TombrasNiña: “Combining Argentina’s creative wealth with American ambition seems like the perfect mix”
Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2024 4:18 am
(Buenos Aires, Thursday, August 15, 2024, 10 am local time) - Yesterday afternoon, the Niña office —from today, TombrasNiña— opened its doors to announce and receive congratulations for its sale to the independent agency Tombras, which thus took its first international step. Adlatina spoke with the protagonists of the news.
TombrasNiña: “Combining Argentina’s creative paytm phone number data wealth with American ambition seems like the perfect mix”Above, Pablo Panigatti, Alice Mathews and Dooley Tombras; below, Pablo Álvarez Travieso, Jeff Benjamin, Gonzalo Vecino and Avinash Baliga. (Photo: Tombras Press)
By Pancho Dondo
Editor-in-Chief of Marketers by Adlatina
How did the idea of acquiring Argentina’s Niña come about in an agency headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States?
Dooley Tombras: We are a family agency with five offices in the United States and the dream of becoming the best independent agency in the world. The agency was founded by my grandfather, Charles Tombras Senior, in 1946, and continued by my father, Charles Tombras Junior, who is now 83 years old and still goes to the agency every day. For an independent agency like ours, the logical idea for international expansion would have been to target Europe, obviously. But a year ago we hired Avi as executive creative director of the New York office and he asked me, on his first day at work: “Have you ever thought about opening an office in Argentina?”
Was this a completely unexpected question for you?
DT: Not really. It is true that I had never thought about opening an office here in Buenos Aires. But Argentina had been very present in the history of our agency. First, because both my grandfather and my father came to Patagonia a lot to fish. And second, because our chief technology officer , who had joined a year earlier, was —and still is— the Argentine Juan Tubert, who was part of the opening of the Argentine office of R/GA. Juan, on his first day at work, had asked me the same question: “Have you ever thought about opening an office in Argentina?” At that moment the subject had settled in my head. And when Avi asked me the same thing, I answered: “We have to do it.”
Baliga, where did this proposal come from, perhaps not totally unexpected, but certainly unusual?
Avinash Baliga: I had come to Argentina, straight from my native India, attracted by its rich creative advertising tradition. I arrived in July 2011, joined the Madre agency as a copywriter and, five years later, left as creative director and went to work in agencies in New York: first Barton Graf, then Mother and finally Maximum Effort, until June 2023, when I arrived at Tombras. In Argentina I had found exactly what I was looking for, an incredible creative wealth, and since I arrived in the United States I did nothing but wonder how best to integrate that wealth with the structure and ambition of American agencies: it sounded like the perfect combination. That's why I proposed the idea to Dooley... and he bought it immediately.
TombrasNiña: “Combining Argentina’s creative paytm phone number data wealth with American ambition seems like the perfect mix”Above, Pablo Panigatti, Alice Mathews and Dooley Tombras; below, Pablo Álvarez Travieso, Jeff Benjamin, Gonzalo Vecino and Avinash Baliga. (Photo: Tombras Press)
By Pancho Dondo
Editor-in-Chief of Marketers by Adlatina
How did the idea of acquiring Argentina’s Niña come about in an agency headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States?
Dooley Tombras: We are a family agency with five offices in the United States and the dream of becoming the best independent agency in the world. The agency was founded by my grandfather, Charles Tombras Senior, in 1946, and continued by my father, Charles Tombras Junior, who is now 83 years old and still goes to the agency every day. For an independent agency like ours, the logical idea for international expansion would have been to target Europe, obviously. But a year ago we hired Avi as executive creative director of the New York office and he asked me, on his first day at work: “Have you ever thought about opening an office in Argentina?”
Was this a completely unexpected question for you?
DT: Not really. It is true that I had never thought about opening an office here in Buenos Aires. But Argentina had been very present in the history of our agency. First, because both my grandfather and my father came to Patagonia a lot to fish. And second, because our chief technology officer , who had joined a year earlier, was —and still is— the Argentine Juan Tubert, who was part of the opening of the Argentine office of R/GA. Juan, on his first day at work, had asked me the same question: “Have you ever thought about opening an office in Argentina?” At that moment the subject had settled in my head. And when Avi asked me the same thing, I answered: “We have to do it.”
Baliga, where did this proposal come from, perhaps not totally unexpected, but certainly unusual?
Avinash Baliga: I had come to Argentina, straight from my native India, attracted by its rich creative advertising tradition. I arrived in July 2011, joined the Madre agency as a copywriter and, five years later, left as creative director and went to work in agencies in New York: first Barton Graf, then Mother and finally Maximum Effort, until June 2023, when I arrived at Tombras. In Argentina I had found exactly what I was looking for, an incredible creative wealth, and since I arrived in the United States I did nothing but wonder how best to integrate that wealth with the structure and ambition of American agencies: it sounded like the perfect combination. That's why I proposed the idea to Dooley... and he bought it immediately.