Ahead instead of behind
Last year alone, he won 20 awards, was recently inducted into the ADC, and now has his own agency. After 15 years in advertising, Daniel Antonio Serrano decided to accept Rolf Helfenstein’s offer and co-found the Karling agency.
"You could perhaps call it charm"
His departure from Jung von Matt a year ago was very pleasant. Above all, it was clear that he was serious about becoming self-employed, says Serrano. He didn't leave in order to switch to a job with a better salary or a higher rung on the career ladder, but to actually set up his own agency. He would actually have had great jobs at Jung von Matt. But this made him realize what he could achieve - and so he asked himself why he shouldn't use this for himself. His decision to found Karling together was a test for him to "feel himself", as he says. He wanted to find out what he could really achieve. Otherwise, however, he is rather modest, says Serrano. He got this Swiss quality from his mother. His father comes from Ecuador. He grew up in Switzerland for the first few years, then in Germany. So he not only inherited his southern temperament from his father, but also the "schaffä schaffä" from Germany, he explains. Serrano throws the few Swiss-German words and phrases into the conversation with care. He knows that his accent earns him sympathy when he speaks Swiss German and explains how people often start to grin on such occasions. This is because his pronunciation has a few rough edges and mixed dialects. "You could perhaps call it charm," he says with a laugh. Daniel Serrano and Rolf Helfenstein founded Karling over a year ago. "That was a very good decision," Serrano is already certain. He has his family at home to thank for this, who have been very supportive. But above all to Rolf Helfenstein. They really got to know each other when Serrano and his former copywriter founded a small company called Rainmap in their spare time. Rainmap promised that users would not only not get wet in the rain, but would also be able to use a street map to find their way without having to hold it in their hands. The great idea behind it: An umbrella with a city map on the inside. This small project is now a sure-fire success and the umbrellas are selling very well. Rolf Helfenstein has helped him time and again with this project, Serrano emphasizes. "The entrepreneurial gene is in me too, as you can see, but it's much more pronounced in Rolf."
Interplay of opposites
Over a meal together, Rolf Helfenstein described his plans to set up an agency and invited him to start an agency together. This led Serrano to confront himself with the question: "What do I actually want? " Two or three weeks and several international mentoring meetings later, he came to the conclusion: "You only get a chance like this once in a lifetime." This is mainly due to his partner. "Rolf is a great strategist. But he's also a great creative, which you might not have expected from him," says Serrano. Now that his radius of activity is much larger and the agency much smaller, this is becoming more apparent. The fact that they would fit together as agency directors was probably not something anyone would have thought. "The loud, outspoken Daniel and the quiet, reserved and focused Rolf," says Serrano, describing their meeting. But it is precisely this interaction that works so well. Serrano clearly sees mutual respect as the basis for good cooperation. The trust in each other, that the other can demonstrate a solid basis of talent, is certainly fundamental, he says thoughtfully. At Jung von Matt, Rolf Helfenstein was Managing Director Consulting and Daniel Serrano was Senior Art Director. "There's no question that I trust a managing director who has been in charge of the consulting side at Jung von Matt for 12 years," Serrano states matter-of-factly. He therefore found Helfenstein's decision to rely on Daniel Serrano all the better. The two founders named the agency Karling for an obvious reason. A Karling is a free-standing, unmistakable, striking mountain that owes its appearance to the polish of glaciers.
Selling creatively, baking big rolls
Daniel Serrano is indeed fascinated by advertising. He explains that this has developed over the course of his training and the last 15 years in this industry. Back then, he was particularly fascinated by Belgium. "The country, which I only knew from driving through at the time, is overflowing with good advertising." He got to know many role models - creative minds - in Belgium. But you don't get much of their charisma here, even though they win a lot of awards. At Saatchi & Saatchi in Stockholm, he realized how much fire and energy you can put into very dry topics. "The Scandinavians are very full of good humor and can sell you anything," Serrano recalls with a laugh. With advertising, however, he doesn't just want to entertain, be creative or - in short - sell. He is also driven by a completely different aspect. This aspect contributes to the fact that he would also do advertising for the tobacco industry, even though he is not a tobacco lover: "Especially in the area of tobacco and alcohol advertising, for example, so little is allowed that the challenge of perhaps being able to achieve something in such a small field through creativity is absolutely appealing to him. But that would also be the case if Switzerland had a ban on advertising wool socks - "then I would love to advertise wool socks," he explains. However, the realization that he may have contributed to the growing consumption of tobacco would not particularly bother him. After just one year, the Karling team has grown to five people and has already landed major customers. The 12 clients include names such as AMAG, SRF and Swiss farmers. Whether a small agency should bake small rolls first is something that Karling has never worried about. As they both come from a large agency with a huge output, they never even thought about focusing on smaller clients first. Or, as Serrano pragmatically explains the agency's focus: "And then when a much larger project comes along, we know who we can tackle it with."
Ursina mason
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