Slap Global goes from pandemic fling to superstar boutique

Slap Global was one of the great agency launch stories of the pandemic. But looking back to October 2020, it’s a wonder the company got off the ground at all. “Maxi [Itzkoff] and I had been friends for a long time, but he didn’t want to move to New York, and I didn’t want to move to Buenos Aires,” Gerry Graf said of his agency co-founder on a recent Zoom call. “Also, I wasn’t sure if it would work because Maxi hates advertising and I love advertising.” Ad Age Small Agency Awards See all of the 2023 winners Click here That’s a bit of an exaggeration—Itzkoff, after all, has enjoyed considerable success as one of the industry’s more accomplished creative directors. Yet the comment hints at a useful tension between the co-founders that turned out to be a real strength. While Itzkoff has chafed at a lot of the ego-driven, results-blind creativity he saw being celebrated in the business, he also aligned with Graf where it really mattered—on a vision for a small, powerful boutique that could work on real business problems for clients, not just make ads. Itzkoff’s half of the vision came largely from working on Coca-Cola for years at Santo Buenos Aires, including developing Sprite’s #iloveyouhater campaign, which won the Grand Effie in 2019. “Coca-Cola brought me to a big table with people coming from the business side, but also from media, from digital, from PR,” Itzkoff said. “I noticed that being all together created a great energy and also was great for the business. So I said to Gerry, ‘Maybe we need to replicate that.’ And we both agreed that where doesn’t matter. It matters who.” COVID lockdowns facilitated their plan. Suddenly, Graf and Itzkoff—old colleagues from their days running creative at different global offices of Saatchi & Saatchi—could hire almost anyone they wanted without worrying where they were based. They quickly assembled a small team of very senior execs—they currently have 22 staffers, mostly in Buenos Aires, New York and Madrid—and started getting project work from the likes of PepsiCo, Netflix and Fox Sports. An eventful 2022 As one project led to the next, Slap’s second full year in business, 2022, saw the agency gain significant momentum. It grew revenue by 86%—from $3.7 million to $6.9 million—and notched a number of creative triumphs, from a Netflix/Doritos collab to campaigns for Under Armour and (in early 2023) Lay’s. The Netflix/Doritos campaign, called “Live From the Upside Down,” produced with another agency, Observatory, was a livestreamed concert featuring ’80s bands that—within the conceit of the campaign—hadn’t faded into obscurity but were pulled into another dimension 40 years ago by the demons from “Stranger Things.” The Under Armour work, themed “Be the One No One Saw Coming,” involved Tom Brady writing an actual letter to amateur football players he admired, urging them not to be the “next Tom Brady” but to be “the next you.” And a well-received Champions League stunt for Lay’s showed retired French soccer star Thierry Henry surprising Barcelona fans at home on game day, asking to watch a match with them, but staying only if they had Lay’s chips in the house. If there is a formula for Slap’s creative, it’s this: Make it unique and shareable, with a human truth at the core. “We always push our clients to do something they’ve never done before—and we try to do something we’ve never done or seen before,” said Graf. “A lot of clients go for it, like the livestream concert. Other clients, like Under Armour, want to be in a more traditional space, but we still try to do something a bit different.” You don't need to be the "next" anybody. You just need to be the best version of YOU. Promise yourself that, and trust me, the rest falls into place. @UnderArmour pic.twitter.com/JoXBU7YNvH— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) September 7, 2022 “We use a pull strategy—having people grab our content and spread it instead of asking the clients to put a lot of money on a media plan,” Itzkoff said. “We make sure we ask ourselves, is this something people are going to share or not? If the answer is not, we need to rework.” Clients, by and large, have been more than pleased with the results. “We are thrilled to hear Slap is winning this award with Ad Age,” said Ciara Dilley, PepsiCo’s VP of marketing, global food brands. “Slap played a pivotal role in the success Lay’s had with our Cannes Lion award-winning ‘No Lay’s No Game’ UEFA Champions League platform this year, and we congratulate them on this well-deserved honor.” Lyndsey Corona, who joined the agency as president last September, said the efficiency of Slap’s creative process is unlike anything she’s experienced in her own wide-ranging career. Indeed, she said the agency often cracks the code on an assignment on the very first call. “Having come from big agencies—I’m not going to name them—but there’s so much compromise and so much whittling things down,” she said. “When you’re working with clients that are on the same page, and you can be selective about who you work with, you can get to ideas that really move the business.” “It’s hard to work on Zoom. The people we chose are why we work on Zoom well,” Graf added. “We’re relatively senior, so we know how to add to an idea as opposed to shut it down. That’s why the remote thing works for us. I’ve never come up with ideas faster in my career.” Doing creative work that gets results, not just for the sake of being creative, is a point of pride at the agency. Indeed, the shop was named the world’s most effective independent agency at the Effie Awards this year—quite a win for such a young shop. Ad Age Creativity Bookmark our section covering the best in brand creativity every day Read more here “Our work is so effective, sometimes we’re legally bound never to show it,” Graf added with a laugh—referring to a campaign Slap made for Fox Sports that went after a TV provider for dropping the network. Eventually, the provider struck a deal to keep the network, Graf said, but on the condition that Slap’s work never be shown to the public. “We had to sign all these legal documents. That’s the most I can say,” Graf said. “But our work is so effective, we have lawyers telling us we can’t even show it to our wives.” The future of Slap As its profile continues to rise, the agency, whose client list also includes SeatGeek, Samsung, Unilever, Eastern Mountain Sports and Bayer Argentina, is taking on new clients only sparingly—and only if they’re open to having their ideas challenged. “At these chemistry meetings, the client says, ‘We’re going to see if we want to work with you.’ And we say the same,” said Itzkoff. “We are very clear in the first conversations. If we don’t feel there’s a good vibe in the first meeting, we don’t work with that client. And fortunately, it works.” “It’s almost all project work, which is a lot different from when I started Barton, when it was mostly AOR,” added Graf, referring to his previous agency venture, Barton F. Graf, which closed in 2019. “It’s more of a hustle for me this time because you’re always making sure the next project’s coming in.” As Slap’s reputation grows, so do its opportunities to go beyond ads. For example, the agency is currently working with the singer Michael Bublé to launch a completely new product later this summer. Slap is developing the product, packaging and marketing as well. At the same time, the agency wants to limit its growth to protect its culture—the one thing the partners say is irreplaceable. “Growing, at least for me, is not getting bigger. It’s getting even more effective in the process,” said Itzkoff. “If we get bigger, I’m sure we will lose our culture, which is the most important thing we have. So we are trying to keep small and do better and better work. It’s very important to keep the culture as it is right now.” Ad Age Small Agency Awards See all of the 2023 winners Click here

Slap Global goes from pandemic fling to superstar boutique

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