Carlos Souto

Carlos Souto (Buenos Aires, May 13, 1955) is an Argentine advertising executive.

He is regarded as one of the leading political advertising executives in Argentina.

Carlos Souto was born in Parque Patricios neighborhood in Buenos Aires City, Argentina, on May 13, 1955.

His parents, Maruja and Celestino, were Galician immigrants.

Thanks to them and to his grandmother Carmen, both his sister Ana María and Carlos acquired Galician language before Spanish.

He spends his childhood and early youth in the southern suburbs of Buenos Aires City.

He started his studies at Colegio Bernasconi.

Later, in second grade, he changed school (to Cangallo Schule, a German school in Balvanera neighborhood) where he completed his elementary and high school studies.

After the military coup in Argentina and considering the political commitment he had assumed as a student representative at the Buenos Aires University Engineering School, Souto travels to Brazil and settles in Sao Paulo City.

His first job is as an office boy in the advertising agency Diálogo Propaganda.

O quatorze would turn into a place of worship for the intellectual, the creative and young moviemakers that came together in Sao Paulo during the second half of the 1970s.

In 1976, he publishes his first and only storybook, illustrated by María Teresa Lemos Fontao.

After a while, he starts working as a TV commercial production assistant.

His beginnings are in Flipfilms and in the advertising agency Mauro Salles Interamericana.

His rise is rapid.

In this way, he meets the French director Olivier Perroy, who jointly with Carlo Ponti, Jr., establishes the international “Filmar do Brasil”.

In Angra dos Reis they produce the feature film “Pirañas.” This would be Souto's only experience in feature films.

During the four years he lived in Sao Paulo Carlos Souto shared an apartment, O Quatorze in Pinheros, with the Catalan plastic artist and advertising executive Xavier Ruáix Durán.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Souto decides to come back to Argentina.

In the late 1980s, Souto decides to focus all his experience in setting up a small advertising agency with Argentine share capitals.

The basics of his project would be the approach to communication, the primary function of which would be to respect the cultural identity of the society in which the company would operate.

Even it could act as a forum to help understand the constructive potential of advertising in social development.

In 1983, he organizes his first business venture.

In 1984, he establishes a company engaged in the development of brand events.

Souto would work in the field of public relations and communication.

In the following years, definitely settled in Argentina, Souto develops his first work team connected with the advertising industry.

As his project is settling, in 1991 he receives his first award, the third place in Clarín Award for Creativity in Newspapers.

This would be the beginning of a long path of recognitions for the development of his project.

In those years he builds a famous duo with Darío Lanis that would be awarded both nationally and internationally.

At the same time, he organizes a work team with remarkable young people like Juan Cravero, Carlos Bayala, Pablo del Campo, Gustavo Taretto, Fernando Tchechenitsky, and Álvaro Fernández Mendy.

In 1993, he finally establishes his first advertising agency.

In 1994, he enters the advertising agencies creative ranking of the Argentine Chamber of Advertisers, being in the tenth place in the country.

In 1995, he participates for the first time in a selection process for the organization of a political campaign.

He emerges as the winner; he runs his first political campaign and wins the election.

Nevertheless, his communicational work in the goods and services market continues to collect many awards.

A short time later he would be awarded with the “Silver Lion” on TV at the Cannes Festival, with a Gold on TV at the London Festival, with a Gold and a Platinum Pencil Award, besides the Grand Prix at Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad (FIAP), and Gold awards on TV and Radio at the same festival.

He is also multi-awarded in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, apart from receiving noteworthy recognitions at festivals like the New York Festival or at the Argentine Circle of Creative Designers.

He runs the advertising agency South Communications, which has been engaged in political advertising since 1996.

The work teams he organizes and leads have been a key factor in transforming the Latin American political language over the last decade.

He took part in work teams with David Ratto, Ramiro Agulla, Dick Morris, Miguel Sal and Darío Lanis.