Interview with Mauricio Galván, Creative Director for Madwell

I’m a bilingual and bicultural Creative Director, born and raised in Mexico City and living and working in the U.S. for the last 20 years. Before joining MadwelI, I was a Creative Director at Anomaly. Before Anomaly, I spent time as Partner and Chief Creative Officer at d expósito and Partners, and before that, as Chief Creative Officer at Totality.

Additionally, I worked at The Vidal Partnership as managing partner, ECD for 10 years. Before coming to the U.S., I was a Creative Director in Mexico, at Teran/TBWA, Ogilvy & Mather, and Leo Burnett. While at Ogilvy, I was fortunate to be part of the team that won Mexico's first Lion at the Cannes Festival, as well as Mexico's first Pencil at The One Show Awards.

It just looked like a lot of fun and I’m happy to report, 30 years later, that it still is a lot of fun solving problems using creativity. All of us who work in this industry should realize how fortunate we are to do what we do.

Madwell is a very unique place. Is it an agency? Yes and No. Yes in the sense that we solve business problems for our clients through creative communication strategies and ideas, but, No, because it’s much more than that.

As Chris Sojka, our founder, and CCO, put it one time, "Madwell should be full of people who are a cross between Disney Imagineers, AdPersons, Industrial Light and Magic creatives, entrepreneurs, and most importantly, obsessively curious people who keep their inner child alive and well". (Don’t quote me, it might have not been exactly this, but something close.)

I saw this definition years ago and I think it still holds water and stays true regardless of the platform, media, etc.: Creativity is connecting two ideas that were not previously related to create a new concept.

To me, this is covered by Question 4. It’s also very important that this new concept created has to serve a purpose.

I’d say it’s pretty standard and probably nothing you haven’t heard before. The one thing I put a lot of importance on, is taking a break from thinking to allow for the connections to happen. Leave the cake in the oven. If you keep opening the oven door every minute, it never gets done. So, think, think, and think, but then forget about it completely. The solution will come.

What I call the ‘that’s it!’ moment. When a team or a person shows me an idea and things click, and you see it perfectly; how it can be executed, how it can be sold, the reaction of the client, and most importantly, the reaction of whoever is exposed to that idea out there.

Definitely. I don’t know the reasons why (it might be a reason for basic survival) but I think we Mexicans tend to be resourceful and find ways to figure things out and solve problems, especially when faced with adversity. At its most basic level, what is advertising if not solving a communication problem?

It feels great. But I’m especially happy for the team across all disciplines. They are the ones who came up with the idea, sold it, fought for it, and made sure to execute it flawlessly. Winning a MUSE Platinum Award is a great cherry on top of the big recognition we got from our audience and how positively they reacted to e.l.f.’s “Make Up Over Makeup.”

“Make Up Over Makeup” was born from a simple, but powerful insight: that having your makeup done by someone else is an immensely vulnerable and disarming experience. With this, we believed that makeup could be more than a product, but a catalyst for conversation.

So, we brought together some of the most timely and culturally relevant pairings that had recent feuds, to find real closure with each other, and you guessed it – Make Up OVER Makeup. “Make Up Over Makeup”’s first two episodes performed so well that it solidified our content as a series. Since submitting to MUSE, we’ve even been able to bring our third episode to light, which has been our most successful to date.

We chose to enter “Make Up Over Makeup” to the MUSE Creative Awards not only because of the passion our team has for this project but because we knew we had something special on our hands. The combination of vulnerability, humor, and the power of makeup, brought out real feelings that our viewers were able to palpably feel. Content that truly resonates with as many people as it did doesn’t come around often, so we knew we had to enter it.

There were several challenges, especially for the first episode; convincing the talent to do it, and then the actual makeup session. A lot of uncertainties. Fortunately, we have the best partners we could’ve asked for in e.l.f. They go for big, bold, disruptive ideas and are there at every step showing support, understanding the risks and always pushing the work to be the best it can be.

Winning awards is always nice and getting recognition from peers who understand all the challenges that go into bringing an idea to life and how fragile it can be, is certainly reassuring that you’re doing something right. Having said that, and as I mentioned before, awards should always be the accent or cherry on top of the work that has resonated with its audience.

• The fact that we get paid to come up with ideas.

• The incredibly talented people you get to meet.

• The opportunity to make someone’s day a tiny bit better when they smile because of something you did.

As mentioned in Question 8, I think us Mexicans tend to be resourceful and find ways to figure things out and solve problems, especially when faced with adversity.

Impossible to tell. If things were rapidly changing and evolving 10 years ago, they are evolving and changing 10 times as fast now. As we say here at Madwell: The only constant is change. However, one thing that I think will remain is the basic principle of what we do: solving business problems through creative communication strategies and ideas.

Don’t give up. Keep at it, because for every 10 rejections or failures, there will be one approval or success that will more than make up for it and will give you the fuel to keep going until the next one.

Follow and read work from the advertising geniuses of today and the past, like Dave Trott, Bill Bernbach, Mary Wells Lawrence, Lee Clow, Dan Wieden, David Droga, etc.

If I haven’t told anyone else, there’s a reason for it, and it will stay that way.

My Mom. When I was a kid, she let me be (and actually encouraged me to be) as much of a kid as I could be. No hurry in growing up. She let me be curious, create, build forts with the furniture, experiment with food and materials, draw, have fun, play, discover, question, be surprised, you name it. She was the most amazing woman.

It all depends on how you define success. But I think it always helps to have fun, be kind, and put effort and care into everything you do.

Just saying, “Thank you!”.