Gustavo Rodriguez brings an unusual combination: he is an advertiser who has won several awards, and a writer with followers. At 18, he was an intern who would take 8 buses a day to arrive to Publicistas Asociados (now Publicis), an advertising agency who eventually hired him as Creative Editor with enough salary to pay his career. At 20, he started working as Junior Creative Director at Pro Peru, and at 22 he occupied the Associated Creative Direction at McCann-Erickson.
Two years later he joined Quorum, a small agency where he found creative liberty to design some campaigns that placed our country in the international advertising scene.
Since then, Gustavo has obtained more than 100 national and international awards in creativity and effectiveness (Effie, New York Festivals, FIAP, Mexico, London, Cannes). American and European television programs have shown his advertisements as examples of the best in the world. The Museum of Fine Arts has chosen his graphic ads for exhibitions, which show the high quality and artistic vein of his work. He has also been recognized by Indecopi –National Institute for the Defense of Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property in Peru- for his creative contribution to the development of the country. The National Education Council awarded him the Prize in Journalism, Internet Category, for an article on educational reform. In the year 2003, one of his advertisements initiated a commercial war between two countries, having the Peruvian pisco at its core. The graphic ad –“racimo de uvas” (“bunch of grapes”)- unleashed several media and social events, which ended with the creation of a special day to celebrate pisco.
In 1998, he published “Cuentos de fin de semana” (“Weekend Stories”); this book got the critics’ attention. Three years later, he published “La furia de Aquiles” (“The fury of Aquiles”) with Alfaguara, novel that increased his followers. He was one of the finalists for the Prize Herralde in Novel (Spain) with a manuscript that would become “La risa de tu madre” (“Your mother’s laugh”). In July 2006, Alfaguara presented at Lima’s Book Fair, “Trece mentiras cortas” (“Thirteen brief lies”), a collection of his short stories. It became one of the most sold books in the fair. Rodriguez collaborates regularly with business and cultural magazines and is a columnist for the newspaper El Comercio. He is also a member of the Ethic Committee of the Commission for Self-Regulation in Advertising.
