AME's Grand Jury represents some of the world’s most creative and strategic minds in advertising and marketing communications.The AME Awards honors not just campaigns that are creative, but campaigns that hit the bullseye for brands, triumphing in both creativity and effectiveness. AME’s Grand Jury are the genius minds associated with many of AME’s award-winning entries.
2020 AME Grand Jury member Gabriel Freire is Brand & Advertising Manager for Movistar Ecuador. He is an executive with more than 14 years of professional experience who has managed brands in multinationals and has led multidisciplinary teams. Gabriel has worked in mass consumption companies like Nestlé, managing communications and media. Gabriel worked at Tesalia Springs CBC as Brand Manager for the 220V Energy Drink; and Juice Category for brands: Tesalia Ice, Deli, Petit and Jugazzo. In March 2015, he joined Telefónica as Brand and Communications Manager of Tuenti and launched the brand in June of the same year.
AME Awards: Tell us about your process of creating and delivering effective results.
Gabriel Freire: The main basis is to have a brand purpose defined that is relevant to the target we want to fall in love with. From this base I begin to build the communication and media strategy of the brands that I have managed. This communication strategy is based on five pillars:
1. To have a unique brand idea.
2. Neutral campaign concepts towards the media.
3. Media strategy based on touch points related to the target
4. Ability to execute with defined KPI’s and implementation line over time.
5. Measurement and continuous improvement process.
Through this process I have been able to create brands that connect with human beings and differ within the competitive communication landscape. In addition of brand indicators, an indicator that show you that you are on the right way is generate demand.
AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?
Gabriel Freire: They are important because they celebrate the most innovative and effective campaigns in the world generating extraordinary results.
AME Awards: What makes you share you time and energy to participate on the AME Grand Jury and what do you hope to learn?
Gabriel Freire: It is an honor to participate as a an AME Grand Jury. I think it is an opportunity to learn about the most successful and innovate campaigns in the world. AME Awards is a benchmark of strategic planning and creative executions.
AME Awards: What campaign or campaigns are you most proud of and how did it move the needle for the brand?
Gabriel Freire: The campaign I feel most proud of is “Te Las Canto” with the telco brand Tuenti in 2017. It was undoubtedly the most innovative, brave and emotional campaign I have created. We create a character that represents the personality of the brand, “Conejo Tuenti”, and then turned him into an urban and reggaeton music artist. The songs were inspired by young people´s experiences and their relationships through their cell phones. With this campaign we managed to perform with this character in various cities of Ecuador. In addition, we got to assist to the Latin Billboards in Miami where this bunny “Conejo Tuenti” had the chance to meet J Balvin who made a story about this amazing moment and upload it to his Instagram account. As a result, this campaign generated: more than USD 670K in free press, conquered the attribute “young brand”, and improved 20 percentage points in brand awareness. Finally, the brand increased 34% in new customers, and 72% in incomes compared to 2016.