FLAGCX

Summary

• Foundation: 2012
• Founders and business partners: Roberto Martini, Luisa Martini, and Matheus Barros
• Employees: +350
• FLAGCX, The Creative Disruption Network is Latin America’s biggest independent communication group, with more than 350 employees over 20 business units, in offices in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and New York
• Until 2015 the Flag was divided into 14 other companies, organized in 4 units: Consulting and Innovation; Creation, Marketing and Media; Innovation on Digital Production and Content; Shared Values and Intellectual Property
• FLAGCX biggest clients are Google, Heinz, Samsung, Mondelez, Unilever, and Reckitt-Benckiser
• In 2017, Luisa, Matheus and Ricardo decided to buy their actions back from Interpublic, returning to fully own the FLAGCX group and all the companies that are part of the holding

FLAGCX

FLAGCX's Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) is to disrupt the way the advertising industry works and brands communicate.

We are a network of creative companies conceived to help people and brands to discover, improve & transform their realities. Exploring the fields of the creative industry, we provide the triggers for change in a commoditized world.

We deliver change through aggressive entrepreneurship ideas, outstanding communication work, and stretching the limits of technology.

In 2013 Roberto Martini was developing the Flag brand, along with his wife Luisa Martini, and his partner Matheus Barros. Roberto was interested in creating a future holding that cloud accelerate the change in the business and creative world, in a more collaborative type of work.

The main idea was to establish a company that, instead of growing too much in a fixed structure, could start to originate others, according to the market needs: what is inefficient to one company, could be the opportunity to another. Thinking about that, Ricardo created an ecosystem capable of giving all the support needed so that the owners could focus more on their business, instead of worrying about administrative and bureaucratic issues, benefiting from a well-structured already established company, that could give a list of possible clients and talented professionals.

The list of clients, talented professionals, and good reputation was already set up, considering that Martini had built an agency in 2004, named CuboCC, that was essential to the creation of Flag. In 2010, 70% of Cubo was sold to Interpublic, one of the biggest groups of advertising in the world. Some departments in the agency had been transformed into brand-new companies that began to be a part of Flag.

Some examples are the Iceland 2ND Nation, a designer producer that unites products with technology, the Kumite, an audiovisual production company and the Pong Dynasty, an advertising agency with a model of remuneration based on results. The Clan is another company of the group, with Luisa Martini on the leadership, that reinforce the culture of Flag, by inspiring, empowering, and educating people, so they can be agents of change. The company is responsible for organizing parties, events, and travels, that are mostly open to the public. Clan also takes care of the internal and external communication of all Flag’s companies.

Other companies like Mesa & Cadeira and Mandalah were only part purchased by Flag, being integrated at the group without losing their full autonomy.

This process of dividing functions of the brand into other companies has caused a decrease in the number of employees and clients at Cubo. Nowadays the agency has 100 professionals, 50% lower than a few years back, and works in projects for Unilever, Coke, Samsung, and Heineken.

Overall, until 2015 the Flag was divided into 14 other companies, organized in 4 units: Consulting and Innovation; Creation, Marketing and Media; Innovation on Digital Production and Content; Shared Values and Intellectual Property. Some of their biggest clients are Google, Heinz, Samsung, Mondelez, Unilever, and Reckitt-Benckiser. There are more than 350 employees, in offices in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and New York.

In 2017, the business partners Luisa, Matheus, and Ricardo decided to buy their actions back from Interpublic, returning to fully own the Flagcx group and all the companies that are part of the holding. In that same year, the group was divided into 19 companies that act in Brazil and the US. CuboCC continues to be the main one, followed by the public relations agency Soo, the technological Doubleft, and the activation Hood.

FLAGCX is a joint of communication companies, pulled by two advertising agencies. But, even so, its guidance on the advertising and creative area, the company is also very focused on technology. One of their projects was shown at an event at MIT in 2015, that united virtual reality experiences with the implementation of artificial intelligence and cognitive computing.

FLAGCX Leadership.

Roberto Martini

The CEO, CCO, and Founder of FLAGCX is considered one of the most creatives professionals in the field. In college, he studied Systems Analysis and did an internship in Computing Support at the Federal University of Pelotas, then he started to work at Conesul, one of the firsts’ internet providers in Brazil.

He used his free time to program codes and, besides technology, Roberto had an interest in design. At the age 18, he joined two other friends to create his first company, the AG2. After the foundation of AG2, he developed Rage, his second company with other three friends that was responsible for the digital area of Prax, the Washington Olivetto’s holding.

The team there was very innovative, with designers, poets, and comic artists. He dropped both Systems Analysis and Advertising courses and graduated in Strategic Management with a focus on finances.

Then, in 2004 he got out of Rage and started a new company, the advertising agency Cubo. Roberto is known as a talented professional, with aggressive business strategies. As we can tell, he loves technology and spends part of his free time searching about virtual reality, artificial intelligence, mind hacking, and games. He joined the Master's program at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and studied at Stanford and Singularity University, where he is also part of the board.

Luisa Martini

VP in HR at Flag and Leader of Clan. She has a degree in Industrial Design by the Technical School of Pelotas and in Advertising by the Catholic University of Pelotas. In 2007, she entered at CuboCC with the mission of developing the company’s video area. In 2013, with the release of Flag and then Clan, she was in charge of three main areas: People, by the development of courses and training; Language, with the verbal and visual communication of the brand, inter and externally; Production, that makes some actions of Flag happen. She affirms that the work she’d been doing is focused on culture, knowledge, and experience, by using science, art, and technology to inspire people around. Luisa has been part of the Exponential Advisory Board at Singularity University since 2014.

Matheus Barros

Global CSO and CEO at the New York office. He is an administrator, graduated at ESPM (Superior School of Advertising and Marketing) in 2006. After graduation, he worked at Unilever as a marketer in the AXE brand and left the company to co-found the CuboCC agency. In only one year of being the COO, he led the company to double its size and to win blue-chip accounts such as Google and Mondelez. In 2013, he launched Cradeon, one of the first and now biggest programmatic solutions in Brazil. In 2014, he was considered one of the top 50 most innovative professionals markers in Brazil, and two years after he was part of the 40 under 40 AdAge’s list. Nowadays he leads the New York office of Flagcx as CEO and coordinates the group's global expansion.

CuboCC

The agency is known for breaking the walls between the digital world, storytelling methods, and innovation, creating creatives, and transforming solutions in a partnership with the biggest brands in Brazil and worldwide.

In the opposite direction of what we see companies do nowadays, the Cubocc doesn’t have a website or even a phone line and doesn’t show up your work. The search for clients is organic and never aggressive. Many of the projects come to the agency because of its great reputation and repercussion on the field.

Even without any official channel of divulgation the agency is considered one of the most innovative in Brazil and had a potential growth since your launch, in 2013. Ricardo Martini, Flagx CEO, considers that the brand is still a startup.

The agency always searches for a union of creative communication and advertising with technology and brand-new resources. According to Ricardo, the company was the first one at creating a high-end game, 360° movies for brands, and a product that used augmented reality.

In 2016 was considered the most creative digital agency of Brazil, on the biggest research ever done with marketing professionals and clients. The company has also gained recognition in the US and other countries. Some brands that are clients of Cubo are Unilever, Coca-Cola, C&A, Ambev, Red Bull, Nubank, Spotify, Netflix, and Google. The case of Spotify is a very successful one, as it delivered the best marketing strategy and performance for the company in the whole world and then Cubo became responsible for leading the global pitch on expansion strategy management.

Mesa & Cadeira

Mesa & Cadeira, now MESA, M_A or Mesa Company, is a creation of Barbara Soalheiro, a journalist who became an entrepreneur and today leads and is the chief facilitator of this innovation boutique - a team-based work system capable of unleashing people's full potential to process more and execute faster. It uses an extremely simple formula - and, because of that, extremely efficient - in which a leader, together with a team that has 100% of the knowledge and skills needed, build a solution. Working with some of the most brilliant professionals of our time, head of their business or projects, that bring learnings based on their experiences.

The formula has been used over 150 times all around the world, gathering a group of over 1200 professionals, most of them some of the best talent of their generation.

Mesa helps you avoid hours and hours of useless meetings. It allows you to finally have all the decision-makers sitting together and making a real decision.

Translators of Disruption

A project is an invention of Luisa for Clan, that involves an immersion on the Flag’s way of work, since the process of creation until the reverse planning of media (the OSEP concept: Owned, Shared, Earned and Paid). The main goal is to keep people innovating and inventing the future, as well as bring a pleasant environment to their employees, in a way that working there becomes an incredible experience.

The program has a free course structure and is taught by Luisa, Roberto, and Matheus.

Up to 2014, they had given 5 modules:

1. “Betapreneurship”
2. “The Post Advertising Era”
3. “Drivers of Change”
4. “Self Hacking”
5. “The Makers Era”.

This experience is for the Flag’s employees and also the general public (but not for free). The project has been reformulated in 2015 and again in 2016, creating a total reboot of contents, frequency, and even the name of the program.

There is another program of education promoted by Clan, that offers specific courses only for the internal employees of Flag. Some themes that had already been taught are “Conceptor”, “Growth Hacker”, “Producer” and “Data Science”.

This project seeks the development of abilities essentials for the job routine and the growth of the collaborators. In that way, the company can also offer a better service and results to their clients. It’s part of the Flag spirit to maintain the team always learning.

The Grid FLAGCX

This project of FLAGCX has been working for over 8 years to create global communities that engage people with different talents to work in new ways and level up their fields.

With services like team development strategies, sourcing, people operations, and culture the initiative hopes to create meaningful experiences in the work environment and contribute to the future in business.

Until now this has established partnerships with over 25 clients, in Brazil and the US, which means over 300 recruitments. This process has remotely managed over 1k people on human resources operations and built a community with over 10k people. On their website, you can see the job openings at the moment.