Team Talk: Giancarlo and Tres
Self Q&A.
What do you think each other’s biggest fear is?
Giancarlo Rodas: Bring broke.
Tres Colacion: Definitely going bald.
What’s actually your biggest fear?
GR: Heights.
TC: Arsenal being shit forever.
What’s something you believe most creatives are afraid of but shouldn’t be?
GR: That their ideas has already been done. It’s probably the number one reason that we dismiss ideas. Look at the tech industry. The “idea” is only one part of a long process where there are so many different ways to make it yours. It’s about the way you do it and put it out there in the world.
TC: 100% I’ll throw in film and music as well. There are so many variables that you need to navigate. Context, culture, audience and craft. Why are we, as an industry, so obsessed with this idea that everything must be a fist?
I’d rather make the “greatest” than the “first”.
Do we need fear?
GR: There’s two types of fear: Unnecessary Fear and Inevitable Fear. Unnecessary Fear is often the things that we invent for ourselves. It’s unnecessary to fear voicing your opinion or presenting your ideas. Whatever we do, if we do it right, will end up out there in the world and that means people will have an opinion. You can’t fear that.
Inevitable fear is the kind of fear that comes with not knowing. That idea where you don’t know how it’s going to go.
TC: The kind of fear that comes with having to call the lawyers. That’s the kind of fear that makes you stop, think about what you’re doing and make it better. Living without that inevitable fear is reckless, but living life shackled by unnecessary fear ain’t it.
Let’s talk a bit more about ‘Inevitable Fear’. Can you give us an example of that in your career.
TC: We haven’t had the most traditional agency path. We both started out in smaller markets and when we started getting offers from agencies in New York decided against that move. Instead, we chose to go to Dubai to work for BBDO. It was the furthest thing from a sure shot, it was a market were not familiar with and not a big ‘famous’ agency.
We had the ‘inevitable fear’ of maybe we’re making a huge mistake, but we also recognized that it was an incredible opportunity to make our own way.
From the moment we got there we realised that the agency was in the midst of a lot of changes. People were leaving, the guy who actually brought us across the world left and we had a choice: Go back to what we know or have a go at it.
When we left two years later we were running the biggest account, the agency had won the first Cannes Lion Grand Prix in the region and our work has been recognised by almost every major show in the world. We’ve still got One Show left! Fingers crossed!!!
GR: And then it’s back to zero. In fact it already is for us, because we just did it again. After the year of our careers we decided to move to Los Angeles to take part in building the new Grey West project.
We had the opportunity to work for some of our dream agencies, half our old team has just made the jump to New York.
But in the end when we sat down with Rodrgio Jatene and Rafa Gonzaga (CCO and ECD) at Cannes we felt that they had the same “fear” that fuels us. The vision is to do things differently, to not look to our favorite references but to become them. And that’s scary. There’s no formula on how to achieve that. You’ve just got to go out there and do it.
How do you stay ‘fearful’?
TC: Fail. Failure is both scary and humbling, it’s also inevitable. But most importantly it keeps you hungry.
There’s a really easy way to get over failure...do something fucking great.
We try to watch a lot of movies/series and just kind of bask in their greatness. We definitely want to start doing more entertainment driven work, that’s something that we have not done yet. We’re novices in that space and that come with that ‘inevitable fear’ that drives you to do something that really stands out.
GR: Always believe that your best work is yet to come. We look at a lot of great books, there’s so many incredible creatives out there and it can be scary when you go down the portfolio rabbit hole. But it’s the kind of fear that pushes you to really want to do something that rises above the rest.
GR+TC: If you read this and if you think that you fear the same things, hit us up and let’s work on it. We’re currently looking for creative teams (mid-level/senior) to join us on this wild, wild ride.
