In advertising we love to talk about big ideas, but rarely do we stop to consider what makes those ideas endure: the knowledge they generate. That collective intelligence —the mix of insights, experiments, failures and breakthroughs— is the true capital of a business that moves at the speed of light. The challenge is how to turn it into something alive, useful, and easy to access.

Darwin & Verne has delivered a powerful answer with Conversa efk, a new conversational platform built for Spain’s Premios Eficacia, (the country’s Effie-style effectiveness awards). This isn’t “just another chatbot.” It’s a step change: nearly three decades of campaigns, strategies, and data distilled into a natural-language experience that lets users talk with the history of Spanish advertising as if they were chatting with a brilliant colleague who remembers everything.

From static archive to living intelligence

For 28 years Premios Eficacia have chronicled the art and science of effective marketing. Thousands of cases, videos, insights and data once buried in annuals and PDFs are now unified, cleaned, and ready to talk back. The leap is more than technical; it’s strategic. Conversa efk shifts the awards’ archive from passive storage to active intelligence, ready to inspire creatives, planners, and marketers in real time.

A new language for knowledge

The magic lies in natural language. Built on a secure Microsoft Azure architecture and powered by a retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) system that feeds GPT exclusively with the awards’ own content, the platform delivers precise, context-rich answers in Spanish, English, or virtually any language. It even includes its own media viewer so users can pull up campaign videos, read summaries, or download assets without leaving the chat. It’s not a search engine; it’s a conversation partner that recognizes nuance and surfaces trends, analysis, and strategic recommendations.

Strategy before tactics

For Darwin & Verne, this project is more than an engineering feat —it’s a statement about technology serving creativity. “We set out to deliver knowledge, not just information”, says the team at Phileas, the agency’s AI unit. That ambition demanded careful data governance, a private Azure cloud instance, meticulous curation of more than 12,000 files, and a custom interface designed for frictionless exploration.

The result is a tool that speaks both the user’s language and the industry’s: accessible, secure, and most important, meaningful. True innovation isn’t about piling on tech layers; it’s about expanding the possibilities for thought and dialogue.

Tangible benefits, deeper impact

Conversa efk offers clear use cases —live access to winning campaigns, creative trend analysis, a participant’s guide to the competition, and institutional information. But its real value is cultural. By making decades of collective learning easy to explore, it raises the bar for the entire market and turns memory into a springboard for the future. Campaigns come and go; knowledge endures.

Launch with a wink

As a creative agency, Darwin & Verne naturally took the lead on the project’s positioning, messaging, and launch campaign, framing it under the slogan “When effectiveness speaks.” The agency produced a series of playful, fully AI-generated videos featuring well-known industry figures just about to speak out their trade secrets —a lighthearted nod to the idea of giving effectiveness a voice. The response has been so positive that several of those featured have asked for the clips to share on their own LinkedIn profiles, turning an inside joke into a wider conversation across the sector.

A blueprint for the industry

Beyond the awards, Conversa efk shows how brands and institutions can unlock vast reservoirs of knowledge and transform them into conversational experiences. In a world of infinite information and fleeting attention, providing natural, secure, multilingual interaction is not just a competitive edge —it’s a responsibility.

Leading the charge with Phileas, Darwin & Verne proves that artificial intelligence isn’t an end in itself. It’s a means to keep ideas talking, learning, and surprising us. Because campaigns come and go but knowledge remains. When effectiveness speaks, the industry listens.