Droga5
Agency of the Year 2025

Congratulations on the successes at this year’s CICLOPE Awards! What else has 2025 included for the agency?

It’s a big honor to be Agency of the Year at CICLOPE specifically, as craft has always been and will always be central to Droga5. And yes, it’s obviously a great feeling being world champion at it. 2025 largely has been about 2026. Next year, believe it or not, we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary. As always, we made sure we were doing our best work for our clients, but we were also gearing up internally to prepare for our next chapter.

This year we’ve been blending AI, social, and tech in ways that actually feel natural to the work—not as buzzwords, but as new tools for creativity. We also brought in some remarkable new people and leaders, and continued evolving with Accenture Song in a way that’s genuinely changing how we work.

Across our offices—from New York to London, Dublin, São Paulo, Australia, New Zealand and Tokyo—we feel more connected and global than ever. Looking back on the year, we honestly surprised ourselves with how much we made and who we made it with. Xbox and Amazon are just two of the partners who pushed us to our best, and helped make this recognition possible.

Xbox’s Wake Up, awarded a Grand Prix in Post-Production, was the agency’s first work for the brand; a strong start. What was involved with having a big directing name -David Fincher- attached to this campaign?

I asked Tres Colacion, who was ECD on Wake Up about this because I’d love to include his voice here. He said that the best directors bring ruthless clarity. With someone like David Fincher, the perceived risk is that you’ll lose creative control and become a passenger. So, with David, alongside Co-Director Romain Chassaing, we got in earlier than we normally would and interrogated everything: the script, the intent, the way it needed to live on screen.

By the time we reached preproduction, there were no competing approaches. We were aligned on the same definition of success. That’s why the film feels so uncompromising. In advertising, that almost never happens, and it’s exactly why you work with someone at that level. 

Wake Up celebrates rediscovering our humanity amidst life’s rat race. What insights led to this centering of connection and community? 

Gaming has this incredible paradox: it makes us feel more human by letting us step outside our physical everyday lives. When I was CCO at Activision Blizzard, that was the big revelation for me when I joined. People come alive when their imagination and agency are fully switched on. Our ability to imagine is what separates us as a species, and games give us a rare space where that imagination isn’t limited by routine or reality. In games, we get to be the most expansive human version of ourselves. 

The value of exceptional craft in advertising is in the spotlight now more than ever. What keeps it a priority for clients who are committed to valuing craft? 

Craft is merely the means we have to move people and make them care. This should not be confused with budgets or timelines. It’s the difference between being seen and being felt. And the truth is, only people who care can make work that does the same. The best clients know this well. 

Beyond the hype, to what extent has AI changed the nature of creative work? 

AI hasn’t rewritten creativity’s DNA—you still need imagination, conviction and the will to chase an idea into the world. What it has changed is the momentum. Now our ideas travel farther, take form faster and evolve with unprecedented clarity. Creativity stays human; the velocity becomes superhuman. While we embrace the efficiency AI delivers, there’s a sacred element of creative work we must protect: the excellence added by other people. This human contribution—the alchemy of partnership—is something no prompt or machine can replicate (yet?). 

Take the act of prompting. Prompting in itself is taste. It’s what we want to see come to life. It’s not a technical chore; it’s the pure expression of our vision, imagination, direction…our taste. It is, in essence, Creative Direction. It’s the skill of perfectly describing what’s in your head to bring that idea to life, now with the speed of light. At Droga5, we pride ourselves on being black belts in this specific craft, and AI is simply a powerful new addition to our creative arsenal. 

In commercial filmmaking, the initial vision is often just the blueprint. It takes the taste, expertise, and soul of brilliant cinematographers, actors, and directors to elevate it. To make it great. I’ve always felt that when we partner with great production partners, we hand them silver, and they return gold. 

I don’t think that kind of magic happens with a command. A prompt is essentially an order with no questions asked. But the creative process relies on speculation, doubt, and the spontaneous brilliance that defines human to human collaboration. I think that when we explore the endless possibilities of AI, we should remember the difference: just because you can play god doesn’t mean you’re a great god. Don’t get hubris. True mastery means knowing when to step back and let genuine human excellence transform the work. Add a machine in the mix too, sure, but don’t expect it to drive the creative vision. 

What are the key skills a young creative should develop to succeed in the industry today? 

I always say to young talent that they should come and teach us about the future of the industry, show us what they can see, and we can teach them about what we have found so far. Now today, I think we should remember that some of the new young talent in our industry are literally machines. I’d tell them the same thing.