Communication has held a very special place in Laur Barbu’s life, even before he was admitted to the University of Bucharest in 2000. Starting as early as high school, he’s been spending part of his spare time as a project-based intern for one of Bucharest’s emerging advertising agencies. Here is where his affinity for creative communication and arts started to grow exponentially at the same time as the desire to work in an advertising agency became a clear career choice.
During the 5 years of studying Communication and Public Relations, crowned with a Master’s degree in Advertising, Laur has kept on learning the inside workings of advertising agencies by holding junior copywriter positions at various agencies in Bucharest.
Together with receiving his university diploma, he’s managed to score a job as a junior copywriter for Friends/TBWA Bucharest, one of the most renowned creative agencies in Romania.
Here is where his creative concept development skills started to flourish and bring in notable results. During his time with Friends/TBWA he’s been a important part of the teams that won the national pitches for three important clients: European Drinks & European Foods (biggest beverage and foods producer in Romania at the time), Libra Bank (one of the top 10 banks in Romania at the time) and Radio ZU (top rated radio station in Romania at the time).
In 2007 Laur has joined the ranks of Ogilvy & Mather as a creative copywriter, where he was assigned one of the biggest ATL & activation accounts in the agency’s portfolio: Unilever. After several high-impact activation campaigns, as part of a larger international team, Laur has been the recipient of the 2008 Effie Awards for the J&B “Start a Party” international campaign. After this success, he has started focusing more on the creative conceptualization side of his job which in 2009 has brought him the WARC David Ogilvy Grand Prix in the print section for the WWF “Less plastic” global campaign, at the same time earning him the “Senior Creative Copywriter” title. The new position brought a change of clients, seeing him in charge of the pre-paid operations for one of Ogilvy’s biggest clients: Deutsche Telekom.
Only one year later, in 2010, another one of the activation campaigns developed by Laur and his team has earned an Effie Award.
At the end of the same year, he has decided to create, together with two other advertising professionals, a creative boutique specialized in digital communication, thus Brands Interacting came to life where he would act as the Associate Creative Director of the small agency. After a very successful year of driving the communication for one of the biggest banks – The Development Bank of Romania – and the biggest cooking oil producer in the country – Expur Groupe Avril – Laur has chosen to part ways with his associates in order to take on the role of Senior Copywriter/ACD at Geometry Global, in charge of the British American Tobacco and Absolut Vodka regional accounts.
Here at Geometry (former G2) is where he has had the opportunity to work for one of the most internationally renowned clients: Vodafone.
2013 was a very important year in Laur’s advertising career because this is when he moved to Deepblue Networks A.G. (part of Scholz&Friends) as a global ACD/Senior Copywriter in charge of several brands from Imperial Tobacco’s portfolio: Rizla, Golden Virginia, Lucky Strike and Drum. As part of his job here, he’s been responsible for the global rebranding campaigns for Rizla and Golden Virginia.
In 2014 he has decided to leave the agency life aside and focus of freelance projects in the city of Barcelona. This decision has brought him a multitude of project-based clients like Audi, SEAT, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and La Dona Fruits.
In 2017 as part of an international joint-venture, Laur has cofounded and took on the role of Executive Creative Director of Brand Culture Network, a new advertising business based of a new concept set out to make some important changes in the way brands interact with their audiences and in the manner advertising professionals collaborate with their clients.
