APG Sideways
About our guest: Maria Natalia Rodriguez
Hi, I’m Maria! My time in advertising started when I was sixteen, and I would cut class from high school to go work social media for Toronto Women’s Fashion Week.
Since then, over the past twelve years, I’ve been shaping and growing culture-driven brands, working alongside some of the most brilliant and creative people in the world.
I’m a Senior Strategist at a wonderful agency called TBWA, where my belief that brands have the power to shape people’s attitudes through storytelling is reinvigorated every day. Whenever I’m not strategizing, you can catch me playing tennis or catching a flight to Mexico!
Brilliant Weird Best
Planners are curious folks so we asked Maria to tell us the most brilliant, weirdest and best things she’s come across recently.
BRILLIANT: No Sound of Silence by DHL
I’m always impressed by creative work that makes an emotionally engaging story out of a seemingly impersonal category - say, something like transportation logistics.
To me, the brilliance of this campaign is in its simple truth: people rarely think about some categories until something they care about goes wrong.
The creative then works triple time: 1) draws a smart parallel between logistics and the careful orchestration of a symphony, 2) uses silence to represent the invisible work happening behind the scenes. And 3) taps into people’s love of music to make an overlooked category feel meaningful.
WEIRD: Engineered For Whatever by Columbia Sportswear
I’ll rave about this campaign to whoever will listen. Columbia Sportswear takes an unflinching shot at disrupting their category, and it’s both brilliant and weird in the best way.
But what makes this work stand out to me is not their ‘edgier’ tone; it’s the creative commitment to the idea and their willingness to dial ‘weird’ all the way up at the risk of, again, alienating some people. Beyond a new brand campaign, this shift appears across everything their tone touches, including a very entertaining -and dare I say opinionated- series featuring their CEO.
BEST: Volkswagen’s 1960s print ads
I’m taking ‘Best’ seriously and throwing it all the way back to Volkswagen’s print ads from the 60s.
A few times a year, I dig through not-so-fresh batches of print ads, and I’m always drawn back to Volkswagen’s sharp copy. To me, they’re still an OG point of reference for unapologetic positioning and extreme self-awareness. They knew it’s equally important to define who you are as it is to be clear about who you are not for. They risked turning some people away in order to mean more to the people who stayed.
Top Guilty Pleasures
Not all of our consumption habits can be academic. That's why we asked Maria to give us the sources to her creativity.
Room 1015’s Fragrance Tester Strips
I came across a new luxury perfume brand this weekend called Room 1015, and to my delight, the tester strips were branded in the shape of a Polaroid photo that revealed a photograph with the spritz of the perfume. A single brand interaction and I became an instant fan! I was reminded of the opportunities for analog surprise & delight moments that could ultimately still drive equity and relevancy more effectively than a digital campaign.
Human truths by Guillermo del Toro
Anything by Guillermo del Toro. Filmmakers know a thing or two about human truths, and with spooky season around the corner, it’s a good reminder that insights are hidden everywhere, even in horror films.
I keep returning to this interview where Del Toro explains how every monster in his films reveals a truth he’s learned about love.
This month on Slack
Over on our Slack, strategists are supporting, debating, and shitposting. Click on a link to see the full convo.
The Algorithm Didn't Kill Culture. But It Did Give It a Very Specific Aesthetic.
Cassio Campos shared this video making the case that algorithmic feeds are flattening culture globally; where TikTok microtrends, Instagram Face, and influencer aesthetics are converging into a kind of visual sameness that rewards performance over originality. The more interesting implication for anyone in the business of building brands is that the platforms optimised for reach may be the same ones quietly eroding the distinctiveness that makes brands worth following in the first place.
The Best OOH Doesn't Just Occupy Space. It Creates One.
Shannon Hunter shared this Netflix stunt where the streamer put a man inside a billboard on Sunset Boulevard for several days to promote The Last House, a film about a family trapped inside their home. It's a good reminder that the most effective out-of-home work earns attention by becoming the thing it's advertising rather than just describing it.
The Strategy Skill Nobody Wants to Admit Is a Skill
Jon Crowley shared his own Substack this month, and it's worth reading past the uncomfortable headline. The argument is that likeability isn't a personality trait you either have or don't, it's a learnable professional skill, and for strategists specifically, being difficult to be around has real career consequences. The three things he breaks it down into—putting people at ease, treating people like people, and expressing yourself relatably—are deceptively simple and probably more applicable to day-to-day agency life than most strategy frameworks.