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How Ogilvy Honduras Is Thriving on Pressure After Recent Awards Success

23/10/2023
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Alan Cruz, head of strategic planning at Ogilvy Honduras, tells 天美棋牌鈥檚 Ben Conway about how the back-to-back wins at Cannes have put the agency on the map


鈥淗onduras has a lot of unique situations - for good or ill. There's a lot going on in our country, which is pretty fertile ground for addressing things with creativity.鈥

Alan Cruz is the head of strategic planning at , an office that has been thrust into the limelight with back-to-back successes at Cannes Lions. In 2022, Alan served as the lead strategist for the 鈥楳orning After Island鈥 campaign for charity GEPAE (Grupo Estrat茅gico para la Pastilla Anticonceptiva de Emergencia). The project helped grant legal access to emergency contraceptives for Honduran women for the first time in 12 years, earning the agency the first Cannes Lions in Honduran history -

This year, the office struck Gold at the festival again - this time in the Brand Experience & Activation category - with . This Regal Springs campaign gathered the fish that fall from the sky during an annual natural phenomenon in the region, and gave the local Yoro people the exclusive rights to distribute them, supporting the community.

Speaking to 天美棋牌鈥檚 Ben Conway about the agency鈥檚 rise to prominence and how this awards success has changed its strategic approach, Alan says that lots of the work from Honduras is driven by cultural insight and purpose. However, since winning the nation鈥檚 first Lions, he has felt a shift in the local industry - from both the creative and client side. Now that the bar has been raised, there is more pressure and higher expectations from all directions. 

鈥淲e have had clients start to tell us, 鈥楬ey, where's my Lion?鈥 or, 鈥楬ey, where's my Effie?鈥, so there鈥檚 definitely been an impact,鈥 he says.

As a strategist, this has inevitably influenced Alan鈥檚 day-to-day, especially when it comes to ideas of scale. While effectiveness and creativity are a given, the size of a campaign鈥檚 impact beyond 鈥榞enerating pure awareness鈥 is now being considered to a higher degree. Having these conversations with clients in the briefing process is vital for Alan, who says that these grander ideas often need increased investment to succeed. This mindset made it very important for Ogilvy Honduras to reach Cannes 2023 鈥榳ith a commercial client鈥, to show how the agency can marry commercial effectiveness with brand purpose. 

Enter Regal Springs and 鈥楬eaven Fish鈥. 



Alan says that the world鈥檚 leading producer of premium, sustainably farmed tilapia fish was the perfect brand to do it with because purpose is inherently part of the brand鈥檚 DNA. 鈥淭hey've had this conscientiousness about the environment and society and everything else,鈥 he says.

Avoiding an 鈥渆mpty, meaningless gesture鈥, he explains that the agency was keenly aware that the global discussion in the industry, especially among awards juries, had turned more sceptical toward hollow, purpose-forward projects. The plan for 鈥楬eaven Fish鈥 was to create something sustainable - and commercially viable - with the potential to grow and develop over the years. The idea was also designed to be applied in different ways, to different markets and applications in the future. 

鈥淚t was important that we show the world that Ogilvy Honduras is not only about purpose and social good - of course, that's important - but also that we're an advertising agency that can sell products,鈥 he says. 鈥溾楳orning After Island鈥 didn鈥檛 have that commercial element, so we wanted to show that we have those chops as well, and make sure our second win made that plainly evident.鈥

- and a source of several valuable lessons. First and foremost was the value of genuine integration. Alex explains the project was Ogilvy Honduras鈥 most successful attempt at really integrating creativity with strategy, communication and PR, and resulted in established strategic partnerships and alliances throughout the region.

Secondly was the value of earned-first creativity. Beyond directly helping the women with the island itself, the strategy was to create so much international noise that the campaign would break through and local Honduran media would force the government to pay attention to a long-ignored issue. 鈥淭hat was a very valuable lesson,鈥 he says, 鈥淭hat we, as a relatively small country, could have that reach.鈥

He continues, 鈥淣umber three is that there really is value in purpose. There's been a big back and forth in our industry recently about the importance and value of purpose, and I think the nuance there is that purpose can work if it's sincere, genuine and really a part of the brand itself.鈥



Equally vital for the strategist - across all his projects - are consistency and patience. The 鈥楳orning After Island鈥 project, for instance, was the culmination of years of iteration, rejections from potential collaborators and persevering through frustrations. 鈥淲e kept going at it, and the work itself makes it worth it. That's one more point in favour of purpose鈥 the Lions are great, we love getting the awards, but that's not really the driver behind it all. When you have it and it's real, it drives you like nothing else. It really motivates a team.鈥

And it鈥檚 not just the agencies that have their sights set on awards nowadays. Alan reveals that some brands in Honduras are just as hungry for advertising silverware.

Since winning at Cannes, more multinationals - especially in the food industry - have sought after the agency, bringing with them large-scale brands and ideas.Which, according to Alan, aren鈥檛 abundant in Honduras. 鈥淚t seems to be becoming more important for brands themselves to win at Cannes, or to win advertiser of the year, for instance, at these festivals,鈥 he says. 鈥淪o when you see that there's only one agency in your country capable of doing that? Well, that's where you go.鈥

And they certainly have been going. 

Even with both of the Honduran offices expanding in the last couple of years, it hasn鈥檛 been possible for the agency to cater to all of the increased interest from brands, says Alan. 鈥淭here has been a significant influx - some are pitches, some are just direct requests - and, if I'm being honest, we've had to become selective. We have a certain amount of creative resources, time and the rest, so we've had to decide where best to put those resources, even taking into consideration that the agency has grown.鈥

This growth and awards success in Honduras has, predictably, made the Ogilvy network proud, with Alan and the agency enjoying their time as the talk of the town. 鈥淚'm not going to lie, it's a good feeling,鈥 he says. 

鈥淏ut at the same time, it means that there's a spotlight on you, and all the pressure that comes with that. For us, it's been nothing but positive. We thrive on pressure in this office.鈥


Credits
Work from Ogilvy Honduras
Design Case
Heaven Fish
12/06/2024
Diana
The Life Of The SKY Fishers
22/04/2024
Juan Pineda Mart铆nez
The Life Of The SKY Fishers
22/04/2024
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