No room for divas and bloated egos at Leo Burnett Group Manila

Campaign Brief Asia asked Leo Burnett Group Manila’s Raoul Panes, Carl Urgino and Judy Buenviaje-Medina to reflect on the collaborative creative culture that gave rise to the McDonald’s ‘Unbranded Menu’ campaign, which recently won Grand Prix of the Year at MAD STARS.

It’s been a huge year for Leo Burnett Group Manila, whose ‘Unbranded Menu’ campaign for McDonald’s picked up the Philippines’ only two Lions from the 2023 Cannes Lions plus five shortlists – never before has any single idea from the country gained this much recognition in Cannes, and the wins keep coming. Leo Burnett Group Manila also won Grand Prix of the Year at MAD STARS in August.

Tell us about your respective roles and how you work together – in what ways do you support each other?
Raoul Panes: I lead creatives at Leo Burnett Group Manila and I’m also CCO of the mother ship, Publicis Groupe Philippines (PGP). Quite a big task so I really function best with Judy expertly managing the client side of the business and Carl working closely with me as Leo Burnett Manila’s Head of Art, especially on the art side, generating ideas and crafting executions with the teams. Outside of Leo, I work with other teams in the different PGP agencies on specific projects and businesses. Never a dull day!

Judy Buenviaje-Medina: I have the privilege of working with great creative leaders like Raoul and Carl for some of the biggest brands in the world. Many would default to thinking that it’s Account Management’s role to support Creatives, but in Leo Burnett, it’s equally the other way around, and we’re very proud of that.

You’ve had huge success with Unbranded Menu this year. How did this idea come about?
RP: We have this open brief system where all creative teams churn out ideas for McDonald’s over 2-3 months every year, and the best ideas get presented. Unbranded Menu was one of our answers to finding creative ways for the brand to continue their engagement with gamers, which, up to that time, was limited to eSports tournament sponsorships. It was developed during quarantine where, with everybody working from home, a lot of us were playing video games to decompress.

Carl Urgino: In one of our brainstorm sessions, one of the team’s avid gamers stumbled upon two very basic and simple insights: McDonald’s food-alikes can be found in almost every video game; and gamers love screen grabbing and posting their gameplay. I knew instantly that we had something special. Everyone believed we had something special, but we needed to understand better the intricacies of the gaming world. The journey became a great learning experience for everyone. We also utilized the “Power of One” and collaborated with the different companies under the Publicis Groupe to make the campaign bigger.

What obstacles did you overcome to make it happen?
JBM: Unbranded Menu was my initiation into the gaming world. I asked a lot of stupid questions and a couple of smart ones. We mapped out (and scrapped) multiple scenarios. I’d say the most challenging for me was quarterbacking such a big, cross-functional team across so many months. It was a LOT of hard work. Thankfully, also a lot of fun – I learned so much!

RP: It took us almost a year to launch this as a lot of prep work needed to be done – vetting influencers, checking multiple games, determining the right time in the marketing calendar and so on. Intense research meant playing a lot of video games, too!

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How do you get the best ideas from everyone in the team?
RP: The best creative ideas come from great insights. And you can’t get that by staring at your laptop or mobile screen. Life is your best teacher. So I always encourage the teams to dig deep into their well of experiences and observations. I also try to explain why an idea works or not, as much as I can. Don’t leave them groping in the dark. On team dynamics, we like mixing things up. Have different teams work together on clients or projects that are new to them. It’s this strange brew of competition and collaboration that oftentimes produces great work.

How would you describe the creative landscape in Manila?
RP: I would say it has a very competitive industry. We’re at this point where the major players are eager to prove that we can all compete and excel on the global stage. Many years ago, this was a fairly insular industry back-patting each other for good work in local shows. Talent retention and attraction is also a challenge now because we’re competing with regional and global markets. Our young talents are being lured out there.

What do you think sets Publicis Groupe apart from other agencies/networks there?
RP: Publicis Groupe has this Power of One slogan that isn’t just lip service. We share talents and resources across agency lines, but never across conflicting accounts or breaching client confidentiality. This helped us survive the early stage of the pandemic when resource needs were constantly changing. It’s a philosophy deeply embedded in us where other agencies may just be saying or doing it for show. I’d also like to think that we’re a collective of hard-nosed, hardworking people. No room for divas and bloated egos.

CU: PGP’s Power of One philosophy is very crucial in making the best things happen for us. The collaboration of the different PGP offices and the guidance of our local, regional and global leaders help make great ideas take shape and get crafted to the best they can be.

JBM: I think we care about the work as much as we do about the people who create the work, and the brands we create the work for. That combination is hard to find.

How has hybrid work impacted your culture, and how do you keep everyone inspired?
RP: Connection has always been important to us. We celebrate our triumphs and milestones together. We have a Culture and HR Team that works very hard to make a lot of things happen – webinars, online and offline team building, training, parties. And team leads initiate bespoke team connection sessions with their own teams. We go to the office at least 2x a week. The teams spread out the days so that there are always people in the office every day. That’s when chatter and laughter reverberate in the halls. And those are great sounds to hear.

What keeps you up at night right now?
RP: Possibilities and permutations about the work and the people. I run at night and that’s when I get some of my best thinking time. I get to juggle ideas in my head. Possible solutions come up. The ritual is meditative in a sense and things get clearer somehow for the next day.

CU: What’s next after our big Cannes Lion win?!

JBM: How to keep on motivating people. Including myself.

What’s your ambition for the next year or two?
RP: Be the best place for the best talents to come and build careers. And while with us, create their best work for our clients. Work that gets celebrated on the global stage.

CU: We learned a lot during the McDonald’s Unbranded Menu project – how to coordinate, collaborate, and keep refining non-stop. I want to use these lessons in our future projects to keep getting better. Fingers crossed, we’ll find another good excuse to go to Cannes next year (or the next). And hopefully, win a few more Lions.

JBM: Cultivating a culture where people are hungry to learn from each other – regardless of age and role (even across client-side).