Anselmo Ramos and Gaston Bigio, co-founders and creative chairpersons at Gut took to the stage on the final day of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Last year Gut won ‘independent network of the year’ at the festival and its Buenos Aires office won the ‘agency of the year’.

The duo entered to rapturous applause and showcased a montage of their best pieces of work so far.

Then Ramos discussed their journey and warned that Bigio would keep interrupting him during the panel, something he does so frequently during conversations daily.

“For us, it was never about starting another agency. We wanted to start a brand. We started an independent shop in 2018 and in five years we became ‘agency of the year’, ‘independent agency of the year’ and ‘independent network of the year’ at Cannes Lions,” said Ramos.

“We got there because we knew what we stood for from day one. Our first meeting (between Ramos and Bigio) was at Palm Beach. We wrote we are a brave agency that wants to work with brave clients and will work with courage, transparency and intuition. Our goal was to become the most diverse creative and influential network in the world and the motto was ‘no gut no glory’,” he added.

Ramos stated that the journey began on a brave note without investors and was completely self-funded by the duo.

“We started a UK holding company without having a client because the UK was the best place to work. We hired Jessica Walsh for our logo,” he said before getting interrupted by Bigio who stated how she charged them a lot of money for the logo.

Ramos added a few more instances when he and the agency were brave.

“We said no to clients 27 times in our first year. We thought the client didn’t want to do good work. Our CFO told us we need to eventually say yes to some of them to work,” he said.

Ramos claimed the next brave move the agency made was going public with a long-term vision in January 2020.

Bigio interrupted Ramos by stating it was the latter who shared the vision and not the agency.

While Ramos had famously tweeted about winning ‘Agency of the Year’ by 2023 at Cannes and achieved it, there was one thing on the wish list for 2024 which wasn’t achieved – having the number one Super Bowl ad in the year.

“Sometimes it doesn’t happen. But you still need to dream,” he said. 

Bigio spoke about how the agency promoted staff members early on.

“For many people, this could be called a stretch. For us it was trust,” said Bigio.

Ramos stated that the agency believes in sharing wealth and has named 20 partners in five years as a result of that.

The entire network, consisting of 450 people went on a three-day retreat to Buenos Aires and the duo showcased glimpses of that experience to the audience. 

Ramos explained, “When I showed that video to my daughter, she said it’s not an agency it’s a cult.”

He went on to state the importance of all brands having a word that symbolises what they stand for and revealed that Gut stands for ‘bravery’

He stated that the word for him within the agency is ‘dreamer’ and the word associated with Bigio is intensity.

Bigio stated how within a day of them deciding to open the agency, Ramos went ahead and bought 32 handles of Gut for 32 different cities. Eight of them have opened so far.

Ramos added, “Gaston’s intensity means he is keen to make things happen and without that, we wouldn’t be here. But we fight a lot too. We have realised that when I’m dreaming big he needs to lower his intensity and when he’s too intense, I have to dream less.”

He returned to the importance of words.

“Iconic brands own iconic words. That personal definition is your brand. That’s who you are. That word is your brand. We are introducing brand new words. For instance, the word for Disney is magic, for Lego it’s imagination, for Red Bull it's adrenaline and so on. Why is it important? It’s your rallying cry and your brand ethos. It’s your consistent voice and your route to pop culture,” said Ramos.

On the topic, Bigio added, “That word is bigger than any chief marketing officer, bigger than any campaign, bigger than Kantar Ipsos researches, bigger than trends and CCOs.”

Ramos gave tips on how to arrive at that word.

“You have to see how do you see yourself and how do others see you. Then find similarities and see what defines you,” he said.

Ramos concluded the session by stating how sometimes a brand or agency needs a boost to get to the next level and stated how Globant’s acquisition has helped them.

“Sometimes you need to get a boost to take it to the next level. We had a partnership with Globant. We entered this partnership not because it’s powered by or backed by. It’s Gutsier by Globant. Now we have a new communications network with brave technology. We love data, but it’s much better when you add creativity to it,” said Ramos before signing off.