Nizan Guanaes left DM9, founded F/Nazca, and took Brazil's best accounts with him

Every acquisition of a founder-led business — an agency, a studio, a restaurant, a design firm — faces the F/Nazca problem. The acquirer buys the name and the office. The question is whether the founder's taste survives, or walks out the door.

In 1994, Nizan Guanaes — the founder of DM9, Brazil's most creative agency — left the company he had built. DM9 had been acquired by DDB (Omnicom) in 1999, but Guanaes had already departed by then. He founded F/Nazca, a new agency backed by Saatchi & Saatchi (Publicis).

The split followed the standard pattern of the Brazilian advertising industry: the founder leaves, the creative directors follow, and the accounts follow the creative directors. Within three years, F/Nazca had won several of the accounts that DM9 had lost — including Skol, the largest beer brand in Brazil.

The Brazilian advertising trade tells the story as the definitive case of the founder-agency model: the agency is the founder, and when the founder leaves, the agency is an empty office with a logo. DM9 survived as a brand under DDB, but its creative standing declined. F/Nazca became one of Brazil's most awarded agencies. The accounts walked because the accounts were the founder's, not the agency's.

The accounts were the founder's, not the agency's: when Guanaes left DM9, Skol and others followed to F/Nazca, leaving DM9 an empty office with a logo.

The Brazilian advertising model is founder-driven: clients buy the founder's taste, not the agency's process. When the founder leaves, the clients leave. No holding-company structure can prevent this

DM9's acquisition by DDB created the conditions for the split: the holding company's reporting structure and financial targets were incompatible with the founder-led creative culture

F/Nazca's success was not a new agency — it was the same agency with a new name. The creative directors, the accounts, and the culture all transferred. Only the logo changed

When a founder-led agency is acquired by a holding company, the holding company buys the name and the office. What it cannot buy is the founder's relationships, taste, and creative culture.

F/Nazca became one of Brazil's most awarded agencies, winning multiple Cannes Lions. DM9 continued under DDB but never recovered its creative standing. Nizan Guanaes later founded the Grupo ABC, Brazil's largest independent advertising group. The story is cited in the Latin American advertising trade as the definitive case of the founder-agency model.