Forsman & Bodenfors (F&B) has expanded its creative leadership in New York by relocating longtime group creative director Ivan Guerra from the Singapore office to the Big Apple to support a quickly growing list of new client wins.
As a group creative director in Singapore, Guerra racked up numerous accolades and participated in a myriad of new business wins that fueled the agency’s growth year over year. He explained why now was the right time to come back to the states, adding more nuance in the process. ”Singapore is the business hub of Asia, New York is the business hub of the world,” he said. “Our office in Singapore was small when I arrived. Since then, we’ve more than tripled in size, and became the [number one] most creative agency in the country, and work with more and bigger clients than ever before. There’s always more to be done, but the agency I’m leaving behind is in fantastic shape and ready to take on the world, as I know they will.”
For Guerra, there’s an opportunity to replicate in New York the success he had in Singapore. During his career, he repositioned and promoted businesses and products across a wide variety of markets and industries including P&G, Coca-Cola and Booking.com. Some of his well-known work includes a campaign that increased Samsung’s sales in the Middle East by almost 200%, one of the most iconic films in the history of Converse, Verizon’s most successful sports partnership program “Data Dunk” with the NBA, and a “Proud Whopper” campaign in 2014 that reignited Burger King and garnered 13 Cannes Lions and a Grand Clio.
Coming back to New York after 15 years in the business, including a stint where he spent time at the likes of top-shelf agencies like R/GA, Guerra discussed what he looks forward to. “It’s the people that make this business so special,” he said. “So what I look forward to the most is working with the wonderful and talented humans in our New York office. We all want to work at a place where we feel welcome and fulfilled. I hope I can help make Forsman & Bodenfors New York that kind of place. On top of that, there’s of course an ambition for the work we make and the reputation we have. The goal is to raise the bar for both, making work that’s even more impactful and that is recognized at the biggest stages. The F&B collective is no stranger to high profile award shows. And we’ll get the NY office there, too.”
As he gets ready to take on his new role, Guerra offers a unique and disarming approach to his creative style and process. “Creating is putting a bit of yourself out there,” he said. “I’m a very hopeful and optimistic person, and I want my ideas, and the brands we build together, to evoke and provoke that optimism and hope in the world. That can happen through an ad that makes you chuckle, a cheeky activation that you’d be happy to engage with, or a stunt that supports communities who deeply need it. And even though, today, discord and bad news travel at the speed of light, so can joy, humor, and positivity. That’s why I’ve always had a proactive approach to work–the right brief isn’t just the one a client hands you, sometimes it’s a trend on social media or a calendar moment or even an unexpected play at the game last night. If brands have to move at the speed of culture, so do the creatives working on them.”
Guerra has spent years teaching at Miami Ad School in Brazil, which he explained, forced him “to revisit work, techniques and styles that he’s always appreciated, referenced or used, and more deeply assess what makes them so good and so useful in the first place.” As he brings all of these experiences into place, Guerra added what insights he’s gained that can bring this new position. “I’ve been lucky to work at agencies with very different specialties–from a tech and social powerhouse to a stunt specialist focused on driving buzz for its clients and an agency with a more traditional approach known for building brands from the ground up. That’s a lot of different ways to tackle problems. That diversity of thinking is something that I’m always eager to put into practice, helping expand our body of work to include formats and styles and solutions we haven’t yet explored.”
F&B’s global managing director and chief product officer Eric Zuncic noted, “We talk a lot about being a global collective, not a collection of offices that happen to have the same name on the door, so we are constantly looking for opportunities to align the right people and capabilities with the right clients and opportunities. Because of that, it’s really natural for our business and our culture for people like Ivan to move offices in order to connect to new opportunities and get closer to people and clients he was already working with.”
Zuncic added, “Forsman & Bodenfors has always been a business focused on its people. We know that if we can hire, grow and retain the best people, they’ll make the most impactful ideas–Ideas that Change Things. So when we have great people making great work like Ivan, who are looking for something different geographically, we love finding ways to make it work for them.”
