From Soccer to Creative Campaigns
If it had not been for a burst appendix, Leo Premutico might have been a professional soccer player instead of the co-founder of New York ad agency Johannes Leonardo, named one of Ad Age's ten "agencies to watch" in 2011.
After graduating in 1998 from Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, Australia, Premutico tried to balance a semi-professional soccer career with working at BMF ad agency in Sydney. A bout with appendicitis kept him from attending professional soccer trials. He decided it was a sign to focus on his career in advertising.
Premutico, 33, went on to become a copywriter at Saatchi & Saatchi in London in 2003, where he met Jan Jacobs, who was an art director. The duo became creative directors in the agency's New York office and then left Saatchi in 2007 to start their own agency, which now has a staff of about 50. WPP Group PLC owns a minority stake in Johannes Leonardo. In the last year, the agency has won accounts with Coca-Cola Co., General Electric Co. and Bacardi Limited Co.
The Australian native lives in New York with his wife and two-year-old son.
FINS spoke with Premutico about the luck of being fired and the importance of listening to your gut.
Chris Prentice: How much does luck have to do with success?
Leo Premutico: A lot of successful people do a good job of seeming lucky, making it seem that it came completely naturally. I think the underlying truth is that there's a lot of hard work and learning from mistakes. That's what makes success.
In my first job in advertising, I was at Ammirati Puris Lintas ad agency in Sydney, and I was fired. It was just a case of not sharing the same creative vision.
It's funny how when you look back on things, even the things that seemed really difficult at the time were actually the best things that happened to you. I ended up going to a small agency that was only a few years old called BMF. I sat next to one of the founders of the business, Warren Brown, so I got to see and experience how an agency of that size grows. You could see that as luck.
Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it.
LP: I actually resigned from advertising when I was 22, while working at BMF. I was trying to juggle two things. I was playing soccer semi-professionally and thought if I was going to give this a proper go, I should concentrate on it full-time. I quit my job to train full-time for three months. My appendix burst the hour my flight was due to leave for trials in Germany. I woke up from the anesthetic in the hospital with an advertising idea. When something like that happens, you find yourself thinking if it happened for a reason.
CP: How did you meet Jan Jacobs, co-founder of Johannes Leonardo?
LP: Jan and I worked together at Saatchi in London. We were put together as a team there and just enjoyed working with one another more and more every year. We spent two years there and then we were asked to come over to the New York office. Saatchi New York was an important office for the company globally, and we were trying to change the creativity of the agency.
We felt after two and a half years that we had done what we had wanted to do. As a creative person especially, you really need to listen to whatever your gut tells you. We started to become excited about something else. It was an interesting time in the industry. It was when clients were starting to take digital a lot more seriously. We wanted to be able to pursue that.
CP: How does running your own agency differ from being on the creative side?
LP: What you quickly realize is that even though you set out to achieve your own personal ambition or dream, that dream becomes helping employees to achieve their own ambitions and dreams.
CP: How important are mentors as you build your career? Who are yours?
LP: There's always an emphasis on mentors and acquiring knowledge. It's even more important to have people who can open your mind and make you believe that what you're excited about is possible and you can achieve it.
Family's always been important to me. My mom was always someone who was always instilling belief in ourselves. My dad always offered insight. The wisdom he would speak was really important during the formative years when I was crafting the creative person I wanted to be.
CP: What business books would your recommend?
LP: I've just finished Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba. [Johannes Leonardo was selected as Bacardi Rum's Agency of Record in 2011.] It makes you realize how rich the Bacardi story is. In many ways, it's not just a brand, but part of culture.
It's important to really dive in and understand the things that are powerful in the past and can be powerful going forward. Progress doesn't have to be about ignoring the past. It can be about embracing it. I think in many ways what made great advertising years ago is the same today.
CP: What would you recommend people keep in mind as they build their careers in advertising?
LP: It's so important to be excited about what you do. If you are, then you will have the perseverance that you need to succeed.
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