Carlos Souto

Childhood and Youth

Carlos Souto was born in Parque Patricios neighborhood in Buenos Aires City, Argentina, on May 13, 1955. His parents, Maruja and Celestino, were Galician immigrants. Thanks to them and to his grandmother Carmen, both his sister Ana María and Carlos acquired Galician language before Spanish. He spends his childhood and early youth in the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires City. He started his studies at Colegio Bernasconi. Later, in second grade, he changed school (to Cangallo Schule, a German school in Balvanera neighborhood) where he completed his elementary and high school studies.

Cursus Honorum

After the military coup in Argentina and considering the political commitment he had assumed as a student representative at the Buenos Aires University Engineering School, Souto travels to Brazil and settles in Sao Paulo City. His first job is as an office boy in the advertising agency Diálogo Propaganda. In 1976, he publishes his first and only storybook, illustrated by María Teresa Lemos Fontao. After a while, he starts working as a TV commercial production assistant. His beginnings are in Flipfilms and in the advertising agency Mauro Salles Interamericana. His rise is rapid. In this way, he meets the French director Olivier Perroy, who jointly with Carlo Ponti, Jr., establishes the international “Filmar do Brasil”. In Angra dos Reis they produce the feature film “Pirañas.” This would be Souto’s only experience in feature films. During the four years he lived in Sao Paulo Carlos Souto shared an apartment, O Quatorze in Pinheros, with the Catalan plastic artist and advertising executive Xavier Ruáix Durán. O quatorze would turn into a place of worship for the intellectual, the creative and young moviemakers that came together in Sao Paulo during the second half of the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1980s, Souto decides to come back to Argentina. In 1983, he organizes his first business venture. In 1984, he establishes a company engaged in the development of brand events. Souto would work in the field of public relations and communication. In the following years, definitely settled in Argentina, Souto develops his first work team connected with the advertising industry.

First advertising hits

In the late 1980s, Souto decides to focus all his experience in setting up a small advertising agency with Argentine share capitals. The basics of his project would be the approach to communication, the primary function of which would be to respect the cultural identity of the society in which the company would operate. Even it could act as a forum to help understand the constructive potential of advertising in social development. As his project is settling, in 1991 he receives his first award, the third place in Clarín Award for Creativity in Newspapers. This would be the beginning of a long path of recognitions for the development of his project. In those years he builds a famous duo with Darío Lanis that would be awarded both nationally and internationally. At the same time, he organizes a work team with remarkable young people like Juan Cravero, Carlos Bayala, Pablo del Campo, Gustavo Taretto, Fernando Tchechenitsky, and Álvaro Fernández Mendy. In 1993, he finally establishes his first advertising agency. In 1994, he enters the advertising agencies creative ranking of the Argentine Chamber of Advertisers, being in the tenth place in the country. In 1995, he participates for the first time in a selection process for the organization of a political campaign. He emerges as the winner; he runs his first political campaign and wins the election. Nevertheless, his communicational work in the goods and services market continues to collect many awards. A short time later he would be awarded with the “Silver Lion” on TV at the Cannes Festival, with a Gold on TV at the London Festival, with a Gold and a Platinum Pencil Award, besides the Grand Prix at Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad (FIAP), and Gold awards on TV and Radio at the same festival. He is also multi-awarded in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, apart from receiving noteworthy recognitions at festivals like the New York Festival or at the Argentine Circle of Creative Designers. The first Souto’s website receives the Silver award at the London Festival and at FIAP. During 1999 he decides to set up a new company, Adlatina.com, a website specialized in marketing and advertising.

Political Marketing

Carlos Souto begins his experience in the field of political advertising in 1995 and since then the team he leads has accompanied each of the most important moments in the history of Argentine elections. Throughout his career and thanks to his work, Carlos Souto is called for the most important political campaigns in Argentina, in which he achieves memorable hits. He wins two presidential elections, two elections for Buenos Aires Mayor, and one for Mendoza Province Governor. Recently, he has won a mid-term legislative election in Buenos Aires Province. He has the chance to be responsible for the institutional communication of several government efforts and to advise different politicians and businessmen in crisis situations. His work in the elections field is praised for the creative quality of the audiovisual pieces as well as for those of the public highway, apart from the standards applied to production. Many of the commercials he has made throughout his career are part of the communicational and cultural values of his country.

Awards

In 2000, Carlos Souto was awarded with the Silver Cannes Lion at Cannes Festival. In addition, he was awarded with national and international awards, both in the political field and for his communication pieces, some of which are listed below.

Criticism

In April 2010, Souto has been accused after by a media investigation of providing services to the Clarin media group with his firm "La Ese" of on-line smearing of the Cristina Kirchner government by the posting of fake comments on newspaper web sites, using an army of contracted employees who allegedly post comments around the clock, using wireless modems. [1]

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