Originally posted here (Spanish) in 2017.

When I was in university, everyone wanted to work in the creative department. Out of all the departments (not to undermine the importance of others), this is the one that always garners the sighs of students, although nowadays, there’s a growing aspiration to ‘start a business’ or become a freelancer. Back then, media seemed boring, traffic felt unimportant (even though it’s the agency’s heartbeat), planning wasn’t talked about, and accounts were the creatives’ fear.

Once I started working in advertising agencies, the creative department always harbored fear, apprehension, and even hatred towards accounts. “The department that only thinks about killing ideas,” “the ones who give us busy work,” “the ones who don’t believe in creativity” – many definitions like these I’ve heard throughout my journey in advertising.

In 2011, I was given the opportunity to lead a department. Not just creatively. In other words, I also dealt with the financial aspect. In that year, I forgot everything people said about accounts for two reasons: firstly, I, in a way, became a part of that area and gained a better understanding of how it operates and its role, and secondly, I got to know the financial department – the one never spoken about in an advertising agency.

Finance turned me into an advertiser.

In my first meeting with a financial manager, I encountered a department that was so crucial and valuable. I had never been in there before. From them, I only knew that they deposited my paycheck without fail every other week. That meeting was important because she was going to show me how to set the department’s projections. Pay attention: a creative person crunching numbers, projecting for a whole year, knowing the salaries of their department, understanding the margins, and proposing how much we would earn that year.

Honestly, I didn’t run away because I love challenges, and I was learning something that, at that moment, I knew would change my career. In the second meeting where I presented to the agency’s VP and her what the year would look like, I realized that I was no longer just a creative. I became what I had always wanted: an advertiser.

In 2013, when I arrived in Honduras, my current boss gave me the brief for my job: make this department profitable. Two days later, I had another meeting with him and the financial manager – it’s obvious, I never thought about it, but I was an investment: the numbers had to start going up. It wasn’t just about doing better things, ensuring client results, shaping new change agents in a structure that hadn’t progressed as expected. In that first year of work, every night I remembered why I had chosen advertising because I didn’t like math. Every week, I reviewed numbers, did calculations, wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I saw results, and I didn’t want to see numbers in my career.

Why did finance make me a better creative?

Firstly, because it taught me about this business. Not just from the client’s perspective but also because I need to see things from the agency’s side. Secondly, this business isn’t the same as in that January of 2004 when I stepped into my first agency. The margins are different, human talent seeks different things, reinvention needs to happen every day. A third reason is that the business is increasingly seeking profitability for both sides.

What is the current value and business of advertising?

Ideas and strategy.

That thing which was once given away due to media commissions is now starting to generate good income. And if not, you can ask the independent agencies that are so successful today. Production is essential to have a good income. On Facebook and YouTube, it’s not just about uploading the TV commercial and putting $10,000 for advertising. Now, we must create content, large productions are becoming scarcer, and immediate presence on social media is sought. An in-house production department in an agency is profitable, very much so if managed well, not forgetting that it makes the agency more creative again.

In past interviews, I heard Gastón Bigio and Darío Straschnoy talk about whether everyone in an agency should understand the business. Their answer is affirmative. Universities should talk more about this and not just prescribe reading theory books. Practice is very different, and understanding the business – both of the agency and the clients – will turn us into advertisers.

Today, I still have meetings with finance. The business changes faster. These encounters are becoming heavier, but they continue to make me a better advertiser and creative.