Tony Waissmann, the former chief creative officer of Republica Havas, has launched a new creative agency called 52, with hubs in Miami and Buenos Aires.
52 has been operating quietly for the past six months, working with clients, which it declined to name, in technology, travel, and home appliances on a project basis. The agency also collaborates pro bono with a nonprofit focused on Alzheimer’s awareness and recently completed a campaign for a U.S. battery brand marketed in Argentina, as well as TV work for a home appliance company.
Waissmann said 52 is currently developing an integrated campaign for a major Latin American tourism brand.
The agency has a lean team of three full-time staffers, supported by senior freelance talent across creative, strategy, and production. Waissmann plans to expand the team as the agency grows.
Drawing inspiration from sports, 52 is built around the principles of speed, teamwork and forward motion—values Waissmann believes the modern agency model has lost. “Barriers and obstacles are exactly what we want to avoid—that’s why we talk about speed and agility,” he told ADWEEK.
He aims for the agency to work quickly and bring ideas to life that often die in the ideation phase.
“As a creative, it is not only [important] to think of ideas, but to make them possible,” he said. “Throughout our careers, we have had a lot of ideas, but we only produced 5% of them. I want to produce more.”
To achieve that, the agency is structured as “an open playing field,” removing layers of approvals typical at big agencies—structures that, he said, make creative work “not fun anymore.”
“You can put a ping pong table or even a swimming pool in the office, but for me, the real fun has always been the capacity to create great ideas: to film something, to make something, and then see it out in the world on the street, on social, or on TV,” he said.
He said 52 aims to work with clients that want to treat the agency as a true partner, “where we can sit with clients at the same table and on the same side.”
Brutal honesty
As one of the most awarded creatives in Latin America, Waissmann brings decades of experience to 52.
At Republica, he led work on clients including Motorola and Amigos for Kids. Under his leadership, the agency won its first Cannes Lions awards in 2023 and 2024, in addition to more than 100 top industry accolades from the Clios to the One Show. Prior to Republica, Waissmann held top creative roles across Latin America.
He also founded Underground, a creative school that operated for 19 years across five Latin American countries and trained more than 4,000 students, as well as Movil, an automotive magazine in Argentina. As he put it, “52 is not my first startup.”