AME's Grand Jury of Strategy Directors, Managing Directors, CMO's, CEO's CCO's, Chairman, social media experts and other prominent executives are some of the world’s most creative and strategic minds in advertising and marketing communications. The Grand Jury panel are the genius minds associated with many of AME’s award-winning entries. Their high standard of excellence ensures that AME’s 27-year legacy is upheld and respected globally both by winners and industry reports measuring creative distinction.

2021 Grand Jury member Otto Poncelis Cardoso is Head of Strategy for (anónimo), one of the most award-winning independent agencies from Mexico. He is an award winning strategist, marketing school teacher, writer and public speaker. He brings his skills in Cultural insights, Digital Content Strategy, Digital Marketing, Business Insights, Branding & Identity, and Integrated Marketing to the jury panel. His work includes major brand engagements in different markets in Latin America, particularly in the financial services, automotive, tourism, alcoholic beverages, and telecom industries.

In the interview below Otto shares his thoughts on how media consumption has affected the marketing mix, new creative trends that have come into play, the stand-out attributes in award-winning creative effective advertising and much more.

AME Awards: As a strategic creative, what stand-out attributes do you recognize in award-winning creative effective advertising?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: For me, the key has always been to determine the initial context of each project. Knowing where to start from and what is the ambition you want to achieve. The fascinating thing about any advertising campaign is to see how the team joined the right dots and implemented the right decisions, to overcome all the obstacles and barriers that an advertising campaign can present, because that's the nature of creativity, to overcome dangers.

AME Awards: Why are effectiveness competitions like the AME Awards important?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: Every day, we should be more responsible for professionalizing and strengthening the advertising industry. Clients are no longer willing to continue working on campaigns with an esoteric, intuitive support or based on creative hunches. The current economic situation we live in, the speed of the information, the competitiveness of brands, among other things; demand that every step of the brand needs a strategic framework, with clear indicators and data measurement, at least to know in case anything goes bad, and which things we would have to change for the next time. When you go blindly, there is a probability of going in circles.

AME Awards: How has the brand’s voice changed since the pandemic confinement measures? Speak to the evolution of brand positioning, values, and tone of voice during COVID.

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: From my perspective it hasn't changed a lot and many brands are letting go a great opportunity. We are facing an interesting cultural, economic, social and public health change around the world. A lot of structures that used to give us security were exposed and in the end it didn't help us at all. The way we are approaching some social disciplines may not be the right one either, and from my perspective, communication, being a social discipline, would have to be radically changed after this pandemic. Maybe forget about the brand purpose and move on to something more real, maybe forget that monetary transactions are the only value that keeps a brand, maybe focus more on educational, mental health and affective tools that consumers can really use in their daily lives.

AME Awards: What will advertising look like next year? What brands have evolved and succeeded during this year and why?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: I have no idea how the communication will be next year. Most likely it will be the same as this one, I don't see any changes. But I also think that last year and the pandemic taught us that we need to stop being so attached to our predictions in the future. We have to approach the world with a little more silence, listening more to the real things in our world, our eyes have to be more aware of what is going on outside, than inside our head. It is clear that nobody predicted the pandemic and please let's not start predicting when it will end, let's try to focus more on the present, idealizing the future has already done us enough damage.

AME Awards: What innovations are changing the way agencies create on behalf of brands or launch new products?  Does big data and AI play an even bigger role today?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: There is no way back for big data and artificial intelligence. The only way forward is trying to understand it, not to leave it in the cold place where it was born, and to translate all that information into products and brands that truly change the way people live their lives. This new digital language has the potential to create revolutions and design new worlds. At any level, anywhere on the planet

AME Awards: What new creative trends have come into play this to deliver creative and effective results?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: As I see it, the newest, most radical and efficient creativity will be that which, regardless of the medium, manages to confront the traditional structures in which human emotions are contained. People want to explode, to scream with rage, to do, to transform themselves and to experience other realities. Brands have to retake that space of being liberating entities that they used to be before the arrival of social media. And this can happen in a T.V. commercial, in a digital experience or in a Reddit forum.

AME Awards: Media consumption has changed dramatically how has this affected the marketing mix?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: It has not affected it in any way. Communication is liquid, it will have to find its way, cracks and channels through which to slip in order to connect with the consumer in a more organic way.  Let's stop seeing changes in media consumption as a challenge, but as a natural process. Let's see it as a natural process, like watching a flower grow, which finds its own spaces to sprout its buds and finally bloom. For nature this is not a challenge, it is life.

AME Awards: What mediums will take the lead in 2021 and what will take a backseat?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso:It all depends on the brand's strategy. Hopefully there are brands that go against the trends and make street announcements as if it were 1920. We will all appreciate it.

AME Awards: Why did you agree to participate on this year’s AME Grand Jury and What do you hope to learn by viewing entries into this competition?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: There is more wildness and bravery in analyzing a strategy than there is in judging a creative piece. So, I was more attracted to this festival than to other purely creative festivals. I hope to get a picture of what's going on in the world. I hope to see that someone is breaking the traditional ways of solving problems.

AME Awards: What advice or guidelines would you give to potential entrants on earning an AME Award?

Otto Poncelis Cardoso: Show us how you approached the world and the problem and why you considered it a brave thing to do.