Internet versus videostores

In a conversation with director Robert-Jan Vos last week, I admitted I usually watch movies online. If you're a prisoner of the laptop for 2 years during the Miami Ad School, there's no time (not to mention no money) to rent a movie at a videostore. And why should you, when all the movies can be seen online?

But recently I've changed my mind about that. Yesterday I wanted to see a particular movie (The Wrestler by Darren Aranofsky). I didn't want to see it in low resolution, I didn't want to search for a streaming video slot that's actually working and I didn't want to see it with Chinese subtitles. And because I once accidently trashed my harddisk with malware, I also gave up on downloading.

So I went to a videostore. There's one right around my corner. A small one. With a lot of cult movies. In the two years that I've lived there, this is the first time I actually rent a movie there (!). When I entered the store and passed the wall with the latest DVD's, I immediately remembered what's so good about old fashioned videostores. You can flip through all the movies. You can touch them. Read about them. Be surprised at a movie that you've never seen or that you forgot. And there's somebody at the counter who is clearly a bigger movie freak than you are and you can ask them about good movies.

In the 80's the videostores got big problems because people watched the movies on pirate TV channels. Until people realized that changing your antenna to watch a movie with static isn't the most pleasant movie night. With internet it's the same. As downloading is getting more difficult and time consuming, going to a videostore is suddenly more attractive again. It's easier, safer and let's not forget... more honest.

Week in Holland and back again

A great view on the canals of Amsterdam


My cousin Bart and I at a Christmas party

Spending some time with your friends and family makes you realize the true meaning of Christmas: eating together and drinking too much alcohol. This means going to a family party, going to the pub, and ending up at an afterparty at somebody's apartment. Only when the owner of the apartment was so drunk that he fell over a table, dragging along cd's and records in his fall, my girlfriend and I realized it was time to go home.

The cold weather and the snow outside made it very convenient to stay in the warm bed. I understand bears really well for sleeping through the winter. Yes, I've been lazy as hell this vacation, but that's what vacation is for. The only thing that was a little bit related to work was meeting director Robbert-Jan Vos in Amsterdam. But there's not a lot of pressure in drinking beer and talking about avertising. After Alkmaar I went back to Antwerp to celebrate the new year.

Despite sometimes enjoying a glass too many, I've had a good rest. And my new year's resolution is to make something totally awesome before I leave Duval Guillaume. And to party a bit less... No, just kidding.

Christmas crap

I've never been a big fan of Christmas. It reminds me of coldness, cheesy decorations and being nice to each other not because it comes from the heart but because you're supposed to. Non-profit organisations realize that Chrismas makes people hypocrites and that's why during this time there's more advertising for charity than ever.

Considering my opinion about this, you can't imagine how bored I was by seeing the Christmas speech of Queen Beatrix, the queen of Holland. She talked about how social networks like Facebook and Hyves are a bad development because it keeps people on a distance and makes people too individual. After that she made a plead for more personal contact.

I understand how much value our Dutch queen has for the PR-value of our country, but a woman who's so old that she's got one foot in the grave should think twice about giving an opinion about new media and the social role it plays in our society. Since I left Holland, instant messaging, social networks and this blog were the only means to stay in contact with my friends and family. Yes, it's more superficial than seeing my friends for real. But thanks to the internet, I stayed in touch with most of them and I could make appointments with them even before I went to Holland.

And our majesty also neglects the good impact of social networks on society. Millions of people all over the world are now connected to each other. They talk to each other, discuss with each other and learn about each other's culture and language. And despite having less time, youngsters nowadays stay more in contact with their friends than ever.

But maybe Beatrix wants us all to go back to the 80's, when people turned into couch potatoes to watch television in their spare time. When we needed to get along with our neighbours. Not because we wanted to but because we were supposed to because they're our neighbours. Far friendships slowly died and people were dependent on their local environment. It was an autistic society compared to now.

Unless you're a total geek, I think everybody understands that nothing beats personal contact. I also understand that and that's why I go back to Holland today. I'm going to have dinner with my parents and drink a few beers with my friends. Because no matter how much I dislike Christmas, this time of the year is a good reason for a party. In my opinion, people should party and enjoy each other's company more. Not only during Christmas, but the whole year through.

Brussels - Hamburg - Berlin

Bear statues at the main station of Berin

What was originally meant as a fun vacation, ended up as being a fun and useful (not to mention necessary) vacation. Last week I had several appointments at agencies during the day, in both Hamburg and Berlin. And during the night I was seduced by the bright lights of the many bars and clubs that make Hamburg a city that rocks.

I can't say that this trip made my decision easier. In fact, the interesting talks at the several agencies and the fact that Hamburg is my favorite city of them all, makes the dilemma bigger than ever. One thing's for sure: I'm going to speak either more French or more German in my next job.

Highlights of the week: seeing my good friends Salvatore and Andres again, going to the Miami Ad School, meeting headmaster Niklas and my former teammate Hannah again, buying a new woolen hat at the St. Pauli fanstore, going for a small drink with former schoolmate Kanak and ending up totally wasted. And last but not least: seeing my former teacher Dennis Lueck playing drums in a punk band.

Goodbye Marton

Another Miami Ad School quarter has ended, another intern leaves. On Friday I said goodbye to Marton Jedlicska, who has been my art director for the last 2,5 months. When I first saw his portfolio, I expected a lot from him and he totally matched those expectations. Together with him I made three things that ended up on the best of-wall in the agency and next week a TV-commercial is going to be shot. That's a really good score, considering we had to plough through really shitty briefings in the beginning.

He has been the last intern before I leave Duval Guillaume. I'm leaving because I want to work with a permanent teampartner, but that doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy working with Miami Ad School interns. In fact, from all of them I learned a lot. I profited from getting the knowledge of the freshest Miami Ad School-students while working on real briefings. This also has its disadvantages. Because in an agency you're never seen as a full team. So every time I had to prove all over again that we can handle the big briefs. Of course you can argue that every briefing is another chance to make good work. This is true, but having to do the tough jobs without getting the 'cherries on the cake' is something that doesn't make you happy.

Marton is one of the creatives of whom I'm sure he's going to be very successful. Besides being a very good creative, he's also a really nice person to work with. He has the tendency to be stubborn, but he never tries to push his ideas. Instead he keeps on looking for that one concept that is so good you can't argue about it. And the incredible thing is, this was only his first internship so who knows how he's going to develop in his final three quarters. I wish Marton a lot of success in his next, well deserved internship at Sapient/Nitro New York.

Hype

In the 80's it was the bomb and acid rain. In the 90's the UV-rays were going to kill us all because the ozone layer was disappearing. In our decennium it's the GLOBAL WARMING.

I put these last words in big capitals because that's how people talk about it. Sincere, with the same tone you'd talk about some evil god. And that's what I think is wrong with it. The global warming issue starts to go from a well meant set of measures to improve the quality of daily life to a religion. And Al Gore is Jesus.

Of course even I can't deny that the earth is warming up. But let's see first what exactly our place in the universe is. We are living on the earth. The sun and the circulation of our tiny planet around this enormous ball of plasma has the biggest influence on our climate. The sun is 120 times bigger than the earth. The largest known star is 1900 times as big as our sun. See this scary video here to see how small we are. To me, it's absurd and downright arrogant to think that humans are responsible for changes on such large scale. We are small organisms, micro-bacteria. It would be like saying that ants can bring down a skyscraper. Climate change is such a complicated process, to say humans are mainly responsible is just too simple. The universe continues to puzzle even the brightest scientists. But anybody who's seen 'An Inconvenient Truth' thinks he's all of a sudden an expert about global warming.

And climate change has become business. Eco jeans, recycled handbags, eco-tax, bio food, fairtrade, sustainable packaging, energy saving lightbulbs; everybody seems to jump on the bandwagon of global warming. Nowadays it's so easy to be correct. You don't need to donate anymore to the third world, just eat a fair-trade banana. And science seems to be profitable as well. Just say you're going to investigate global warming and you get so much support that you're employed for at least ten years and live like a king.

Could it be that we're just afraid of getting extinct and we hang on to every little thing that still gives us hope? It won't be much different than believing that gods can protect us against natural disasters. Maybe we should let go of the idea that humans are going to be there forever, because that's scientifically impossible. And what did we ever deserve to be there forever? Humans are responsible for wars, torturing animals, the extinction of animals. Oh, and one part of the world is eating a burger sandwich and the other part is starving from hunger. Maybe global warming is just the earth's antibiotics to kill the bacteria that gives him a nasty flu.

But of course humans are survivors. And therefore we think that a climate conference in Copenhagen is going to make a difference. Should we just give up then? No, I think we should know our limits before the hype is going too far. And maybe we should focus on treating all inhabitants of the earth with more respect so that the human race truly deserves to survive.

Agency hopping

I'm not the jobhopping type. Actually, I'm very dedicated as soon as I start to work for an agency. But sometimes you have to draw your conclusions... So recently I'm hopping from one appointment to the other, while dragging my portfolio with me.

I remember the first times I went to agencies to get an intership, about 10 years ago. I had a huge portfolio under my arm. Countless times I went from Alkmaar to Amsterdam by train and then by bus. On the way to the agency I looked whether the scribbles I made are still straight in the plastic sleeves. Every trip I was hopeful: will this be the agency where I can do an internship? By the time I found the right address I was shivering from the cold. With a mixture of admiration and relief I entered the doors of the agency. I also remember how big the disappointment was when they didn't give me the internship. Or worse, when the creative director didn't have time and his secretary came to say sorry and to make a new appointment. And I made the new appointment. Without complaining. Because every chance is another one.

This week I've had a few appointments. I put my portfolio in a small DJ-bag. By train I went to places I've never been, stations I've never seen. Some trainstations were so small and dark that it makes a bus platform look big. It almost made me want to hold up my arm to signal the driver of the train to stop. On the road there I felt a bit like that young, aspiring creative again. Hurried, hopeful, cold. The only difference is that there are no more confused frowns from creative directors when they look at my work. No more well meant advice on my book to compensate for the fact that they don't want to offer me a job. Just compliments every time a page is turned.

To all young dogs out there: it's a long road... But the porfolio is getting lighter and the people are getting nicer.

Exit politics

Somehow, just being creative isn't enough if you want to break trough in advertising. Politics inside of the agency seems to be just as important. How to deal with the clients and account directors in a diplomatic way, how to make sure the next big campaign assigment is coming your way, how to delegate photographers, directors, designers and retouchers. Above all, the creative business is a human business.

As soon as the news is out that somebody leaves, the politics become a whole different ball game. The rules change. You're not getting the big assigments anymore because there might be a chance that you cannot fulfill the entire execution phase. Moreover, there are other teams waiting for a cool assignment. On the other hand, your workload also gets less. You get little shitty assignmenst that nobody else wants to do and if you just do your job, nobody bothers you too much so you'll have a peaceful last few months in the agency. It feels like you become invisible...

And that's something that doesn't work for me. Especially not while I'm still working with a Miami Ad School student who has brilliant ideas. So this week, when I heard that we were put off a big assigment and got a small briefing to write headlines instead, I immideately ran upstairs to ask what is going on. I assured everybody that we have enough time for the headlines and the big assignment. I don't know how long I'm still in the agency, but I know one thing for sure: I'll be working my ass off until the last second I'm there. Even if it means I have to prove myself over and over again.

Leaving Duval

It was almost a month ago... I was drinking a beer with Roel and Wietse, two Dutch creatives who are working at TBWA Brussels. While I was talking to them about the agency, I had a moment of clarity that even the wine and beer couldn't mess up: I'm going to make plans to move to another agency. All of a sudden I was really sure and I told my Dutch friends about it. I'm going to leave Duval Guillaume Brussels.

Once I have something in my mind, I'm going to do it and I won't look back. It doesn't seem like a decision that you make spontaneously while drinking a beer but of course it's just the end of a long process. For 1 year I've been working without a permanent teampartner. Instead, I've worked with an intern from the Miami Ad School every quarter. Which has been good, because all of the interns could work just as good as a senior creative. But recently I started to miss working with a permanent teampartner and there's no budget to hire an art-director at Duval. I think it's still a brilliant agency, but at the moment it's not the right place for me.

So these last month I was looking for a job again. I'm improving work, selecting work, sending e-mails to agencies and headhunters, updating my resume, making a presentation and I've also contacted a former teampartner. And because I want to make sure I'm going to end up at an agency that's right for me, I'm going to look all over Europe and especially in Germany. Most of the agencies and creative directors give me a reaction back, which proves that the days that I have to do crazy stunts to get into an agency are definitely over. Instead, my resume and portfolio are enough to give an agency a clear idea of what I stand for.

I don't know which country I will go to. But before packing my bags, I'm going to see first what Belgium has to offer. At the moment, I'm talking to a few agencies that I admire and believe in, most of them are interactive agencies. Which doesn't mean I'm not open to traditional agencies. I will take any offer seriously. No matter which agency or which country it's in.

It's an exciting time. Is my life going to make another 180 degree turn?

Night of the Station

The wristband we got at the entrance of the party

Let's talk about an agency I admire. It's a Swedish agency called FarFar. It is known for its excellent online campaigns. But they claim they're not an interactive agency. On their website they say: "we provide the audience with entertainment in exchange for their sacrifice of time in the relevant presence of a brand. Mind you it's not 'branding', it's 'liking'".

I think they understood very well how advertising should be. People have less and less time so why would anyone take time to see your ad? Going to the bathroom is already more entertaining than the average commercial break I see on television.

This weekend I was entertained. There was an excellent party in Antwerp called the 'night of the station'. There were DJ's playing in a unique location: the train station itself. We had to go down escalators to arrive on the dancefloor, which was located in a hall between the train tracks, about 30 meters below. Now that's what I call an underground party. 

But the party wasn't exactly underground in the figurative way of speaking. It was totally sponsored. The railroad company organised the parties as a tool to recruit new employees. At least, that's what I read before in the newspapers about the event. One problem is that in Belgium the railroad employees have an even lower status than a garbage man. One of the main reasons is that there are morons working around the trains (see this earlier article). I was afraid that they would probably put flyers in our hands to show how great it is to work for the public transport. Or maybe they'd put posters everywhere or shout radiocommercials during the DJ-sets? But I saw or heard nothing of that during the evening. It was just a great party.

So how did they reach the people they need? This morning I took a good look at the wristband that they put on at the entrance and there it was: "Looking for a job?" and after that the URL to the website. It's as simple as that. You're not bothering people into going to the website. They just let people have a good time inside of the station and the next morning they read about the job offer. Not advertising, but entertainment. The only flaw in this campaign is the integration: their jobsite is boring as hell. That's a bit of a hangover after being successfully 'brand-ertained'.

Production line

What's nice about living in a new country is that you have vacations that you don't know of. Yesterday the office was closed and I could enjoy a nice day of doing nothing. The disadvantage is that in an agency a day off isn't exactly a day off.

That's because for today we have a few very strict deadlines. Which means we have to think of an idea for one project and we have only 2 hours. And then we have to work on the other project and we have only 2 hours. I get phonecalls and e-mails all the time from people who are in panic because an idea should be presented in a few hours over the e-mail.

I'm not sure how to cope with stupid deadlines like that. I don't know whether these deadlines are there because people fail to make a proper planning or because there are not enough creatives available to do the work. I just know that I'm not going to panic. We'll just plan in our time very well and see what comes out of it. I'm not a production line in a factory of ideas.

'Easy' clients

Another week of concepting. The presentation for the client last week went surprisingly well. Which doesn't mean anything will be made, is my experience ;-) One of my commenters wondered why a client like that is going to Duval Guillaume. It's a good question.

The thing is: at every creative agency there are always clients that doesn't belong there. Even at Saatchi New York there were clients for whom everybody abandons all hope. Moreover, these uncreative, annoying clients are usually good for half of the profit. Giving up on making creative work for those clients is not an option for me. Because the fact is, for one of these 'difficult clients' two of our best creatives made a radiocommercial that won a Cannes Lion last year.

The prejudice about super creative agencies is that there are only easy clients who want award winning work. But the award winning work is just a tip of the iceberg. In my opinion, the difference between clients in an agency like DGB and an agency like McCann-Ericksson (which, when I started there was known as the worst agency of Holland) is minimal. The only difference is that the employees at Duval Guillaume are better. Most of them -whether they work creation, account or planning- are fanatics who live for their job. In an environment like this, you must make the best work possible for every assignment (or at least try).

Doomed

Working for some clients is doomed from the start. I mean, any reasonable client hires a creative agency to actually make creative work. But after being in an agency for a while you start to notice which clients are not so reasonable.

This week Marton and I have worked on a doomed-from-the-start-client. "Well, every brief is another chance", the optimists would say. I agree on that, but in two years this particular client has killed all the ideas that are smarter than using a stock picture of a happy family and a headline with a special offer. Let's face it...not a chance.

How do Marton and I deal with such a client? Stubborn as we are, we force ourselves to make only good, creative work for them. So tomorrow 6 foamboards with perfectly comped, low-budget, but creative ambient ideas go to the client. We believe we can make outstanding work for this client. But we don't believe we can ever produce such work for them.

Bank bankrupt

I'm living in Belgium for almost two years now. I've never been the homesick type so I'm already getting well adjusted to the Belgian culture. I have a girlfriend here, a group of friends and I can't avoid picking up a bit of a Flemish accent (which is always good for a laugh when I'm back in Holland). Only in the morning I have the habit of watching the news program from Holland. I don't know why but somehow it feels trusted to hear the dialect of the country where I was born. After all, I've lived there for 29 years. 

Lately the news in Holland hasn't been very positive. Half of the news program is filled with the bankruptcy of a really big investment bank called DSB. For some reason the Dutch economy suffers more from the recession than in any other country and this bankruptcy comes on top of that. I've heard that the impact on the total economy is not that big, but still... over 1300 employees are on the street and a lot of investors can forget about their money. Which is very sad to say the least.

It seems that Belgium is already stabilizing from the recession. At the moment I'm working with Marton on a campaign for a new financial product. This weekend I'll go back to Alkmaar again. And although I'm not homesick, I do miss the little city in the North of Holland so I'm looking forward to it.

Killing deadlines

Okay, last week I wanted to make an easy start, but that didn't quite work out. It's no secret anymore that the crisis also hit my my agency and that a lot of people have left. Now there seems to be too much work that has to be made by too few people and deadlines are getting tighter and tighter. And not only the creatives, but the entire staff is affected by the rising workload.

So every day when I left the agency at a reasonable time, there was always somebody who called me for some last-minute assignment. And because every assignment is another chance to make something good, I accept the challenge and start to think of ideas in the train and at home. This evening I started scribbling in my sketchbook while I was drying my laundry in the laundromat.

It's a bit like keeping your balance on a rope and I'm getting more and more luggage every time. I'm still standing, but I'm afraid that at any moment something can go wrong. Maybe sometimes it's better to take things a little bit less seriously, like in this educational video.

Finish in time

It's hard to judge an art-director by his first few days, but until now it's been really good to work with Marton. He works hard and he has a good no-nonsense mentality. The way things are going now, it would be a lot of bad luck if we don't produce any good work this quarter.

After my vacation I've decided to take it a little bit easier with working in the evening. It is no use to work yourself to death because people simply cannot be creative 24/7. It's impossible. If you're lucky you have a total of three really bright, creative hours a day. The rest of the time is spent photoshopping, reviewing, waiting for people to show up at the review, trying to think, looking for inspiration on the internet and banging your head against the wall because a deadline is near and you don't have anything.

I believe that working hard is paying off in the end, but my strategy is to work hard within the office hours. Although our deadlines doesn't make it easy for us to leave before seven. Today I'm still in the office until late, but that's because for some strange reason I don't have internet at home anymore. Trying to solve it means that I have to plough trough the 'callcentre-puzzle'. If you type in the right options, you can speak to an actual human. I'm afraid it will take a while before I have internet again. Internet providers don't have deadlines.

Inspiration

My vacation is over and my new teammate, a Hungarian MAS-student called Marton Jedlicska, hasn't arrived yet so my first working week has started really easy-going. This gives me a good opportunity to finally see all the ads on Ads of the World that I've missed and to look on inspiring websites such as this one and this one.

Talking about inspiration, the week after Italy I finally had some time to see movies, go to the theatre, do some sports, go to a market and spend time with my friends and my girlfriend. In other words: I had time to enjoy a normal life. The importance of this is often forgotten when you spend an average of 12 hours a day in the agency.

One of the most impressive things I've seen last week was a standup comedian/vocal artist called Michael Winslow. He played the cop who mimics sounds in the Police Academy movies. His standup comedy show was so good it's scary. Here you can see him doing an impersonation of Jimi Hendrix, both the guitar and the singing (!).

Also very impressive, but less cheerful is the movie Antichrist. The opinions about this movie vary, but I think the movie is a masterpiece. Danish director Lars von Trier has made what is called by some journalists 'the most shocking movie in the history of the Cannes film festival'. I've seen more shocking movies. But the dark art-direction, the suspenseful sounddesign, and the psychologically engaging script combined with some disturbing scenes that won't leave your mind for days will guarantee to get you out of the cinema with a pale face. The feeling you get from this movie is truly unique but I can imagine that not everybody will enjoy this trip through the dark side of the human mind. The faint-hearted and people who don't feel to well mentally should avoid seeing this movie.

Excitement in Italy and Antwerp

Giulio, Stefani, Hermanno, me and Francesca

A robbery at a pharmacy in my neighbourhood

Of course when I said in my last post I was just going to drink cappucino and sit on the beach, I was exaggerating a lot. So when I met Hermanno the first day in Italy he told me: "What do you mean, drinking cappucino and sit on the beach, we've got a lot to do". I reassured him that I only wrote that for stilistic purposes. So I wasn't at all surprised that on the first day we went to an Iron Maiden coverband, and that all the other days we went somewhere every night to get a drink, go to bands, watch Italian soccer matches and to meet new people.

What I love about Italy is that people know how to enjoy life. Smoking, eating, drinking alcohol or lying on your bed to take a rest in the afternoon are things that are not exactly encouraged in Northern Europe. Maybe it's because there it's socially more acceptable to work yourself to death. After weeks of working non-stop in Brussels, I felt that I really needed to spend some time in Italy. And spending time in the quiet surroundings of Serre and the vivid city of Salerno was as good as I expected. And the last few days in the exciting city of Rome was the perfect way to end a great vacation.

I'm still enjoying one week of vacation in which I e-mail to people, clean up my house, buy new clothes, watching movies and looking for new inspiration on the internet and in Antwerp. Yesterday, while I was drying my clothes at the laundromat, I heard a few big explosions. At first I thought some kids played with fireworks. But when I saw a woman running in panic in the laundromat and when I saw an army of policemen blocking the streets outside, I realized that something must have happened. At the end of the street where I was in, there was a robbery at a pharmacy and the robber was shot to death by the police. Here you can read the article in Dutch. I don't think the excitement can get any bigger this vacation. If I survive all the parties this weekend I'm going back to work on Monday.

Back to Italy

After two crazy weeks I finally have vacation. It's funny how your body suddenly adjusts to that. In just two days it's going in lazy-mode. I feel tired even though I've slept about 9 hours. It seems that all the exhaustion that I didn't have time for while I was working, comes out now.

But tomorrow morning I'm going to Italy. As I said in my last post, I will meet my good friend Hermanno. He's a friend of Salvatore and I shared an apartment with him when I was in Sweden. And that is also the last time I've seen him (almost 2,5 years ago!). I even wrote a post about when he left, and you can read it here.

I'm not going to do anything in Italy except for drinking cappuccino and sitting at the beach, so after 2 weeks you can read a post about Italy here.

Goodbye Hannah

Sunday, after spending the weekend partying in Brussels, I brought my teampartner Hannah to the station. Her internship at Duval Guillaume is over and she's going to do the last quarter of the Miami Ad School in Hamburg.

Hannah was the surprise of the year. She's only 21 years, had no experience in advertising before and yet... she proved to be one of the best teampartners I've ever worked with.

It's hard to say what made us such a good team. The fact is that you can never tell what makes a good team. You can bring two award winning creatives together to form a super team and it still is no guarantee that it works. In the case of Hannah I think it's the opposites that work: my experience and her fresh view on advertising, my assertiveness that sometimes is necessary and her ability to actually listen to people.

But whatever it was, it works. In just 2,5 months I've made better work than in the first half year. And a huge European campaign is about to be produced. Besides all that, Hannah is great to work with and everybody in the agency would love to see her back someday. Whatever her plans are after her graduation, I'm sure that she'll have a great career ahead of her.

And I finally have a vacation. Today I woke up comfortably late, the only thing I did so far was cleaning my house and looking at a documentary about Charles Manson. The last few weeks I've worked day and night so I'm going to enjoy a well deserved rest. And on Wednesday I'll leave for Italy to see my good friend Hermanno again.

Different

Remco, husband of Rosalyn, between cans

Another happy couple at the monkey park

On Saturday I went to the wedding of Remco and Rosalyn, two friends of mine. I was there when they first met each other at a party in Paradiso, Amsterdam. Seven years later they still can stand each other and decided to get married.

Instead of having a usual marriage in a church with a priest, they decided to do things differently. More modern, if you can call it that way. It was at a farm next to a forest and the ceremony took place in the evening. In a circle of candles they performed several mystical rituals with Celtic music on the background. It was unlike any wedding ceremony I've ever seen. In the beginning it was a bit strange, but it was refreshing to see that two people made their wedding promise in such an original way.

The next day I went to the 'apenheul', a famous monkey park in Holland. This park is different than any Dutch zoo because the monkeys are running freely to the park, among all the visitors. No fences or walls, they're so close that you can almost touch the monkeys and you have to wear monkey-free bags so the little critters can't steal anything. Only the more dangerous apes, like the gorilla's, are safely on an island.

In the beginning of Apenheul, in 1971, the idea of a park where monkeys are running freely was considered insane by the other zoos. But the founder Wim Mager believed in the idea and it resulted in one of the most popular and most animal friendly zoos in Holland.

Doing something different might sound as a risk in the beginning, but being different is actually the only way to go a step further. And afterwards the risks are never as big as you thought they were. No matter if it's about an animal park, a wedding or advertising, if you're different you'll stand out. Albert Einstein was right when he said: "if at first an idea doesn't sound absurd, there's no hope for it".