Daring to disrupt with bold, brave ideas

BREAKING THE CLUTTER: Yourri Guerassimov, CEO and CCO , Marcel

“Creativity in agencies should really be linked to the business gain of our clients. Our main job is to make the brand succeed. It’s a matter of responsibility for the talent of the agency to bring the creative idea to exactly the place where it’s supposed to work for clients,” declares Yourri Guerassimov, CEO and CCO of French agency Marcel, when asked about the trend of ad agencies making campaigns with an eye on awards.

Guerassimov, incidentally, is one of the most awarded creative directors in the business, with several Cannes Lions, D&AD Black Pencils and a host of other coveted ‘metals’. But his awarded campaigns have not only been unique and disruptive but also on point. Take the 2023 ‘WoMen’s Football’ campaign for French mobile network Orange, which not only wowed juries but also drove audiences to appreciate the women’s game.

Ideas that sell

Relaxed, after a stirring presentation at the Goafest stage on the need for creativity to be bold, courageous and take a stand, Guerassimov is happy to share his thoughts on the concerns plaguing the industry, prime among them the low-funnel work that agencies are getting. “Let’s be honest, our industry is struggling. Why? Because our clients are struggling. Because of the inflation, because of what is happening in the US — all of these things create an uncomfortable situation for everyone,” he says. “But we are advertisers. We are strategists. We know how to come up with ideas that help products sell more, so we should just do that.”

On clients pushing performance marketing over brand-building work, he says, “I’m totally comfortable with clients saying what they want. But we can’t do just that, because then people will probably be less interested in the brand and we need to think in the long term.”

Fire-and-water team

Queried about creative people in agencies now having a new challenger — no, not AI, but influencers — Guerassimov thinks they are cool. “Influencers, for me, now are part of the industry, because they are also doing kind of advertising, but the best way to deal is to collaborate together. It’s a cool way to be in contact with people and show a product — all those unboxing videos. But there’s no consistency. This is why it’s very important for us to be really involved,” he says.

Asked about his long-standing creative partnership with Gaëtan du Peloux, president and CCO at Marcel, a smile springs to Guerassimov’s lips. He describes how he started working with Gaetan over two decades ago, when both were very junior, and how they evolved and progressed together. “I love working with him as a team because together, I think, it’s not 1 + 1 equal 2, but three,” he says. “We are really, really different — he’s the fire and I’m the water. We are both passionate, we love creativity, we love advertising, we love great ideas, and we respectfully listen to each other.”

Exiting comfort zones

Earlier, in his session on stage, Guerassimov made a strong case for creative teams to be bold in order to cut through the noise. “There are over 6,000 ads a day,” he pointed out. He also mentioned an Accenture study that found that 66 per cent of consumers would switch brands if a company remained silent on core values.

To illustrate bold ads, Guerassimov pulled out Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign, which fearlessly chose the highly polarising NFL player as the face of the brand. Another daring ad, made by Burger King, showed mould and fungus in the burger — just to tell the consumer that the brand used no preservatives.

Guerassimov’s own WoMen’s Football campaign for Orange challenged the norm as it tricked fans to overcome prejudice. The film showed a compilation of top plays by French football heroes like Mbappe, Giroud and then revealed that the video was actually a compilation of women’s technical moves. Using VFX, it faked the first part — the second part shows the same actions with the correct faces.

But his favourite is the ‘Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables’ work for supermarket Intermarché. The brief was to take action against food waste and change consumer perception about imperfect looking fruit and vegetables. The supermarket bought from growers the products they usually throw away, and sold them at 30 per cent discount, even as lovely creatives celebrate the beauty of the “Ridiculous Potato”, the “Hideous Orange” and the “Failed Lemon”. Intermarché’s store traffic increased by 24 per cent and its sale of fruits and vegetables by 10 per cent.

“It was an extremely effective campaign. The supermarket got complimentary letters and the director came to us and said, ‘normally we only get complaints here’,” says Guerassimov, with a grin.

He also speaks fondly of the work Marcel has done for Oasis, a popular soft drink in France. The campaign ‘Be Fruit’ using playful, animated fruity characters that party and have fun was a super-hit. “We do some crazy things for the brand, because it’s an entertaining brand and we always have to write funny jokes with these little fruits. It’s funny for the kids. It’s funny for the adults,” he says, describing how they have used Mangas, hip-hop, and a whole lot of topics to appeal to different generations. The creative juices have been overflowing on that one!

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Published on June 1, 2025