Creating advertising which breaks the mould and challenges stereotypes | Perspectives with Laura Visco
Perspectives with Laura Visco
Executive Creative Director
at 72andSunny Amsterdam
Today we speak with advertising professional and trailblazer, Laura Visco, Executive Creative Director at 72andSunny Amsterdam who cut her baby teeth on the industry at only 19. Laura firmly believes advertising can be an agent for social change, reshaping cultural narratives and people’s perceptions. For Laura, creativity is a vehicle through which to challenge the status quo, and this is certainly true of the campaigns she has produced which have boldly reconceived a new normal and confronted taboo topics. And boy, do her campaigns make an impression.
“It’s amazing to see the work you do use as a tool to actually trigger conversations about much-needed topics.”
One of our favourites, #JustBoobs, was a campaign for International Women’s Day in which an assortment of giant boobs of all shapes and sizes were let loose on Amsterdam’s canals to question the cultural policing of women’s bodies, censorship, and beauty standards. Laura has been voted as one of the best creative directors in the world by AdAge, and her leading position in this sphere working with powerful brands gives her a territory in which she can spread important conversations further. Axe’s ‘Is It OK For Guys?’ campaign tackled toxic masculinity pre #MeToo movement, and is one of the campaigns Laura has found particularly fulfilling.
As a role model for women and particularly Latin American women within advertising, Laura regularly triggers important conversations herself about gender inequity in the creative industries. She has learned to be comfortable in the spotlight, something she feels women should demand more, and can astutely voice her reflections on past, present, and future changes within the industry.
“I think advertising for a very long time has been representing one very small portion of society. It has been led by basically white, wealthy men…. I think advertising will only get better when we get more diverse voices and also make it less elitist.”
With over two decades of experience in advertising, starting from within an all-male office, Laura is a valuable authority on the strength of diversity in the creative industries. She knows that a better representation of voices is not only a moral imperative, but a creative one and that talent exists in all shapes and sizes. But, representation also needs to come from a place of creative necessity, and once women’s voices are considered more than mere tokens, change will happen even faster.
The rewards of including broad perspectives on creative problems are manifold, something Laura’s work can attest to. She mentions that the best creative ideas are the ones that make you question ‘how come no one thought about that before?”
“When you have that feeling where you know you’re in front of something very unique, something that has been floating around, but nobody really grabbed it.”
Our discussion on diversity informs this judgement, and we’re left thinking that those best placed to grab unique ideas are those who haven’t yet had their time on the stage. For Laura herself, it has been a learning curve to recognise her position as a trailblazer and role model, but now it is a mantle she takes up proudly.