Elevate Talks: Alejandro Lazos
We visited MediaMonks Office in Buenos Aires to talk to Alejandro Lazos, Creative Director, about what it’s like to work at a creative production company with headquarters in Amsterdam and 11 offices across Latin America, the USA, EMEA and Asia.
To begin with, could you please introduce yourself?
Sure. I studied Graphic Design at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). I was a Morphology teacher there in the Pescio department for 10 years. I’m now Partner & Creative Director at MediaMonks BA. I work mostly with the design team, the UXers, the illustrators and the animators. Basically, I participate in both the presentation of proposals to clients and the follow-up of the production workflow.
How long have you been working in the digital world?
We opened the MediaMonks office in Buenos Aires a year ago, but when it comes to working in the digital world, I would say I’ve been doing it for around 18 years. I began working in 1999 designing websites when the web was just text and maybe some small static gifs.
I kind of went through different stages. I started out as a designer and then had my own agency with a business partner during 16 years. At the beginning I was a bit of everything: a bit of a designer, a bit of a programmer, a bit of a project manager. And well, as we grew, we began to specialize in each of our roles. We’ve lived the history of websites since its beginning.
How was MediaMonks born?
MediaMonks was founded by three guys in a basement in Holland, in 2001. In the same year we won our first FWA for the MediaMonks website which back then was a side scrolling website, which also happened to be a world first. At first MediaMonks was a very small company and was more of an interactive marketing agency working with mostly European clients. A few years later in 2009 the decision was made to be a digital production company and then things really took off.
A year after becoming a digital production company MediaMonks opened its first international office in London and at the same time, MediaMonks films was also born. Over the next few years offices were opened in New York (2012) and Singapore (2013), and we began being recognised at major award festivals such as Cannes. Alongside the offices we also began working with more and more technologies, becoming partners with platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, Google, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Today MediaMonks works with the biggest agencies and brands across the world and has become the most awarded digital production company in the world. From winning our very first FWA back in 2001, we now have over 200!
Did you already have an important client portfolio, or was that really the kickstart for MediaMonks to become the company it is today?
FWAs have been, and always will be important to MediaMonks. It’s always a great moment and deserved recognition for our clients, teams and for all of the hard work that goes into a project.
When we won our first FWA back in 2001 it definitely helped bring us more recognition from the industry and helped us with getting more clients. From then on MediaMonks has grown from 3 guys in a basement to a 700+ production powerhouse in just 17 years.
As a company, we’re constantly shifting to market and client needs. A few years ago we saw that experiential marketing was going to be a big trend and so MediaMonks acquired Cricket Brazil (now MediaMonks São Paulo), a specialist experiential shop. Around the same time we also saw the increasing demand to service the fastest-growing advertising market, and need to be able to offer our global clients around-the-clock production capabilities.
To solve this MediaMonks opened up a 60 Monk office in Buenos Aires that could help by adding great digital production capacity in design, development and creativity. We’ve continued to expand our talents and teams and it’s amazing to see Latin American and Argentinian talent shine on the global stage. I think it’s long overdue and I also think MediaMonks has really benefited from having added “latin flavor” to the amazing mix of talents MediaMonks they had.
So, how many offices do you have nowadays? Is MediaMonks Holland still the headquarters?
MediaMonks has 11 offices across the world located in Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Mexico City, Los Angeles, New York, London, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Dubai, Shanghai and Singapore. Our 11th office was just opened a few weeks ago in Mexico City, which takes the number of Monks in Latin America to 200. The LATAM team has been working with Mexican agencies and brands like Leo Burnett, Corona and Aeromexico for the last 7 months and so we’ve developed a strong team there who have crafted some amazing work. Welcoming our 11th office couldn’t have gone better; we won the prize “Production agency of the year” at El Círculo Creativo!
The biggest production office is still in Amsterdam, with around 350 monks there. Next to that comes Buenos Aires, with more than 75 monks.
Do all projects go through Holland first, or can each office choose their projects?
Compared to other agencies, MediaMonks is very different in the fact that we operate under one profit & loss scheme and collaborate across all offices. Whenever we have a new project, we’ll consider the client’s needs to tailor-made a team of Monks that perfectly matches those needs.
Last year, for example, we had a project that was an installation. Since it’s not our within core capabilities and the São Paulo has a very talented experiential team, we paired up to create a team that could make an amazing installation here in our Buenos Aires office.
If, for example, we are working on a VR or AR project, we will work on creative and design here and team up with some of the more technical people located in Amsterdam. In every project we always try to make sure we utilize the power of being able to draw on global knowledge, and at the same time have a team on the ground who is able to add their cultural knowledge to the project. Within MediaMonks we even have a phrase for this: Global team, local talent.
How does a technology company thrive in this region?
What stands out for me is how Latin America and Argentina mix technology with a high creative capacity, design and production skills.
I’m also impressed with the way we, in Latin America, approach technically challenging projects. Our ork across Colombian, Mexican, Argentinian and Chilean markets has shown us that there’s a great mix of talent that help create amazing work, driven by creativity and technology.
Is there a project you’d like to mention?
“Quest to Legoland” is an app/mobile game that we made for the Legoland amusement park in Florida. Most families go to the park with their children by car, and as you can imagine, having the kids bored after many hours of traveling isn’t very nice. So one of the App’s achievement was to change the classic “Are we there yet?”, to “Can we go again?”. In other words, to extend children’s Legoland experience before they arrived.
The game uses GPS to augment the game with real-world landmarks and trivia from nearby places. Children can move forward through a board and discover challenges as the car goes through the real road. They can also unlock mini games related to landmarks based on the GPS location.
The project was very interesting from many points of view because several offices were involved, NY: client contact, Buenos Aires: illustration, UI design, PM, part of the development and HQ: project management and development as well.
Powered by Google Maps, the game comprises 4 themed stories, 40 mini games, 1000 landmarks, and all kinds of characters and objects were created in two angles to adapt to the isometric perspective that dominates the game’s space.
Finally, after several months of development and testing, the game was released with great success, being one of MediaMonks most award-winning projects in 2017. It was all thanks to a great teamwork, which for me, is always fundamental.
Since you have such a big and diverse team, you must pay a lot of attention to internal communication.
Absolutely, internal communication is important for us. We try to share what we’re working on as much as we can between local teams and all the offices. What we often see is that a team busy with a project in Buenos Aires will be working on something very similar to a team in a different part of the world. We try to have meetings every one or two weeks so we all know what each office is up to. In many cases it will involve a new and emerging technology and it’s extremely valuable for us to be able to talk to each other and share successes and challenges we’ve had.
Alongside this we have calls planned for teams like: design, creativity, development, usability, and so on. Each team is in touch with its “mirror team” in other countries to share what they’re doing. And when a technology changes, we all agree to use the same language or work in the same way.
Are there any problems or obstacles that you come across with in everyday life?
I think whenever you work with new technologies and we’re trying to deliver the best work possible you’ll always encounter new challenges. One of the best things about MediaMonks is that because we have 700 Monks all around the world, we have a huge diversity of specialties. With all those people we cover pretty much everything in the digital spectrum, as well as film and physical products. We have VR specialists, game experts, experts on the development of new technologies. So there is always someone who can help overcome an obstacle. When there’s a technology we don’t know, we always first investigate and work through it before it reaches mainstream so that when it does reach the masses, we’re already familiar with it and we’re able to craft amazing work.
Any final words to wrap up the interview?
At MediaMonks, sometimes we work in unexplored lands. Technology is constantly changing and we often have to go into unknown territory. We believe in making technology do things it wasn’t invented for. This is a really interesting point, where we can combine creative and technical minds to cross the known limits and create new ones.
