Locals Only: MullenLowe’s Renato Barreto and Marcelo Maciel
By thelaegotist / /
2021 has been a year to shine for MullenLowe’s Renato Barreto, ACD and copywriter and ACD and art director Marcelo Maciel, the creative team behind Change the Ref’s award-winning campaign, Shamecards, which subverted traditional postcards with images of what American cities are known for: mass shootings. Shamecards earned recognition this year from Cannes, D&AD, the One Show and landed a Campaign Power Purpose award. Their most recent campaign launched in the middle of this summer for MullenLowe LA’s client, Corona Hard Seltzer. The team imagined an interactive, voice-activated vending machine that was custom built for the activation on the Las Vegas Strip. People were asked to order a Corona Hard Seltzer Limonada – en español. Those who got it right received a free sample of the new product, and those who missed the mark were given a free one-month subscription of Duolingo Plus to practice their Spanish for the next time they want to order a Limonada. The team is currently working on the Burger King account, and dreaming up their next big hit.
As a Brazilian creative team, how has your perspective on American culture influenced your work?
Renato – We’ve always been connected to the American advertising culture in one way or another through the festivals, campaigns, brands, etc.
Marcelo – Then it came the time to move here, and we thought, “It can’t be that different…”.
Renato – And boy, we were wrong.
Marcelo – Even though our countries have many similarities, the jokes, the references, the TV shows, the problems are all different.
Renato – And the sports… Especially the sports.
Marcelo – But we’ve been learning. And not only the rules of basketball (although we became HUGE Celtics fans).
Renato – When we arrived in the US, we understood that we’d probably never have the same background as the American creative teams. So that makes us focus more on timeless ideas, the things everybody can relate to, no matter where they come from.
Shamecards was set to launch in March 2020, and then the pandemic hit. How did your team adapt to challenges and launch the work almost a year later?
Marcelo – Shamecards is an excellent example of a problem we have here in the US, but not in Brazil.
Renato – That’s very true. Not that we don’t have guns in Brazil. Man, we do. But mass shootings are just not a part of our reality.
Marcelo – Adaptation was really the word for the whole Shamecards process.
Renato – And sharing. We over-shared at every step of the process. Marcelo, Marco (Martins, our creative team member) and I had a Change the Ref client meeting on a Tuesday, and on Wednesday, we were all working from home.
Marcelo – The most challenging part was the articulation of 30 artists spread worldwide, each one in a different time zone, working on this uniquely American issue. We had to brief each illustrator individually and follow the process the closest we could through zoom, teams, calls, etc. And since we were pretty much drawing a storyboard of these horrific stories of mass shootings, we had to immerse ourselves into what happened, which by itself is already hard. Doing that while coordinating illustrators was even harder but it’s what made the work cohesive and powerful.
There’s a talent shortage in the advertising industry. How has this affected creative teams at MullenLowe U.S.? Any silver linings?
Renato – Here’s the thing: this shortage only exists because creative people have so many options here in the US. If you like music, cinema, photography, theater, there are opportunities to work in different creative fields other than advertising.
Marcelo – Not to mention Silicon Valley and Zuckerberg’s friends.
Renato – That’s totally different from Brazil. Our creative people there end up in an ad agency for the money. And some of them want to leave, but they simply can’t.
Marcelo – People who stay in advertising here usually love advertising. That’s the silver lining of working in advertising in the U.S.
Renato – And that’s precisely what we have at MullenLowe U.S. You can see the folks here have a heart for it. They have a love for the craft , from junior creatives to account service to Lee, our CEO. And there’s no better way to work than with like-minded people who have a passion for the work.
Your activation for Corona Hard Seltzer was filmed during a record day of heat on the Las Vegas Strip. Tell us how you managed to make Limonada out of lemons.
Renato – When they told us we would have a heatwave, we thought, “we’re Brazilians. We laugh in the face of heatwaves.”
Marcelo – And then we got there. And it was 118 degrees.
Renato – The whole thing was a challenge. From the setup to the recording and the activation itself, we had to juggle a lot.
Marcelo – There was a moment where we literally had to stop filming for some minutes because the cables melted. They MELTED!
Renato – But our partners there were fast and furious, and they were really prepared, that’s how we ended up with such a great result.
Marcelo – And we were giving out a lot of free Corona Hard Seltzer Limonada. In Vegas. So there was a lot of love all around.
What’s next for Renato and Marcelo? Or what’s your team’s dream project?
Marcelo – Understanding baseball.
Renato – Fighting less with each other on every assignment.
Marcelo – Pick a possible dream, man.
Renato – Jokes aside, we have this agreement between ourselves that our next project should always be our best project. It doesn’t matter the client or the format. It’s about beating what we have done.
Marcelo – That’s true. But I have to say that we work with Burger King here at MullenLowe, and that’s one of the best brands advertising can offer you. So having the next BK’s big idea of the year is always a goal.
Comments