52 has been working quietly for the previous six months, working with purchasers, which it declined to call, in expertise, journey, and residential home equipment on a challenge foundation. The company additionally collaborates professional bono with a nonprofit targeted on Alzheimer’s consciousness and not too long ago accomplished a marketing campaign for a U.S. battery model marketed in Argentina, in addition to TV work for a house equipment firm.
Waissmann stated 52 is at present growing an built-in marketing campaign for a significant Latin American tourism model.
The company has a lean workforce of three full-time staffers, supported by senior freelance expertise throughout artistic, technique, and manufacturing. Waissmann plans to broaden the workforce because the company grows.
Drawing inspiration from sports activities, 52 is constructed across the rules of pace, teamwork and ahead movement—values Waissmann believes the trendy company mannequin has misplaced. “Boundaries and obstacles are precisely what we wish to keep away from—that’s why we discuss pace and agility,” he informed ADWEEK.
He goals for the company to work shortly and convey concepts to life that always die within the ideation section.
“As a artistic, it’s not solely [important] to consider concepts, however to make them attainable,” he stated. “All through our careers, we now have had plenty of concepts, however we solely produced 5% of them. I wish to produce extra.”
To attain that, the company is structured as “an open taking part in area,” eradicating layers of approvals typical at huge companies—buildings that, he stated, make artistic work “not enjoyable anymore.”
“You possibly can put a ping pong desk or perhaps a swimming pool within the workplace, however for me, the actual enjoyable has at all times been the capability to create nice concepts: to movie one thing, to make one thing, after which see it out on the earth on the road, on social, or on TV,” he stated.
He stated 52 goals to work with purchasers that wish to deal with the company as a real companion, “the place we are able to sit with purchasers on the similar desk and on the identical aspect.”
Brutal honesty
As one of the crucial awarded creatives in Latin America, Waissmann brings a long time of expertise to 52.
At Republica, he led work on purchasers together with Motorola and Amigos for Youngsters. Below his management, the company gained its first Cannes Lions awards in 2023 and 2024, along with greater than 100 prime trade accolades from the Clios to the One Present. Previous to Republica, Waissmann held prime artistic roles throughout Latin America.
He additionally based Underground, a artistic faculty that operated for 19 years throughout 5 Latin American nations and skilled greater than 4,000 college students, in addition to Movil, an automotive journal in Argentina. As he put it, “52 shouldn’t be my first startup.”
However 52 could be very a lot made in his picture. The company’s identify nods to Waissmann’s nickname, Tony, with the 5 and a pair of in its brand designed to type the form of a “T.” Waissmann additionally turned 52 this yr.
The identify 52 additionally aligns with Waissman’s sports activities motif, because it resembles the quantity on the again of a participant’s jersey.
“I dreamt all my life of constructing a spot like this with brutal honesty,” he stated, including the company needs to be “the place purchasers discover that true companion who understands the issues that hold them up at evening.”
Waissmann didn’t share particular monetary goes for 52, as an alternative saying he’ll measure success by the power of the company’s concepts and its capacity to draw nice expertise.
“We wish to have a robust company the place nice concepts are made, a spot the place good and proficient folks like to work, and likewise a spot the place groups and purchasers wish to be,” he stated.
He additionally supplied a transparent rationale for launching in a crowded market: “There are extra purchasers than companies.”
