its latin counterparts, Argentina and Brazil. Rafa Antón, the most well-known Spanish star, for example, has won "only" eight lions. Few, considered to the dozens each Brazilian or Argentinean star has won.

For 35 years, Contrapunto has been consistently, the most (or between the most) awarded and respected creative agencies in Spain. It has so much strength that it has not been sold to any multionational yet. It is probably the most successful agency in Europe to promote Smart, the small car and it reached the new century making great things for web too. Here, we will show some of the work Montero has done in Contrapunto.

Ad Genius 12: Antonio Montero López.

Country: Spain.

Agencies: McCann, Almeida Vaqueiro e Associados, Contrapunto.

At Cannes: About 25 lions, more than 20 in Contrapunto.

Strong points: Enviroment and social work.

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