TBWA\Santiago Maganda Puno

In the last decade, perhaps no Philippine agency has disrupted the status quo quite like TBWA \ Santiago Mangada Puno.

A youth compared to the oldies like JWT, Saatchi and McCann Erickson, this agency leapt onto the scene in the mid-90’s as Santiago and Puno and merged with multinational hotshop TBWA\ a few years later. In no time at all, the upstart grew into an indie, an iconoclast and a little over a decade later, a veritable icon. TBWA \ Santiago Mangada Puno is perhaps the most envied and admired agency in town. It is consistent and single-minded in its vision, seemingly unaffected by the political and cultural shakedowns that affect most multinationals. In many ways, it still behaves like a privately owned creative boutique.

As a result, this agency seems to have it all: enviable financial success, a stable of awards-friendly accounts, a high degree of client respect, fantastic creative reputation and extremely loyal employees. In the last 12 months, it has arguably won more new business than any other agency. It is a three-time Agency of the Year, vulnerable only to the behemoth McCann Erickson.

The three men whose names appear on the door met half a lifetime ago in Ace Saatchi & Saatchi. Tong Puno, the most senior of the three, is a suit who cut his chops in Manila and Bangkok. Jimmy Santiago, former Saatchi ECD and award-winning songwriter, heads Strategic Planning and co-leads its sister shop Creative Juice. Melvin Mangada, its chief creative officer, is the youngest partner. He was Jimmy Santiago’s heir at Saatchi and is the first inductee to the Creative Guild’s Hall of Fame.

In many interviews, this terrific triad shied away from talking about themselves, instead preferring to market TBWA’s philosophy of Disruption. But they opened up to adobo and spoke of the secret behind their fantastic partnership.

(TBWA\Santiago Mangada Puno was proclaimed the Grand Prix winner in the 2012 Disruption Awards for the Boysen KNOxOUT Project EDSA: Clean Air Campaign, beating over 80 countries in the global TBWA network.)

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