Creative Minds: Questioning everything is Kat Gomez-Limchoc's life motto

In Creative Minds, we ask APAC creatives a long list of questions, from serious to silly, and ask them to pick 11 to answer. (Why 11? Just because.) Want to be featured?

Name: Kat Gomez-Limchoc

Origin: Manila, Philippines

Places lived/worked: Manila, Philippines

Pronouns: She/her

CV:

Executive creative director / Lead culture officer, Publicis Groupe Philippines, 2022 – Present
Executive creative director, Leo Burnett Blackpencil Manila, 2012 – Present
Executive creative director, Aspac/Law, 2010 – 2012
Creative director, PC&V Communications, 2006 – 2012
Senior copywriter, J. Walter Thompson Worldwide, 1998 – 2006

1. How did you end up being a creative?

In college, I constantly asked, "Why Not?" and "What If?" while making things happen. I presented a collection instead of submitting just one short story as required.

I created a dance organisation with friends because we wanted to have a reason to choreograph and create performances (that organisation is alive and thriving almost 30 years later!).

Additionally, we embarked on a documentary project capturing the indomitable spirit of a young boy with cancer. When I graduated, I knew I wanted a job that would continue to fuel my curiosity, and allow me to explore all kinds of answers to those same questions.

However, being a young mother at 20, I also needed a well-paying job. So I thought, "What job will make me think creatively and pay well? Hmmm… advertising, I think!"

2. What's your favourite piece of work in your portfolio?

McDonald's Classroom. In 2020, the pandemic enforced strict lockdowns across the Philippines, and education swiftly shifted to online platforms.

That caught so many of our teachers unprepared and lacking adequate support. Our team began working with experts to develop a range of videos and online resources aimed at equipping and preparing teachers for distance teaching.

Around this same time, McDonald's asked us to think about how the brand could help its communities, even though the restaurants only offered delivery and drive-thru.

Having been so immersed in the plight of our teachers, we came up with 'McDonald's Classroom' – an idea that turned the restaurants' unused party rooms into clean and connected spaces for teachers to use for their distance classes.

Following a successful pilot in 2020, in 2021, McDonald's once again transformed unused party rooms into connected, quiet, sanitized spaces conducive to virtual learning at 249 locations across our archipelago.

McDonald's Classroom garnered numerous accolades, including Grand Prix / Best of Show distinctions at the Kidlat, Boomerangs, and Tambuli awards. It also received recognition at regional festivals, with shortlists and awards at esteemed events such as AdFest, the APAC Effies to LIA, and the Cannes Lions.

3. What's your favourite piece of work created by someone else?

I have always admired people who walk the talk, and that is embodied in one of my favourite campaigns I saw very early in my career: a film created to promote blood donations for the Red Cross.

It showed a real behind-the-scenes glimpse into the entire production team, including the director, cinematographer, the gaffers and even the caterer, all donating blood. 

This campaign remains one of the most potent creative pieces I've seen. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the film online despite my search, as I was exposed to it over 20 years ago.

4. Tell us about the worst job you ever had

I was a client for two weeks when I enjoyed planning a fashion show and then died trying to learn Excel as part of sales tracking and planning!

Thank goodness, I received a call from another agency shortly after and had such great chemistry with my interviewer, Leo Gonzales, who eventually became my mentor and the most beloved boss I've had!

5. How would your co-workers describe you?

I hoped to say "badass", but when I revisited some recent 360 reviews, recurring words were "inspiring, passion, energy, loving leadership." I guess that's good, too!

6. What would you do on your perfect day?

It would start in our farmhouse, PachaMama, with me reading in the early morning, hearing the birds. And then, I would spend time connecting with my family and friends who are hanging out in the different areas of the farm.

I would potter around our coffee harvest, checking on how the coffee cherries are drying, or do some work around our vegetable gardens.

Then I would cook a favourite dish like Beef Bourguignon or make a Mexican or Ilonggo (the province our families are from) spread with my best friend while drinking some wine, or my daughter Liv being my sous chef as I teach her the basics of cooking.

Then we would gather everyone and eat and trade stories around the table. I am deeply grateful to have days like that.

7. Tell us about an artist (any medium) that we've never probably heard of

13 Lucky Monkey, a collective of jewellery designers, artists, sculptors and motorcycle riders based in Manila. Their unique designs are available at Dover Street Market.

I own a couple of their pieces, including their signature skull rings and a commissioned He-Man and Battle Cat sculpture for my raised-in-the-80s husband – to this beautiful and profound sculpture made with rice and resin, a collaboration between 13 Lucky Monkey and the artist Poklong Anading.

 

 

 

 

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8. What food can you not live without, or what food would you be happy to never taste again?

As a Filipino, food is essential to my happiness. We are like Hobbits, eating five meals a day!

I cannot live without fresh seafood, simply grilled with rice and an iced cold beer, by a beach, after a swim. I invite everyone to the Philippine islands to partake in this joy!

9. Tell us about your tattoo(s)

I went to college at the Ateneo de Manila, a Jesuit university. There is a statue of St. Ignatius de Loyola there, founder of the Jesuit order, kneeling and offering up his sword to the heavens, and almost every year, his sword got stolen. At least, that was the story that went around.

More than 20 years later, while travelling in Barcelona, my best friend Joey introduced me to her Tita (Aunt) Rosa, who mentioned, "If I am not mistaken, St. Ignatius' sword is somewhere here in Barcelona.

I remember exclaiming a little too loudly: "The sword whose replica was annually filched back home? That sword?!"

We searched for St Ignatius' sword at the Sagrat Cor de Jesus. In the corner, by the roof of the church, looking at first like decorative curlicues, was a stack of letters – AMDG, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the motto of the Jesuits. Inside, we found him. His sword lay by his feet on a velvet cushion encased in glass. With tears in our eyes, we said our prayers in front of it.

It was such a decisive moment that when I returned to Manila, I approached my husband Joel Limchoc (art-based executive creative director-turned-film director), and asked him to design a tattoo inspired by the AMDG that I had seen during my Ignatian quest in Barcelona.

10. Tell us about a charity or cause you to think needs more attention

ARK Feedback is a community-wide vegetable exchange. Launched during the pandemic, it is a hunger solution that invites families to farm in their backyards and exchange their excess harvest with neighbours.

I love how the Filipino sense of community and innate spirit of fun is baked into the program. I sit on the board of this organisation, and in their last impact report, I saw an excess of 144,788 kilos of vegetables harvested and shared by the communities in just 12 weeks.

It's incredible how this program has proven that a one-time co-investment of $25 can secure a family's food for life.

11. Do you have a catchphrase?

Not so much a catchphrase but a way with words inspired by my addiction to Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the early 2000s.

I tend to turn nouns into adjectives by adding a "y". If Buffy said things like, "This is so Apocalypse-y", I might say, " Let's not do something so pharma-y".

I also swear a lot. I realised this when my team made a set of stickers inspired by me and the things I often say for my birthday, and so many of them had all kinds of colourful language.