Darío Straschnoy

Early career

Dario Straschnoy began his advertising career after studying Psychology at Buenos Aires University. At the end of high school, he worked at his father's glassware and when he was 20 years old, he began his own business: publishing classified ads.

In 1988, when he was part of Funes, Straschnoy & Dreyfus agency, he partnered with the multinational agency Young & Rubicam and assumed the presidency. Years later, in 2000, the company was bought and absorbed by WPP, one of the largest groups of communication services worldwide.

Young & Rubicam

Young & Rubicam, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, was founded in Philadelphia in 1923 and currently has 465 offices in 90 countries.

The agency came to Argentina in 1979 and Darío Straschnoy was the President from 1988 until the end of 2013.

He developed and was responsible of all the operations of Young & Rubicam group in Argentina, composed of four companies: Young & Rubicam, Wunderman, MEC and Burson Marsteller.

The company was responsible of very successful local advertising campaigns, such as the couple of Marcos and Claudia from Banco Galicia, which began in 2009 and still continues. They were also the creators of the controversial spot secretly filmed in Falkland Islands for the Argentine government, because of its participation at the London Olympic Games 2012.

During his tenure at Young & Rubicam he worked for prestigious brands such as Danone, Quilmes beer, Visa and Tulipán condoms. Also, for fifteen years, he was in charge of advertising APSA -owner of the Argentine shoppings Alto Palermo, Abasto and Alto Avellaneda, among others, the cell phone company Movistar, the candy factory Arcor, DirecTV, El Cronista newspaper, Farmacity chain, Olé sports newspaper, the stereo and appliances Musimundo, the sports TV channel TyCSports and Monsanto, among others.

Under the leadership of Straschnoy, Young & Rubicam won awards at the major festivals worldwide, including more than twenty five Cannes Lions.

In 2012 and 2013, it was chosen as the best advertising agency of the year in the Jerry Goldenberg Awards for Excellence in Communications and in 2011 it was the most awarded in Effie Awards.

The same year it was awarded Agency of the Year and received a ‘Lápiz de Platino’ Award ('Silver Pencil' Award). Under Straschnoy’s leadership, the agency won twenty ‘Lápiz de Platino’, seven of them where at TV category, five of which were as the best agency.

Also, they have more than fifty awards in different festivals such as Clio Awards, Wave Rio, San Sebastian, FIAP, Buenos Anuncios, Clarin Awards (Grand Prix), El Ojo de Iberoamerica, The Sun, New York and London Festival, among others.

On the other hand, Young & Rubicam won eleven Martín Fierro awards in the 'Best Advertising Notice' shortlist.

The agency also ranked first in the Global Ranking of Advertising Agencies, whose name is AgencyScope, which is conducted by the Spanish Consulting Group.

Carlos y Darío

Currently, Darío is partner and director at Carlos y Darío. He founded the agency in early 2014, along with publicist Carlos Baccetti – founder of Latin American agency Agulla & Baccetti- a month after leaving Young & Rubicam. The company has offices in Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Miami.

Since its beginnings, the agency works with companies such as DirecTV and Quaker regionally, wines Álamos and Bravío from Catena Zapata winery, V Energy Drink, Toddy cookies by PepsiCo, the daily business El Cronista Comercial, Noticias magazine from Perfil publishing, Industrial Bank and GranDT by Clarin.

For Toddy cookies, Carlos y Darío filmed the first campaign created in collaboration with the followers of the brand in social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Periscope, in a live basis. These commercials were broadcast on TV.

As for recognition, the agency won two ‘Lápiz de Oro’ at Mix Media category for the film Death in Buenos Aires campaign and its performance on social networks at Toddy cookies campaign. In addition, in 2015 it won its first Silver Young Lion in Cannes at ‘Print’ category.

Awards and Recognitions

Darío Straschnoy was chosen as one of the men with the best reputation in the country by Merco ranking and consulting Villafañe y Asociados. In 2011, for example, he was ranked 29 and in 2013 he was the only employer in advertising industry that integrated the ranking.

In 1997 he won the Konex Award and was recognized as one of the top five advertisers of that decade. Ten years later, in 2007, he was part of the jury that chose the best advertisers of the past decade.