Spain Special: LOLA MullenLowe

When Nacho Oñate and Nestor Garcia were appointed joint ECDs at LOLA MullenLowe Barcelona last year, the two Madrid natives had to adjust to Barcelona’s more measured creative tenor as well as the demands of their new role and the pressure of maintaining LOLA’s world-class reputation. But when Selena Schleh meets the hardworking but party-loving pair, they seem to be taking it all very much in their stride

It’s 11am on a sunny Wednesday morning in Barcelona, and the offices of LOLA MullenLowe are deserted; you can practically hear the tumbleweed blowing through. Two figures amble casually into view. “We had a big party here last night!” laughs Nestor Garcia, while his co-executive creative director, Nacho Oñate, cheerily waves a bottle of beer for emphasis.

Forget the siesta

With an introduction like this, you’d be forgiven for thinking life at the agency is one huge fiesta and siesta. Far from it, insist the duo. “People think we don’t work hard in Spain, but in fact we work 12 or 14 hours every fucking day,” says Garcia, “and we are happy with that.” There’s certainly been plenty to keep the pair busy since being appointed joint ECDs of the Barcelona office last year: as well as developing an international digital platform for Spanish car brand SEAT, they’ve added Jack Daniels and AXE to their local client roster and launched Space Invaders – the subject of last night’s revelry – a creative exchange offering freelance musicians, designers, illustrators and technologists a three-month stint in the agency, pooling their skills, experience and ideas.

2016 marks 15 years in the industry for the pair, who both hail from Madrid, but followed different routes into Adland. Having studied strategic planning at university (“I learned nothing useful about advertising but a lot about going out ’til late and trying to pick up girls”), Oñate spent two years as a junior planner before segueing into copywriting, while art director Garcia started out client-side at supermarket chain Dia, later moving to Saatchi & Saatchi.

They met at Publicis Madrid in 2008, initially as drinking buddies and then formally pairing up when Garcia’s copywriter partner left for pastures new. “It was a very natural fit,” says Oñate. “He’s a guy I can trust in every aspect and I respect him more than my mother. But don’t print that!”

Let’s turn it down a notch or two

Two years later, they received a job offer from one of Spain’s brightest young agencies, LOLA MullenLowe Madrid: an “amazing opportunity to start something exciting; we didn’t have to think too hard about it.” Joining as creative directors, they made their mark with tongue-in-cheek campaigns such as 2014’s silver Lion-winning The Sun Isn’t What They Say It Is for local eyewear retailer VisionLab, which humorously contrasted twee cartoon notions of the sun with the deadly radiation-spitting reality.

Inventively shot on a shoestring budget, it was advertising characteristic of a country that’s been mired in recession for the past seven years. “[In Spain] we try and do the best with what we have,” says Garcia. “We don’t have the financial resources of markets like the US and the UK, but in terms of ideas, we can compete with anyone.”

In 2015, off the back of a string of successful campaigns for SEAT, Scrabble and Libero football magazine, Garcia and Oñate found themselves anointed ECDs of LOLA’s new Barcelona outpost. How are they adjusting to their new roles? “When I started out as a creative, I wasn’t dreaming of meeting people in suits,” admits Oñate. Despite this, Garcia says they still try to put aside one or two hours a day “to think as a creative team”.

As well as learning to balance managerial and creative demands, the pair have wrestled with cultural differences between Madrid and Barcelona – differences which strongly flavour the advertising. While the capital’s hedonistic, 24-hour buzz produces “open, spontaneous, a little bit crazy” work, its Catalan neighbour favours a more sedate pace. As Garcia points out, “You would never see the kind of work we did for VisionLab in Barcelona.”

Lending a helping hand in navigating this new terrain is CCO Chacho Puebla, with whom they enjoy a close relationship despite a rocky start. “Chacha is very chaotic and we’re very methodical, so we fought a lot in the beginning,” remembers Garcia. “But as the years have gone by, we’ve established a new way of working and found a balance.”

All one big, happy family

Their tenure at LOLA Barcelona has started strongly with Ride Of Love, a Valentine’s Day stunt for SEAT which got millennials to visit car dealerships by offering them a free ride to their dates, but given LOLA Madrid’s recent Cannes haul and impressive creative pedigree – from the consistently brilliant Libero spots to ambitious long-form content, such as the recent skateboarding documentary, Road To Tokyo – Garcia and Oñate must be feeling the pressure. Yet unlike the fierce rivalry between the cities on the football pitch, Garcia insists it’s not a competition. “We don’t want to create two different agencies. We are all just LOLA.”

In fact, their aspirations are refreshingly simple. “We need to do the best for our clients, win new business and be happy with our work and our team. Personally, I want to enjoy this chapter of our creative life,” says Oñate, raising his beer. Salud to that.