Occupy

Half a year ago, I was talking about the indifference of people concerning societal and political issues. And that people don't have a lot to complain nowadays. A eurocrisis later, things have already changed. The occupy movement is now demonstrating in New York, London and Amsterdam. That's how fast things can change.

This movement actually comes from a group called Adbusters, a movement that started off with practical jokes in which they mess up billboards. But this movement is now operating on a more profound level, thinking of creative ways to spread their message worldwide. The goal of the occupy movement is to demonstrate against the greed of banks and other financial institutes.

Now I happen to be in favour of corporate greed, because this is exactly what keeps our society and economy sharp. We cannot expect that everybody gets the same because people in general are just not willing to go the extra mile if they don't get anything extra. Nevertheless, I think it's good that these demonstrations are there. It's important to raise discussion. In order to develop, a society, economy and politics must constantly question their beliefs. And steer in a new direction if necessary.

This weekend I was in my city of birth Alkmaar. There's also an Occupy Alkmaar movement with three tents standing on a square in front of the church. I don't know if that's going to help a lot, but I like the devotion of these pioneers.

Creative clients

Nowadays there's a trend for clients to (partly) make their own advertising. Some clients hire creatives to directly work for them. And some clients save costs by doing certain things in-house. Advertisers nowadays even talk about that this might be the 'future of advertising'.

One client at our agency executes their radiocommercials itself. We just need to write them and they do the rest. Yesterday I worked for a client who made a photograph itself. The photograph was horrible, even though it was made by a professional photographer. It was totally worthless to an extend that even the best Photoshop couldn't save it anymore.

One of my teachers from a concept course used to say "imagination is a muscle". Just like muscles, you need to keep on training your imagination. This means that a client, who makes creative work on the side can never be as good as an agency that is constantly busy making creative stuff. A creative cell that works directly within a company, that could work. But only if you hire top creatives who get the chance to work without interruption on creative assignments and get total freedom to make quality work. Google is a good example of a company understands what creativity is about. Almost all of the others will be better off to leave the creativity to the experts.

Well, history is repeating itself. About 10 years ago advertisers also thought they could do their own advertising. Most of these 'pioneers' of in-house advertising now hired an agency again.

Jung von Matt

It's been a while since my last post. That's because lately, I've had a lot of things on my mind. I'm busy working on my own website, which will be produced soon. And what's more: there's going to be a big change in my career.

It started a few months ago, when I got an e-mail from Romy, one of the recruiters. She asked me whether I'd be interested to work at Jung von Matt Hamburg. I told her that I was satisfied at my current agency, but that she can send through my work. And that if the creative directors are interested, I'm always willing to talk.

In the meantime I've been thinking a lot about working at my current agency Lemz. The first year it was great when I worked on the IKEA 365 campaign. It was a lot of work, but at least I had a consistent working flow and I learned a lot from all the shootings. But now that I'm working for different clients, I've noticed that the agency has a way of working that restrict me from making the work I really want and how I really want it. But if you look at the agency as a whole, they're still making very creative work here and client-wise they're doing very good. The thing is, that they will continue to do so and if I'm honest they don't need me for that.

And when I got an offer from one of the best agencies in the world, it set me to think. I would feel better in an environment where there are a lot of international creatives. With creative directors who are just as award hungry as I am. And what's important as well: my best friends from the Miami Ad School, Salvatore and Andres, are going to be my colleagues.

It's official now. Yesterday I sent the contract: from the 2nd of January I will work at Jung von Matt Hamburg.

Pink Ribbon

Actor Barry Atsma covered with packages

Finally, a new campaign is out. This time it's for Samsung/KPN/Pink Ribbon. Yes, three clients at the same time. Needless to say, that's asking for trouble. And it wasn't an easy project at all. But Luiz and I did all we could to make this project a success.

Pink Ribbon is an organisation that fights against breast cancer. Every year, they work together with Samsung and mobile phone provider KNP to release a Pink Ribbon-phone. This is a special edition smartphone with a pink cover. And of each phone sold, 10 euro will go to Pink Ribbon.

We let a famous actor be the face of the campaign. Barry Atsma is a Dutch actor who played in many films that are popular by women, one of them was a movie about cancer. In press releases and on television, we announced that Barry Atsma is going to get naked for Pink Ribbon. On the website, the actor is covered by packages and if you buy a phone, you can take away a package. If all goes well, the nude picture will be visible for everybody to see. And a lot of money will go to a good cause. You can see the campaign here.

Unfortunately, due to a logistic problem, the phones are not in the store yet. It will be released this week, but it's a week after the campaign started. It's unbelievable that we put all this effort in a campaign and somebody else fucks it up, which cost them a lot of potential clients. But the effect will probably be good anyway. The campaign almost got 3000 likes (which stands for an amount of wall posts that approximately half a million people will see) and the amount of PR around the nude picture is enormous. Let's wait and see.