Creative Brand Makers = Makers of Creative Brands.
There are expressions that cannot truly be translated to portuguese.
They are inferred. Understood. Felt.

In 2016, when I founded the Brand with the contribution of Marcelo Souto, several questions emerged:

In Portuguese or in English?
For Portugal or for the world?
Should we include “branding” in the name?
Figurative icons?
How do we connect what we do to B16?
To the logic of Bruno and the 16th of February?
To the logic of branding and (20)16?
To the logic of “be sixteen”, because at that age you are not afraid to dream and make things happen?

To the logic of Bruno, his experience and his history of successful projects?

We chose this path:
B16 – Creative Brand Makers.

Later, during the graphic materialisation of the brand, some elements were still missing. One of them was the company’s claim. Marcelo – as I mentioned previously – dared to come up with “let’s make something big”. It is connected to my achievements in the past, to the possible graphic representation of b-i-g through the alteration of characters, such as: B-I-G, B-1-G, B-1-6, BI6. “Let’s make BI6 things”? He was the one who got there.

Today, looking back, I have opinions. Opinions about the brand being global rather than local; about being in English rather than Portuguese (or even Algarvian, why not?); about “makers of creative brands”; about the boldness of inviting people towards great achievements. But this was the Brand and these were my opinions at the time. If they had not evolved by today, then something would not be right. I truly love what we created, designed and wrote. We still have stickers, merchandising pieces and stationery from that period. I kept them. I will use them again one day. The Creative Clan was born and raised from those roots. The stories I tell belong to it.

That year, we created things for ourselves.
For ourselves. By ourselves.

We could have taken better advantage of them and promoted them more effectively. In the whirlwind of work, family life and the eloquent world of Knowing How to Enjoy Life, we left a lot unexplored. But I am proud of every single detail I highlight here. Deeply proud. And I smile whenever I remember them.

One day, for no apparent reason, I received a letter proposing the production of B16 pens:

The pens gave us more ideas and we moved forward with a Marketing Plan for B16.

If we did this for our Clients, why not for ourselves?

Then we collaborated with Tiago Silva on the mood board for our Instagram:

For no apparent reason, we decided to print a set of t-shirts at a copy centre. We started with a simple B16 logo on the front, but quickly became excited and asked Marcelo Souto to develop additional designs for other models. Marcelo got involved. He felt the project as if it were his own and designed this:

Had we had more money, we would have printed many more t-shirts, but back then they were limited editions. João always had excellent taste when combining colours and designs. I, not so much, but I wore them with unparalleled motivation. I wore them relentlessly, day after day. Sweat stains and smells included. Such was the passion for the shirt.

Olívia celebrated her first birthday. We celebrated it at Bengado, my beloved father-in-law’s property, in the Mesquita area of São Brás de Alportel. During the preparations for the party, I became involved in small tasks to prepare the space and that place elevated me to another level as a human being. Not drinking, listening to the silence interrupted only by the chirping of jays and sparrows, contemplating the hills and the movement of the sun – it was enough to make me feel good. Very good.

On a day in June 2018, we held Olívia’s party at Bengado. We invited family and friends for an unforgettable day. It was beautiful and wonderful. And that same day, João Costa discovered the place. It did not take much for him to fall in love with it, just as I had. We promised each other that we would one day organise a “spiritual retreat”, a working retreat, there, to explore possibilities for B16 within that mystical place.

And that is exactly what we did.
We went there for lunch one day.
We grilled food and drank cold beverages.
We smoked a few joints.
We wandered around the property.
We had ideas.
Lots of ideas.
Lots of ideas.
Seriously.

Afterwards, we returned to the office to pre-produce what we were going to create next. We analysed the money available, searched for references of things we wanted to do, techniques we wanted to explore, materials we needed, preparations, people involved and ways to capitalise on that investment.

The “Let’s make something BI6” campaign was filmed in August. Two months after our moment at Bengado. We created a dossier with action plans. Production schedules. Strategies for freeing space on memory cards and making camera batteries last longer. The tasks João would handle, the tasks Vânia would handle, the tasks I would need to develop. Then came the invited people and logistics. My cousin Carlos Gabriel Vieira and his graffiti artist friend Francisco Camilo. Food, accommodation, fees, and so on. Everyone contributed towards elevating the hard work we were doing. There were eight effective production days. From the 24th of August to the 1st of September, intermittently. Seven full days. Sometimes the hours disappeared and we only realised it when we were heading home the following day. Everything flowed. We never looked at the clock. We only stopped to eat, drink, smoke, laugh, contemplate and discuss solutions. We laughed a lot. Everything else felt natural, automatic, experimental and disorderly. It was brutal. Unique. Artistic. A true art installation with a beginning, middle and end.

The deliverables from this production were:

1 promotional video
1 making-of video
3 stop motions
20 time lapses
More than 500 video clips
More than 2,500 photographs

An investment with a staggering return. Brutal. Incomparable. Unique.

Until then, B16 had never achieved such a feat. It was an undeniable gain. In every sense. For everything. For everyone. From everyone. We built a team. We had fun. We built a brand. We harvested the results of teamwork. We accelerated the company’s growth and initiated an unexpected communication journey. Completely unexpected.

Of course, we still had to work through the raw material. We needed to edit the videos, edit the photographs, compile all the elements into specific and concrete pieces. We spent many days doing so alongside all the ongoing projects for our Clients. But we did it with pleasure. It became that moment of the day when we revisited the things created at Bengado.

Any Brand would pay a huge amount of money for an installation like this: own brand, original content, team building, mindset, planning, involvement, results. We simply did it naturally and automatically. It came out. It emerged. It happened. All because of my little princess’s birthday.

The final result was this (watch with the sound loud and with full attention, please):

In November that year, our new car arrived. Our brand-new Dacia Logan MCV, fully equipped with all the extras. Brown. The colour we had chosen. Diesel-powered. A proper machine. Renault engine, Dacia price. A great deal for B16, which still had no history of loans, leasing or renting agreements. This van was purchased on credit. A lengthy process. But it made all the difference to our logistics, because my car was constantly breaking down and João Costa often had to use his own vehicle for Client productions. I remember commenting to him and saying: “I’ve never bought a brand-new car before. Let’s film the odometer changing to 1 kilometre. Amazing.” But that was not how it happened. The car took months to arrive after purchase and payment. We picked it up in November, in Portimão. And just when I thought it would show zero kilometres, this appeared on the display:

And in December, because of Christmas, we invited close family, close friends and close Clients to showcase the final results. It was surreal. Beautiful. Wonderful. Unifying. We wrote a Christmas card for every guest and gave gifts to everyone. It was our Christmas dinner. And it was there that we presented the results of our work. We received endless compliments. Endless beautiful things written, spoken and done there, in that unforgettable moment.

Two months later, in February 2019, we launched a new website alongside the entire social media campaign. A website featuring direct testimonials from our Clients about our work. Our first website with success cases explaining in detail how we did things, what we did, for whom we did it and what each Client gained from the work.

And every single one of them participated with genuine testimonials about what we had achieved.

The former general director of MAR Shopping Algarve:

The general director of Loulé Concelho Global:

The general director of Sisgarbe:

The managing partners of Byho:

The general director of Infralobo:

The path we have followed is beautiful.
Comparisons with other agencies are inevitable, but it is our path.
Adapting our work to the market is necessary, but it is part of our path.

The path we have followed is beautiful.
The company grew. I grew.
And many of those who contributed to it grew as well.

We made BI6 things.
Without a doubt.