Robin Stam

Goodye

2011-12-29T16:35:00.002+01:00

Saying goodbye to Jeffrey, the guy who presents the movie evening at the Nieuwe Anita. Saying goodbye to Marcos, my Brazillian Jiu Jitsu teacher who helped me improve my fighting skills even more. Saying goodbye to my colleagues from Lemz. Saying goodbye to Luiz, the art-director with whom I continuously struggled to make the best work possible. Saying goodbye to my friends. Saying goodbye to my sister and my parents in Alkmaar...

Of course I'm not going to travel to the other side of the planet. But some people I'm not going to see for a long time and that's always hard. But I kind of got used to saying goodbye now. It's getting easier all the time. And tomorrow it's goodbye Amsterdam. I've had a great time in this awesome city. Tomorrow a moving company will bring me to Hamburg, where I'll work for Jung von Matt in the new year.

Saying goodbye is hard, but it's necessary to leave things behind in order to get new experiences. That's why I've decided, after 6 years, to say goodbye to this blog. Instead, I've made an account on Twitter and I'll start with it the 2nd of January, when I start at my new agency Jung von Matt. My Twitter-name is @robinstamcopy. Feel free to subscribe. Or add me on Facebook. I wish everybody a happy new year and lots of positive changes for 2012.

Visiting Hamburg

2011-12-06T15:33:00.002+01:00

It's been half a year since I last visited Hamburg. But when you walk there knowing that you're going to live there again, you look at it in a different way. I had this funny feeling that I was walking in a trusted environment. A place that I already know. I was reading a book in the tram, as if I've lived there for years. Cause I know that in less than a month Hamburg will be my hometown again.

I'm in Hamburg since Saturday. I got the keys to my new apartment and I've met my new art-director Eric van den Hoonaard, with whom I'm going to spend lots of hours concepting when I start working at JvM. On top of that, I've met up with all the friends that stayed in Hamburg since they gradutated Miami Ad School. And yesterday I even had a drink with Armando Bertolini, who's now living in Berlin but who's visiting Hamburg for a week.

These last few days were a small snippet of how my daily life in Hamburg is going to be. And it's nothing new to me. Except for one thing...when I walked in Jung von Matt to meet my new creative directors, I could already feel that this is where the adventure will start. Yes, I've had classes at Jung von Matt before, but working there and proving that you're worth the salary that you get, is a whole different ballgame.

My good friend Salvatore told me this week that creatives should always go for the agency, regardless of the city that the agency is in. I think he's right. I'm leaving a beautiful city where I have a lot of friends (Amsterdam) to go to another beautiful city where I have a lot of friends (Hamburg). In my mind, it doesn't feel like a big change. But I'm pretty sure the agency is going to make all the difference.

Goodbye Lemz

2011-12-01T20:41:00.003+01:00

Me toasting with creative director Remco

It's kind of a tradition for creatives on their last day to take all sorts of useful stuff from the agency: yearbooks that were lying around anyway, a tape dispenser, pens, USB-sticks, markers, an award that you won but nobody would find out if it were missing, marker. It's the last chance to take stuff in a way that doesn't really look like stealing. But because I have to put all my possesions in moving boxes that will go to Hamburg at the end of December, I didn't really feel the need to have any more stuff.

Wednesday it was my last day and I got the best two goodbye gifts ever. In the afternoon we heard that Lemz won 4 Epica awards and the IKEA 365 campaign was good for silver. This epic amount of Epica's put Lemz on the second place of Holland at that festival (Wieden & Kennedy was first). And in the evening, we heard that IKEA 365 won another silver, this time at the Eurobest festival. Finally recognition for a campaign that cost us blood, sweat and tears (and I mean that literally).

These last days I realized even more than I already did that I'm leaving a great agency with wonderful people. But this can't make me regret my decision. It only confirms me that I got the most out of my time at Lemz. My decision to go to Jung von Matt was not a rational one. I have the feeling that I should be there. I follow my heart, and somehow it leads me back to Hamburg.

The end of charity

2011-11-25T13:37:00.003+01:00

You never know what the outcome of a campaign is going to be. Creative work only is not a guarantee for success. It helps, but anything can still happen. The distribution of the products, the prize, the PR around the brand, trends, the salesmen and unforeseen influences can make or break the success of a campaign. For our Samsung/Pink Ribbon campaign, we had the bad luck that the phone wasn't in the store at the beginning of the campaign and thereby it lacked the kickstart that was so thoroughly planned with good PR-moments.

But now another unforeseen event threatens the course of the campaign. Recently, there's a lot of bad publicity around the anti-cancer organisation Pink Ribbon. The organisation mainly gets their money from sponsored initiatives by consumers and companies. All sorts of Pink Ribbon products are on the market. And only a small percentage of these revenues actually ends up at the charity organisation. Action groups are against this form of selling, saying that companies make use of the good name of Pink Ribbon and only sponsor it to make more money.

I think that you cannot blame an organisation like Pink Ribbon for this. They could have controlled the tidal wave of pink products a bit more, but they just see it as a smart way to get the hardly needed money for cancer research. Because how else are you going to get money? Nowadays, asking people nicely to donate isn't working anymore. Charities need to do something extra. That's why these annoying students walk around with a ringbinder at the stations to talk people into giving their bank account number. That's pure hard selling. Another way is to give something extra to people in return. A nice gift in trade for your donation; a magazine in trade for your membership.

But the most money is in the hands of the big corporations right now. If part of their revenue goes to charity and everybody is getting better from it, why not? In the case of the Pink Ribbon campaign: the counter is now on €100.000,- for the Pink Ribbon foundation, there's a lot of extra publicity to bring breast cancer under the attention of a broad audience, Samsung sells more phones and women are happy to have a nicely designed pink smartphone. I can't think of anything wrong with that. I think some people just can't accept that giving to charity is not an unconditional thing anymore.

Last days

2011-11-23T18:02:00.003+01:00

Last days are always strange. My last days at McCann-Erickson were incredibly boring because they refused to give us any work for about half a year. My last days at Duval Guillaume was killing because they put my to work until the last minute.

My last days at Lemz are a bit in between. I actually enjoy every minute of it now that I'm still here. Yesterday the magnificent view over the river was blurred by a thick fog, which made all the passing ships look like huge moving shadows. Today it was sunny again. The windows at Lemz are like a TV screen with a different program every day.

Less exciting is the work I have to do lately. It's not very busy and I'm just finishing the execution of a small campaign. And sometimes I get a small copy assigment. So I usually stop working before 6 o'clock, so I can go to Jiu Jitsu or watch a movie. The clock is ticking. Just 5 working days to go...

Tomorrow Awards

2011-11-16T22:46:00.005+01:00

Do we really need another award show? In a time when the amount of Cannes Lion categories grow every year, when some agencies win 30 Clio's a year, when you even win awards you never heard of, it seems that the last thing the business needs is another award show.

So when my creative director Peter wanted to send in for the Tomorrow Awards, I was a bit sceptic. Until I looked at their website. The winners are among the most innovative campaigns that already won a lot of Cannes Lions. The most prominent agencies in the world send in for it. And if you look further you see that this award is actually something new. There are no categories. And the shortlist is decided by public judges first (everybody with an interest for advertising can subscribe) and after that by the experts (so called monster judges). Even the award itself is interesting: it's made with a 3D printer. And there are only five winners every half a year. This is an award you really want to win.

That's why I was really happy to hear that the IKEA 365 campaign was on the shortlist. And another campaign of Lemz, the KLM Live Twitter, was nominated as well. This small Amsterdam agency was there with two entries among agencies like CP&B, BBH and AKQA. Yesterday I went to the award show. And for the first time I didn't have the feeling that I was watching a marathon of people running to the stage. It was presented in an entertaining and engaging way, there were interesting speakers and the level of the winners was so high, that I wasn't even disappointed that I wasn't one of the lucky ones that could go on stage.

NUON Bad service

2011-11-10T12:55:00.004+01:00

I'm typing this blog at home with cold fingers. For already two weeks my heater is broken and I'm waiting for the repairman to fix this problem. It was already a hell to get this appointment. My landlord is insured at energy company NUON for failure of the heater and the repair company (Veenstra Warmte Totaal) tried every trick in the book to make sure that they don't have to visit my house. Yesterday I exaggerated by saying I'm in the house with my coat, that the boiler is giving all sorts of numbers and that something needs to happen before it gets colder.

Now I'm waiting for already five hours and nobody came. Twice, I had to call a number that costs 1 euro 50 a minute and all they say is that the repairman is on his way. How can a responsible energy company like NUON and Veenstra do this to its clients? Bad service is the surest way to kill all brand sympathy.

Occupy

2011-10-31T11:19:00.002+01:00

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

2011-10-20T19:21:00.003+02:00

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

2011-10-14T15:33:00.002+02:00

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

2011-10-02T18:01:00.003+02:00

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.

Warschau

2011-09-19T21:34:00.002+02:00

Great video by Remi Gaillard

It seems that very popular destinations nowadays are Indonesia, Thailand or Ibiza. Now I've never been to any of these destinations, but I don't think those would be vacations for me. I'd rather scatter my vacation days and go for long weekends to interesting cities and enjoy the nightlife. I like to mee the people like they are for real. Not the people who are polite because you're a tourist with money.

And because I know a lot of people from the Miami Ad School, I have quite a good network with people from abroad where I can stay. This weekend I went to Warschau, Poland to meet my former teampartner Yigit. The last time I've seeen Yigit was three years ago when I said goodbye to him in Cinema Nova Brussels.

This weekend it was as if nothing had changed (except for the location of course, which was Warschau instead of Brussels so it's a big improvement). We went partying like we always did and came home at 7.30 in the morning on both Friday and Saturday. Being in a city where you don't understand one single word of what people are saying, was kind of strange to me. But it was also very interesting.

And the drinking culture that everybody thinks that Polish people have, well...it's completely true. On Friday, before we went to all sorts of clubs, we passed a bar that I could only describe as the 'MacDonalds of alcohol'. It was a round bar at a corner, full of people. And it was totally stuffed with people who ordered drinks. There was nothing else to do there. No dancing, no talking, just ordering your wodka or beer and drink it.

As if Warschau wasn't interesting enough already, Yigit told me about an incredible amount of movies, bands and DJ's that I certainly need to check. One of the things he told me about was a French guy called Remi Gaillard, who does all sorts of Jackass stuff and puts it on the internet (see the funny video above). It was a rich, inspiring, but exhausting weekend. Relaxing vacations on the beach are not for me I guess.

Visiting old colleagues

2011-09-15T16:03:00.004+02:00

Yes, the writing for this blog is scarce nowadays. The reason is that I'm working on a different personal project that involves a lot of writing. I'm going to make my own website and yesterday I spoke to former Young Dogs-colleague Edward Tetteroo about the execution of the project. I can't tell anything about it yet, but it's going to be something exciting.

Talking about former colleagues: tomorrow I'm going to visit my former art-director Yigit Unan. After he left Duval Guillaume, he went to Warshaw, Poland to work for an agency called Brain. Here he won a Young Gun Award together with his art-director Ania. Now he works at Leo Burnett. I'll be in Poland around lunchtime and I will visit Yigit's new agency in the afternoon.

I guess I've never been a type to go to a sunny island for three weeks. A long weekend in a strange place is more interesting and usually gives me all the divertissement that I need in a vacation.

Vacation in Amsterdam

2011-09-08T11:44:00.003+02:00

Not only I was on vacation, but my blog was on vacation as well. It's good not to think about work anymore during two and a half weeks. After a great, but exhausting Lowlands festival, my good friend Hermanno came from Italy together with his girlfriend Stefania. I tried to show them all the interesting places where tourists usually don't come. I took them everything that can be defined as alternative, cult or underground.

But when I did that, I noticed how saturated Amsterdam is with tourists. Even in Maloe Meloe, an obscure blues-bar where there's live music every night, we saw a poster that said 'tonight Italian bands.' And the place was full of Italians. What are the odds? Wherever you go, you hear other languages than Dutch. And that is actually interesting about Amsterdam.

While keeping my Italian friends company, I also saw the city from a more touristic side. I went to the Van Gogh museum and took a trip on the Canal boats. This also gives you a new perspective on the city that you usually don't get. You discover that there's a brewery in a windmill, you discover new facts about the houseboats in the city and you hear about a beer bar where they serve 20 Dutch beers on draft.

It was an interesting and relaxing vacation. This doesn't mean that I'll never go abroad anymore, because next week I planned a weekend to Warshaw to see my former teammate Yigit Unan.

Vacation

2011-08-18T18:45:00.002+02:00

In every profession you have to make choices. Are you going to make more money, but make less good work or would you rather invest in an agency where you can be totally creative? How much of your spare time are you going to sacrifice for your career? What if your ambition affects your health?

The best is to find a satisfying balance. Since I've been working at Lemz, almost 1,5 years ago, things have been quite easy going compared to Duval Guillaume. I can go home quite early, I don't have to work over a lot and there's not a lot of pressure. And I have nothing to complain with regards to the work I'm making. Lately, things aren't going like I want to (difficult briefs, clients who are fucking things up. Well, all creatives have to plough through the bad times). But overall, things are going in the right direction. And I can even have a private life. Every Monday I'm going to the Nieuwe Anita to watch a cult movie. If a friend calls me to have a drink, most of the time it's possible. And because I don't have to commute, I have more time to sleep in the morning. I didn't really have a lot of vacation since I work at Lemz, because a normal working week feels like vacation to me.

Still, I was a bit exhausted the last few weeks. It's been exactly more than 2 years ago since I took more than one week off. And very slowly I start to notice that. Today, my 2,5 weeks of vacation officially started. And I'm going to start my vacation at the Lowlands festival, where one of the artists is the electronica emperor Aphex Twin. After this blasting start, I will just spend two weeks in Amsterdam. I love my work, but it can't hurt to forget about work for a few weeks.

Singing in the Rain

2011-08-11T23:06:00.002+02:00

No, I'm not like most Dutch people who complain about the weather all the time. I knew, that as soon as I cross the border I'd have to deal with a lot of rain. So I knew what I was getting into when I moved back from Belgium to Holland. Who cares if summer has been exchanged for autumn. More time to spend partying in clubs.

But what I do mind is that these dark clouds have been terrorizing Pluk de Nacht, the coolest filmfestival of Amsterdam. This festival is organised by movie enthusiasts, and they ask no entrance. They depend on donations of the audience and sales of drinks. And they play independent movies that didn't get the attention they deserved in Holland. The problem is: it's in the open air. And it has been non-stop raining since the opening night on Thursday.

On the opening night last Thursday I was watching a German movie (Ueber Uns Das All) in a beach chair and every once in a while I had to open my umbrella because of the rain. It didn't matter to me because the movie was very good.

In trade for a donation, one can reserve a beach chair. So I gambled a bit and reserved chairs on Wednesday and Friday. On Wednesday the weather was impossible. Let's hope it's going to be better tomorrow. And otherwise I'll stay in a warm pub with a cold beer, watching the rain outside, knowing that my ten euro goes straight to a good cause.

35

2011-08-04T13:18:00.002+02:00

Yes, today is my birthday. And this reminds me that I'm already writing a considerable time for this blog, because I remember the day when I became 30, another milestone, as if it was yesterday. I was in the Miami Ad School typing on my old laptop at that time. And when I look back at that post, I haven't really changed a lot.

Of course, a lot has happened since that time. I was an ambitious student, who went back to school to make his comeback in advertising. I can truly say that all my expectations came out. I've worked at two great agencies since then, made the work that I wanted to and I won the awards that I wanted to. I haven't been sitting still in that time. And that's a good feeling.

If my past is representative for my future, I'm looking forward to another five years that will be extremely exciting.

Urgent Genius

2011-07-27T13:11:00.003+02:00

If you're working in a cross media agency like Lemz, concepting goes a bit faster. You don't have the entire week to come up with a print campaign. If you're working with big campaigns like the ones they make here, you have to think fast and to act fast. You cannot give all the seperate elements in a campaign the attention it needs, but it does force you to think fast and to put all the media in service of one central idea.

It's a more modern approach to making advertising. Somebody who truly understands the value of this principle is Grant Hunter, creative director from Iris Worldwide. He is busy making a book about 'Urgent Genius', which is a theory about a new way of making advertising. It's about real time creativity. Not only reacting fast to topical events, but also about being instantly creative at the right moment. And there's a place reserved for the IKEA 365 campaign in the book as well. You can see many examples of the theory here.

Fun

2011-07-17T16:04:00.003+02:00

A quite unusual commercial made for Ford

I'm getting quite sick of clients trying to rationalize advertising. With the precision of a mathematician they're trying to figure out what is the best way to communicate their brand. In the end there's no room for experimenting anymore. And the communication totally lacks passion.

Luckily, there are still a lot of agencies who understand what how to make advertising entertaining. Ogilvy Paris made a commercial for Ford and the more I think about it, the better I think it is. If you rationalize it, this car has absolutely nothing to do with dogs. Still, the dogs are in there, just because it's fun.

Furthermore, this commercial takes two minutes, but to explain the idea (the dog parking the car) you can also do it in 15 seconds. Instead, the creatives have broken the common rules of advertising and made an entire dogshow of the commercial. The reason why? There is no reason why. It's just fun! And the amount of hits prove that the commercial works: 1.686.670. Breaking the rules pays off.

Reanimation

2011-07-13T17:58:00.003+02:00

Yes, my blog is still alive. I've been doing it for more than 5 years now and the trick is to post something on it on a regular basis. And posting something -anything- is not that difficult. It just takes 15 minutes of concentration to translate your thoughts and experiences into an entertaining set of words.

But sometimes you just don't think of writing something. Or you just don't feel like it. And when it takes longer, you've experienced so many things and you've been inspired so much, that you don't know where to start. It's impossible to fill the gap in the blog of these last few weeks. I've just had too much inspiration. Too much to talk about. Exhibitions at the Rietveld art academy, unique cinema shows, spontaneously meeting my cousin after more than 10 years, going to good parties, doing a French course, planning a new short film with director Robbert-Jan Vos, working at Lemz and a crazy weekend where I ended up walking alone at a beachparty in Belgium without knowing anyone.

These were interesting weeks but impossible to tell in one blog post. And because you feel obliged to write about about everything, you get the feeling that the longer you wait, the more difficult it gets to make a post again. So I just start with this very general article. To reanimate my blog again.

Bad week - good week

2011-06-24T16:19:00.002+02:00

Every creative has its ups and downs at an agency. If you're truly devoted to the work you're making, some weeks could be a disaster. There's a spelling mistake in a published ad, you're having a big argument with the account people, a campaign is totally smashed on Ads of the World, the client kills a great idea; those things can all contribute to a bad mood. At some moments you even feel like quitting advertising as a whole and become a bus driver or something.

This week started off bad, when I've heard that the IKEA campaign - a campaign that took me the entire year to make - didn't even get shortlisted in Cannes. Although this campaign doesn't need recognition to impress people, it's still a bad way to start the week. But today, I had a presentation for a cheese brand for an awesome cross media campaign and the client agreed on making it. Finally, all of the work is worth it again, all your colleagues you used to argue with are great again and you feel like you've chosen the right profession again. Ah, advertising...at least it's never boring.

Congratulations to former Miami Ad School students Siavosh Zabeti, Alexander Kalchev, Rodrigo Linhares and Till Diestel for totally rocking at Cannes. For some reason this year I got a lot of deja vu's when I saw the list of winners (the Rolling Stone copy ad seem to have copied itself). But at least my former schoolmates kept the honour of Miami Ad School high by winning with very innovative stuff.

ADCN vs CCB

2011-06-05T22:35:00.003+02:00

In my advertising career I've won one ADCN lamp, the most important award of the Art Directors Club Netherlands. But I think I will never win one again. I might win another Cannes Lion, but not a lamp. Simply because the work that is nominated and awarded is not the kind of work that I like to make. It's very Dutch and the focus is mostly on television commercials. It's not that there are no innovative work is made in Holland, but I feel that the ADCN doesn't motivate innovative ideas.

This is different about the Belgian art directors club, the Creative Club Belgium. I had two nominations there, but unfortunately I didn't win. But when I saw the results of the CCB-awards, I was amazed by the richness of the awarded campaigns. Almost all the work is in a casefilm, and that says enough about the type of work. Click here to see the winners.

One off

2011-05-31T13:24:00.003+02:00

Before the weekend I was talking with my colleague Matthijs how nice it would be to get a small assigment to make a one-off for a change. Monday Luiz and I came to work and we immediately got a briefing to make one ad. No integrated, innovative, elaborated, complicated campaigns for a change. Just a heading for an ad that will appear next week in all the big newspapers.

We just had one day to make it, but in every assigment there's a chance. So we did our very best. After writing about a hundred headlines, our CD's chose four of them to present to the client. Today the client chose an idea and I had to make a few changes in the bodycopy. This ad won't be portfolio work, but it's a nice ad that works very well. Just a regular job. That doesn't take months to execute. Nice for a change. Now back to developing this meaningful, cross-branded, cross-media campaign that was approved yesterday.

Let's heal

2011-05-26T16:07:00.002+02:00

The presentation of the book, by Mark Woerde

As a copywriter, I've always admired people who've written a book. I mean, during more than 5 years that I'm writing for this blog I've already written enough content for two books. But to actually get your writings published, that's a whole different ballgame.

My former boss Guillaume van der Stichelen has succeeded in doing that. And now my current boss Mark Woerde wrote a book. It's about a theory that's as contemporary as it's interesting, and it asks the question: what if brands (and advertising) would provide meaningfulness for others. I'm not talking about meaningfulness in the sense of 'making people feel good' or 'giving the ultimate cooking experience' but actually helping people. This means, using advertising to create a better world.

Now this last thing sounds a bit Michael Jackson and the combination with advertising sounds like one big paradox. But at Lemz we're already making campaigns based on this principle. Some might think see connecting your brand to a good cause as an excuse to sell your product. But this book explains why it's actually a good thing. And how you can be truly meaningful instead of just telling that you're supporting a good cause.

He ends his book by challenging brands to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Okay, it's a bit ambitious. But to say with the words of Leo Burnett: 'when you reach for the stars, you might not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either."

Happy reunion

2011-05-21T18:38:00.005+02:00

Salvatore, Karime and I

Broken beerbottles on the street, totally packed bar dancings where they play German electropunk; I'm back in Hamburg again and I'm glad to see that nothing has changed here. The anarchistic attitude of people here gives you a feeling of freedom.

Yesterday I went to the Kiez, the Reeperbahn area where all the clubs and pubs are, to party with my former classmate and good friend Salvatore. Next to a lot of JvM creatives, I met a lot of people I know from the Miami Ad School. I saw Rhea Hanges again, whom I know from my quarter away in New York. And it seems that wherever in the world I am, my former classmate Karime Gonzales always pops up. She moves to different places all over the world so fast, I suspect that she has a teleportation machine.

And when we were on our way home, we met another former classmate Gunnar Gerhardt on the street. Despite that his crazy rattling was a bit overwhelming at 5.00 in the morning, it was great to see this fool again.

Urban buddhist

2011-05-11T13:11:00.003+02:00

Sometimes you have a weekend in which you experience so many interesting things, that it's impossible to devote just one post to it. So let's go back in time to Brussels again. When checking out of the Pantone hotel, I went to the Iris festival with my girlfriend, where there was a lot of theatre, events and DJ's.

After that, I went into the train, which had a defect so it took almost 4 hours to get to Amsterdam. Normally that would piss me off, but that trainride I met an asian man, who is a business lawler and owns a cocktail bar in Antwerp. I had a very interesting, 4 hour talk with him about all kinds of things. And during that long conversation, I noticed more and more that our business ethics and philosophy on life were very alike.

He told me that he tries to live a life as a buddhist, but to live completely according to these rules is just not realistic in our stressful, materialistic western society. Now I always thought the same. I think the buddhist philosophy not only provides a lot of useful wisdom, but is very down to earth at the same time (well, maybe if you leave out the reincarnation part). But in order to cope with problems in this society, you need to be flexible. You cannot always trust everybody or be serene in every situation. In business, you need a bit of stress in order to push yourself. And materialism and having possessions is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you realize that more material is not necessarily making you happy. And losing things isn't necessarily the end of the world.

It's a flexible, more modern way of dealing with a philosophy that is ages old. During that train-ride I even thought of a name for it: urban buddhism. To end this post with some Tao-wisdom: sometimes the trip is more important than the destination.

Pantone hotel Brussels

2011-05-09T13:36:00.003+02:00

The outside of the Pantone Hotel

The interior, with the Pantone color samples in the back

If you're an advertising geek, and you need a place to stay in Brussels, where do you go? Of course: the Pantone hotel! Already the name made me curious about this place and when I saw the beautiful pictures on the website it made me want to book already. So when I visited my Bruxelloise girlfriend this weekend, I decided see if the place is as designy as the name leads you to think.

I wasn't disappointed. Already at the entrance there are cups, storage cases, chairs and bicycles in Pantone colors. Including the matching Pantone number. At the entrance the bellboy asked me which color room has my preference. I chose the red one. The rooms are crispy clean. Everything is white, except for the few things that are in the chosen colour. Even the toilet paper has a colour.

This wasn't the most luxurious hotel I've ever slept in, but it's definitely the coolest one.

More than a bus

2011-04-28T15:44:00.003+02:00

The preparations for Queensday have started. This means that from tomorrow on, the streets of Amsterdam will be stuffed with partying, drunk people dressed in orange and there will be market stands and music everywhere.

Outside of my office they are building a small stage. Next to the stage there are two buses. The pay-off on the bus is: 'more than a bus'. So why is it more than a bus? Maybe it can fly, maybe the bus serves as a huge windshield, maybe you can transform it into a big house.

If only copywriting were always that easy. IKEA. More than a furniture store. Lemz. More than an agency.

Refreshed portfolio

2011-04-25T19:36:00.003+02:00

Killing darlings. That's what refreshing your portfolio means. I've made a new portfolio hundreds of times. In the beginning of my career I always needed to shift papers from the plastic sleeves. Nowdays I have to make a new Powerpoint and upload it in Slideshare.

Another difference with now is that I'm more conscious about which work to leave in and which work to leave out. And which following order I have to use. Years of showing books at agencies and the portfolio quarter in Miami Ad School taught me that. But it's not easy. Your book is your creative identity. It should reflect who you are as a creative and what kind of work you stand for.

First of all, I hacked and slashed away all the one-offs that were less than excellent. A very sympathetic print ad for De Lijn and a funny TV-commercial for lollipop brand Vertigo were out. Then I looked at all the campaigns. As there are still non executed ideas in there, one of them had to go, because I've got more actual published work now. As a rule of thumb it's good to reconsider the non-profit clients, so I took out Greenpeace. The work was kind of outdated anyway. Then I put in an award winning online campaign and the IKEA case study. I changed the following order a bit and uploaded it.

Later on, I was still doubting about Shelter, a poster campaign that got a in-book nomination for the student D&AD. It's a good, simple idea, but it's non-profit and compared to the other ideas I felt that it didn't really stood out anymore. So I decided to take it out. And I swapped the order of the obituary print ad with Patrick the Extra, so the presentation starts and end with work for television.

Because I've had trouble embedding the new presentation, you can see the result here.

Useless ads

2011-04-19T21:56:00.003+02:00

If there's anything I can't stand, it's people not minding their own business. Last week I was in the tram and on the phone with my colleague Luiz. I didn't mean any harm with it. Nevertheless, a woman behind me found it necessary to say something about calling in the tram. Well, it's her good right that she gives her opinion but it's also my good right to think she's a stuck-up bitch.

Even worse than people not minding their own business, is the goverment not minding its own business. When I came from Antwerp on Sunday I saw a poster that was telling people that it's more polite to call back later if you get a phonecall in the train. Who pays for this advertising? It can't be the railway station cause there's nothing to gain from that. So my guess that it's the government wasting money on trying to impose some kind of moral standard. It's pedantic and superfluous.

10.000

2011-04-14T13:08:00.003+02:00

It's interesting to see how a video you posted can lead its own life on the internet. The animation Go South Africa! which I've made with director Robbert-Jan Vos became a mild viral success. And the IKEA casefilm I've uploaded a few weeks ago now got around 12.000 hits on YouTube. Which is quite exceptional for a film with commercial intention.

Of course I took the necessary steps to promote this film at all sorts of websites. But from there it started to spread in all sorts of ways. Out of control. People put it on their blogs, write comments, tweet and retweet it and subscribe on your YouTube channel (on which I rarely upload new things). I even got e-mails about the film.

It's also funny how people shamelessly copy the text of an article from a famous blog. One blogger even misinterpreted the casefilm, thinking that the campaign was only online. As if such a big and costly project would actually pay off if you only put it on the internet. That doesn't make a lot of sense! Nevertheless, a lot of bloggers mindlessly copy-pasted his incorrect article. It seems that a lot of bloggers lack imagination and can't find two minutes to write their own text.

Anyway, every publicity is good publicity. So I'm happy that it's posted through so much. So keep on going, copycats. Push that YouTube-meter to 20.000!

UPDATE: the film already has over 25.000 hits.

One year

2011-04-01T17:28:00.003+02:00

More than a year ago I had a job interview at Lemz. I told that if I could only make two big cross media campaigns in a year, I'd already be happy. Today, I'm exactly working one year at Lemz.

Starting at a new advertising agency is always like taking a big dive into the deep. You never know if it works out with the creative directors and your new colleagues, if your style fits with the rest of the agency (or with the clients), if you manage to get your next contract, if you're happy with the briefings you get. I know a lot of people who started full of enthusiasm at a new agency and ran away screaming after only a few months. It's hard to find an agency that really fits you. Especially if you're a creative who doesn't want to do concessions.

I followed my gut feeling when choosing an agency. And I only tried at agencies which I felt were right for me at that moment. After one year I can already say that I've made the right decision to go to Lemz. I did make the two cross media campaigns that I wanted. And I still have fun going to my work every day. And the greatest thing this year was winning the IKEA pitch, which is one of my biggest acthievements ever. It wasn't always easy, but it's never always easy. And if you do something you believe in and truly give 100%, you can never go wrong.

Case study IKEA 365 campaign

2011-03-29T10:15:00.003+02:00

Case study film for the IKEA 365 campaign

The case study film for IKEA is finally finished. Thanks to the help of my advertising friends abroad, postproduction agency ShoSho, my colleagues and last but not least the limitless perfectionism of my art-director Luiz Risi we've managed to make a film that truly reflects how huge this beautiful campaign is.

Work like this is so unorthodox, that it was hard to find a category at festivals. There isn't really a perfect category yet, so it's hard to say if this stands a chance in Cannes. But whatever happens at the festivals: I'm more than delighted to give this campaign a permanent place in my portfolio.

Case study craze

2011-03-24T21:40:00.003+01:00

Cannes is coming closer. So all the creatives in the privilege of having made a big campaign, now have to sweat on a brilliant case study film. Making such a film has become an art in itself. It used to be sufficient just to mention what you did and which media you used, but nowadays your case study needs to be advertising in itself. Advertising to convince the jury at advertising festivals to buy your idea.

Case studies are the pro active campaigns of the cross media agencies. At the more traditional agencies, the creatives are motivated to make a good print-ad or commercial for a small client. At agencies like Lemz, you're motivated to make the most out of your case study film.

I can't escape the case study craze this year. I've made my biggest campaign ever and I seriously doubt that I'll ever make a campaign as big as this one. So Luiz and I gave the case study for our IKEA-campaign extra attention. How to show a campaign in which you send out a new TV-commercial every day? It's almost the start of a briefing.

Brian O'Blivion

2011-03-22T22:28:00.003+01:00

Sometimes I see a movie that is so good, I hit myself on the head for not seeing it before. Like Videodrome by David Cronenberg. It's about a TV-producer who gets strong hallucinations from a pirate broadcast. After a while even the viewer, as well as the main character, can't separate real life from illusion.

What was very interesting about the movie, is that it contained a few interesting theories about media. One of the characters, Brian O'Blivion, was actually based on a real-life scientist Marshall McLuhan; a man who first used the term 'Global Village' and who predicted the internet almost 30 years before it was invented. The character Brian O'Blivion only talked to people with videotapes. But nobody knew that he already died. He built a big library of videotapes that could be used for any occasion. This way he lived on for the world, long after his death.

Nowadays you don't need a library of videotapes anymore. A simple profile on Facebook is enough to make yourself immortal. Sometimes it's sad to see a profile of a death person. You still see vivid, happy photographs. People still write messages to the deceased. And even the age is rising, like nothing ever happened. Social media creates more and more Brian O'Blivions every day.

200 commercials

2011-03-17T20:47:00.003+01:00

A special performance at cinema De Uitkijk

Daniel, Wendy and I at the big screen

It's cinema week this week. Sunday at the 301, Monday at the Nieuwe Anita and today I saw a special performance at cinema De Uitkijk: we celebrated the 200th IKEA commercial by playing all the commercials so far on a big screen. Everybody who had anything to do with the production was there. So people from IKEA, Lemz and Cake were in the audience.

I thought that 200 TV-commercials would bore me to death. But it was actually really cool to see all the work combined. Sure there were some bad commercials -it's inevitable when you make so many films- but there were enough good, funny and interesting commercials to make this screening worthwhile. Furthermore, it was an ode to one the most sensational campaign I've ever made.

Satisfied generation

2011-03-15T14:20:00.003+01:00

What's great about Amsterdam is that there's a big underground movie scene. It's full of cult cinemas and cultural places like Nieuwe Anita and OT301 where they play quality movies. In other words: movies that do not need 3D, because they have depth from themselves.

Recently, I saw two great documentaries: Jesus Christus Erlöser and William Burroughs: a Man Within. In the first film actor Klaus Kinsi had to endure hecklers who insulted and asked questions during a performance in the 70's. The second documentary was about William Burroughs, the author of Naked Lunch. About his bizarre life, his books, his creativity and the ideals that people had. After the film there were people who told that they knew Burroughs and the people who surrounded him. One woman told about the beliefs in that time and how she wished that people would become more of an activist.

I think there isn't a lot that people in Holland are fighting for nowadays. Even in a place like Nieuwe Anita, where people are quite open minded. I most people accepted the lovely speech of the woman, but afterwards did nothing about it. There wasn't even somebody who disagreed, or who asked further questions. Afterwards everybody just drank a beer and talked about how impressive the movie was.

We live in a satisfied generation. A society without a lot of problems, where everybody gets equal chances and without movements, leaders or enemies. Even subcultures seem to disappear or become less extreme. The rave generation, the alternatives and the gabbers of the nineties shared just one common goal and that was to party. Nowadays they party together on big festivals.

I have to admit that I'm part of this satisfied generation as well. After the documentary and the interesting speech I drank another wine, talked a bit and the next it's another day at work. Is this the silence before the storm? Is a new, radical movement that will shock the nation in the pipeline? One that revolutionizes art, politics, music and the way people think like the dadaïsts in the 30's or the beat generation in the 50's? It seems that those times are over, but only time will tell.

It's a wrap

2011-03-09T20:34:00.002+01:00

Another boring evening on Saturday, when I couldn't go out and when I drank half a bottle of wine while watching a movie. Another Sunday getting up at 6.00 on Sunday and go by car to IKEA at the other side of the country. Another exhausting day of shooting commercials for 12 hours in a row. Once again sleeping in the car on the way back.

And once again on Monday we managed to finish the offline edit of 14 commercials. An amount that any creative is happy to make in one year. The total amount of TV-commercials for IKEA has now exceeded 200. Although it's tough to make so many commercials, I was happy to do it. And for once I felt a bit sad when the director shouted 'It's a wrap!' Because this was the last shooting I have for IKEA. This week I already started working on other clients and although it feels good to do something else again, it's difficult to let go of this wonderful campaign that we started almost a year ago. I guess letting go is the start of going further.

Robin on stage

2011-03-05T20:25:00.004+01:00

Copyrights Luiz & Leena

Yesterday my art-director Luiz Risi opened his exhibition called Heart on Stage. It's a project of visual art combined with poetry that he made together with his girlfriend Leena Yliportimo. I had to play as a DJ at the party afterwards. Now the last time I played a DJ-set was in some club at the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. I used to play a lot in Parkhof Alkmaar, a punk/alternative club that unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. These parties were so popular that the manager asked me to change my aggresive music style because too much right-winged scumbags came to the party. My most memorable gig was without doubt the one at the Young Dogs beachparty in Cannes, France.

If there's one thing you learn from DJ'ing, it's that you can never trust anyone who says it's going to be fine with the technique. At Parkhof there was always somebody who did the technique for me. And you have to bring everything yourself. I once came to a club where they had no headphone. I had to mix without it, which resulted in a set where the separate numbers where connected such clumsy transitions that they were almost painful to hear. Since then, I always brought my own headphone.

Yesterday, Luiz hired a place above a pub to have the party. When I came there, the technique was a total disaster. Nothing was installed, cables were missing and the dusty equipment looked like it hasn't been used in ten years. In the end I had to play behind the bar and I had to borrow a bike to get my own mixer from home, because the mixer of the pub didn't work. I hurried back, zigzagging through the traffic on the bridges of Amsterdam, while eating a sandwich because I didn't have time to eat yet. It was a race against the clock, but a race isn't over before the finish.

I rushed upstairs, and connected all the stuff just in time, giving me about 10 minutes to practice and to revive my long neglected turntable skills. The party was a big success. So was the exhibition. In a small space there were around 70 people and that night Luiz already sold some of his work. If you live in Amsterdam, it's definitely worth to see Heart on Stage. Until the 24th of April you can see the work at the ABC Treehouse gallery, Voetboogstraat 11.

Red red wine...

2011-03-01T00:11:00.003+01:00

It's March and finally my alcohol free month is over. I just saw a great movie called Quadrophenia, at the Nieuwe Anita and when I came home I poured myself a nice glass of red wine. It's 0.15 now and I already took two sips of it.

It's great how you learn to enjoy something again when it's not there. It wasn't difficult at all. But I have to admit that it was boring from time to time. At the advertising party of the Young Dogs and a party of Lemz where all my colleagues sang Dutch folk songs I definitely missed the absence of beer. But even on both of these difficult occasions I enjoyed myself a lot. And I didn't have to cope with the hangovers the next day. It proves that once you get used to it, life can also be good without alcohol.

But I'm not ready for a life as a buddhist yet. So until then I choose the fast way to enlightenment by enjoying a nice glass of beer or wine. My glass is almost finished now. My throat feels warm all the way to my stomach and my head feels cloudy. I'm happy to have done this alcohol free month. But I'm even happier that it's over.

Public transport, public insult

2011-02-23T20:16:00.007+01:00

I'm not the one to complain very easily, but I've totally had it with the GVB, the public transport company in Amsterdam. Why? Because their employees are a bunch of ignorant cunts. Every day I take the tram from my house to the central station, where I take the boat. And on numerous occasions their drivers didn't stop, closed the doors too early when the tram in not even full, refuse to open the door or take long coffee breaks before they continue their shift.

Today I was at the Westermarkt and one of the trams drove past without stopping, leaving all the waiting people in the cold. In an impulse I decided to run to the Dam, where the next stop was to have a little talk with the driver. After almost crashing into numerous tourists along the way, I arrived totally out of breath at the tram stop. And the driver opened. So I asked him why in the hell he drove through, while there were clearly people waiting. He answered that he did stop. I replied that he didn't cause I was standing there and that I ran to the next stop to ask for an explanation. He simply answered that at least I catched the tram now and that was that. I was too exhausted to start shouting at him so I gave up and retreated to one of the passenger seats.

Should I give up? Should I just accept the fact that their personnel gives shit for service? If I write a letter to the GVB, it will only trigger their PR-machine to justify the behaviour of their horrible employees. They're so bad that they're an insult to the clients. I sincerely think of hacking their chipcard because a service like this is not worth the shitload of money I pay for the public transport now.

Teamwork

2011-02-18T13:28:00.005+01:00

My former country of residence Belgium finally broke a world record. Since yesterday they have the doubtful honour to be the country that has been unable to form a government for the longest time. With 249 days they broke the record of Iraq. The chosen political parties just can't seem to agree on each other.

I guess it's difficult to find somebody with whom you're able to work with. This last half a year, when I was looking for a new art-director, this became very clear. I've had a lot of interesting conversations with good creatives. But somehow it was difficult to make a decision. A junior creative can usually find a lot of people willing to start at a good agency. And the agencies are often willing to give it a chance. But as a senior, the stakes are higher. You have to deal with a lot of agency politics in order to justify your new (and often expensive) teampartner.

So these last few months I've been thinking. An excellent art-director was already walking around in the agency: my former teampartner Luiz Risi (click on his name to see his portfolio). From our work, experience, awards and international mindset we are a perfect match. Futhermore, his art-direction is so good that he turns any idea into gold. After a few talks we decided to work together again. The consequence of this is that I will be taken off this wonderful project for IKEA. So now we're going to work on different and new clients again. Well, it's just like with stopping alcohol for a month: sometimes it's good to get out of your comfort zone and do something completely different.

Good movies and bad cappuccino

2011-02-12T16:23:00.003+01:00

I was never a big fan of Brussels. Once I lived there for 2,5 months and the best thing about that city (besides Duval Guillaume) is that there's a train going directly to Amsterdam. And now I'm here for a weekend. And I'm completely sober because of my non-alcohol month. Seems like a perfect combination for self-torture.

But so far I've pretty much managed to enjoy myself. Yes I'm still annoyed by the dirty streets, the filthy beggars that are on them and the incredibly stupid people who drive by and make sure everybody hears their stupid music; but if you know where to go in Brussels, you'll find little islands of cool spots scattered throughout the city.

Yesterday I went to the Cinema Nova, which is one of the best cult-cinema's I know. There I've seen a very corny but amusing German science-fiction classic called Im Staub der Sterne, which was part of the off-screen film festival. During the day I went to a lot of bookstores, and I tried to find a place with a good cappuccino. But I've given up on the latter. Even in bars that look like expert coffee bars, they still think a cappuccino is a coffee with whipped cream. But that's okay. I don't let a minor inconvenience like that spoil my good mood anymore.

Casefilm Nickelodeon Slime your Class

2011-02-04T13:24:00.003+01:00

The casefilm for my first project at Lemz: Slime your Class

At Lemz there's a strict PR-policy, which means you have to justify every piece of work that you want to put online or in magazines. They don't want to be in the media with separate pieces of work, no matter how good they are. Casefilms that explain the entire cross media campaign however, are accepted. I've had some difficulties with this policy, because if you don't praise single ads, you don't motivate people to perfectionize every single part of a campaign. On the other hand, you do maintain a single minded message about what the agency stands for.

So now, almost a year after my employment at Lemz, I can finally show my first project. It's a ludicrous cross media campaign that I've made for Nickelodeon. When I applied for a job here, I told everybody that I'd already be satisfied if at the end of year I'd have two casefilms. Well, this is one of them, the other one (for IKEA) is coming soon.

February: alcohol free month

2011-02-02T18:53:00.003+01:00

Sometimes it's interesting to give yourself a good challenge. So this month I've decided to stop drinking alcohol for a month. I drink quite a lot in the weekend during parties and I enjoy it. I'm going to do it because it's interesting to see how life is without it for a while. And of course to give my body a little rest.

So Monday was my last day of drinking. I went to the cinema at the Nieuwe Anita and drank lots of wine. And now, for the entire month of February I'm not going to touch alcohol. I did these alcohol free months before and I even stopped smoking for a month. And judging by previous experiences I'm up for a boring, but at least a hangover free month.

Canon Ixus 1000HS

2011-01-30T20:06:00.002+01:00

The fisheye effect, a nice extra of my new camera

A typical side effect of being a male, is that every now and then you lose money because of the need for a new gadget. Whether it's an iPhone, a new netbook or a portable game console with a 3D screen. For me it was time to replace my old pocket camera.

When it comes down to buying a camera, money is no issue for me. That's because a camera is more than a little gadget, it also your memories. All the vacations, friends, festivals and birthdays of at least 2 years to come will be shot with this camera and the quality of the camera defines exactly how sharp you will see these memories.

So after reading a lot of reviews, I finally found my perfect camera: the Canon Ixus 1000HS. This one was by far the best in picture and video quality combined. For the really perfect pictures I already have a digital SLR, but this is a nice, handy snapshot cam. Oh, and it has funny extra's like the fisheye lens, the miniature effect and slow motion video. These functions are very convenient when you want to brag to others about your new camera.

Young Dogs reunion

2011-01-21T09:32:00.002+01:00

The Young Dogs bus 2007 in Cannes

When I was in my second year of my study copywriting at the university, in 1998, I knew I wanted to focus all my attention towards breaking through in advertising. The problem was that in school the advertising education sucked. Luckily, there was an organisation that held competitions for aspiring creatives. With real briefings and a really good incentive: the winner could go by bus to the advertising festival in Cannes. The Young Dogs.

Later on, I would become boardmember of this club of enthusiastic advertising people. The Young Dogs was founded 20 years ago. To celebrate its 20-years anniversary, a Facebook page is made for former boardmembers and there will be a party the 18th of February in club Panama. And everybody is invited (so not only former boardmembers. There's more information about the party here.

Of course, when former boardmembers come together digitally, there's also an exchange of pictures of the good ol' times. So now everybody sent pictures of the Young Dogs-buses. As a tradition, there's a new design for the bus every year. Above there's an example of that. And here you can see the other buses through the years. Because I went to Cannes with the Young Dogs six (!) times I recognize almost all of them. I'm looking forward to the party and to see all the familiar faces of the past again.

Print in Holland

2011-01-11T22:53:00.002+01:00

Nice poster on the streets of Amsterdam

Usually the level of print ads is not very high in Holland. That has many reasons. Advertisers usually don't ask for outstanding print ads and young creatives usually want to take a shortcut towards TV-commercials. The result is an ongoing spiral downwards in which the level of print ads stays behind compared to those of Belgium and Germany. TV-commercials however, are super creative. And some commercial breaks are better than the shows they interrupt.

But sometimes I'm surprised at a few little pearls that I see on the streets of Amsterdam. Okay, they're usually one shots, but nevertheless some ads give me a smile on my face. Like the above ad for the city of Amsterdam. The word that's crossed by the logo of amsterdam is 'discrimination'. Maybe this one poster is too small to impress juries at festivals, but nevertheless it's really good work for such a difficult client. Let's see what I can make from this difficult print briefing that I got from IKEA.

Happy 2011

2011-01-05T20:20:00.003+01:00

A new year is usually the time that people start to reflect on the year before. Their lives, their career, their relationships, their addictions. The pharmaceutical industry knows that and therefore the commercial breaks are full of ads for products that help you quit smoking. I always think that the new year is a good opportunity to continue doing what you like. So after midnight I was at a great party with a beer in my hand and a cigarette in the other.

If you live by the day, the new year is just another morning. I did make some new plans to make some improvements at work, but that is something I continuously do. Last year was quite turbulent, because there were some big changes in my home, love and career. And even though things were sometimes difficult, I wouldn't have wanted it anyway else. Who knows what craziness 2011 is going to bring.

Happy Christmas, fuck the world

2010-12-24T16:26:00.005+01:00

A song about not changing the world (in German).

This week I finally took a week off. I haven't had a week off since the end of the IKEA pitch (and I really needed that week) so it's great. No alarm clocks, no obligations and no deadlines. Just a week of sleeping too much, partying too much and doing too few.

It's the week before Christmas. And all of a sudden you hear songs about how we should change the world for the better. And all of a sudden people are giving donations to charity. And family members who can't stand each other during the year all of a sudden come together and restrain themselves from smashing each others head in during the annual family meal.

How lovely it is, when you hear a song that says the total opposite. Because I have nothing to do this week, I looked on YouTube and found this great politically incorrect song from German rappers Icke & Er. It's in German, but the translation of the song is 'I'm not going to save the world'. It's not considered very decent if you don't give a fuck about the world, especially during Christmas. But to make a song about this subject is just hilarious.

Starring: Robin Stam

2010-12-19T19:37:00.004+01:00

Me playing in a TV commercial for IKEA

To have acting skills is something valuable for a creative. During presentations it helps you to give the right interpretation of a script, whether it's for a TV- or radiocommercial. And staying nice and polite when a client kills your idea requires acting skills of the highest level (something which I still have to learn). So in a way it's not so strange that a copywriter or art-director ends up in its own commercial.

Some creatives in Holland are known for playing in their own TV-spot: Rodger van Werkhoven, Marc Bennink and Herbert van Hoogdalem have starred in one or more commercials. The creative business in Holland usually considers it a bit arrogant to do this.

But I think that's a load of bollocks. So when I wrote a script about a creative who's shopping in IKEA, I immediately casted myself for the role. You can see the result above. Acting isn't strange to me. When I was a child I played (and sang) in musicals. I even played in an episode of a kids show. But it was interesting to see if I could do a good job when my entire filmcrew is there and the camera is directed towards me. In my humble opinion it worked out very well. I'm not aspiring a new career in acting, but I'm happy to have had this experience.

Radio poverty

2010-12-07T18:01:00.005+01:00

When you have a lot of shootings, you're on the road a lot. And the medium radio seems to be perfect for the car. You can listen to it without risking an accident, unless you laugh so hard about the comments of the DJ's that you get a stomach cramp.

From that perspective the commercial breaks in Holland are quite safe. I've never heard more boring commercials than in between a program on the Dutch radio. They just tell what the product, service or special offer is about. Well, unless the message is: 'we give money away for free', it will not sound interesting. They're so boring, it makes me fall asleep.

Whoever makes these boring stuff? Agencies? Then they make easy money for making shit. But what's even worse: who approves these commercials. Are clients really going to pat the expensive agency creatives on their backs for just telling the briefing in 30 seconds? I cannot imagine that.

When I worked in Belgium, radio advertising was considered a chance to make something outstanding. You had to show at least 20 scripts to the creative directors and with a bit of luck one of them will be recorded. And it shows: this year Belgium has 3 radiocommercials on the shortlist for the Eurobest awards and Holland has zero. It's time for Dutch creatives to rediscover a neglected medium.

Lowlands sold out!

2010-11-26T15:12:00.003+01:00

The logo of the popular festival

I was 17 when I went to a festival for the first time. A friend of mine suggested to go to Lowlands Paradise, a 3-day festival with a lot of alternative music. I was a bit too young to completely give in to the filthy festival madness, but nevertheless I went there again the year after. And I went there the consecutive eleven years that followed.

When I look back at it, the festival was like a thread running throughout my entire youth. The first festival, the first time camping without my parents, being stoned for the first time, seeing the bands that would influence my taste in music. Throughout these years I've seen the music changing. I've experienced the acceptance of hip hop in the alternative scene, and a few years after the acceptance of house music (before lowlands it wasn't so common to like anything else than rock or punk). I've seen acts like Oasis, The Offspring, T. Raumschmiere and 2 many DJ's when they still played in a concert hall that was half full. But more important, the festival also functioned as a yearly get together for my group of friends from Alkmaar. I've met one of my best friends there. And a friend of mine met his current partner at Lowlands.

The first time they announced at the main stage (where the entire festival was gathered) that they were happy to have reached 10.000 visitors. Now, 17 years later, the festival is so popular that the 55.000 tickets were sold out in less than 2 hours! A lot of my colleagues actually laid down their work for 2 hours to click their mouse and make numerous phonecalls in order to get a ticket. A total collapse of the ticket site due to too many visitors made it impossible to get through. It wasn't easy but everybody who wanted a ticket actually got one. And I have one as well. Thanks to my colleague Daniel, who called with a friend from DDB who phoned about 200 times to sneak past the automatic answering machines. It's great to have seen a quality festival like Lowlands, growing to become the most popular festival of Holland.

City of bikes

2010-11-21T16:49:00.004+01:00

Amsterdam is bike city. In fact, there are almost as many bikes as inhabitants in Amsterdam; a total of 600.000! It's probably because with all these narrow streets, bridges, canals and one way streets it's the fastest form of transport withing the city centre. So the first thing you should buy in Amsterdam is a bicycle. But once you've been in New York for a while, you get used to walking long, very long distances. So I did that in any other city I lived in afterwards. Even in Amsterdam. I got used to that and I never really felt the need to buy a bike.

On Saturday we were on the way to a party and I had to sit on the back of a bike because I still haven't got one. My friend Remco was complaining about it. To him it's unthinkable that I haven't bought a bicycle in the half year since I've lived here. Then something sheer coincidental happened. A black guy at the corner heard his complaints and decided on the spot to offer his bike for sale. He assured us that it was in good state because he had it for years. Remco impulsively bought the bike for me. And not a minute later I was kicking the pedals of my new bike. The only problem with it is that the former owner broke the lock by accident but that's probably why he sold it for so cheap.

All these events were so coincidental, that it probably had to be that way. You could say that destiny talked me into buying a bike. Well, actually Remco talked me into it, but that doesn't matter.

In Alkmaar (for a few hours)

2010-11-10T19:20:00.004+01:00

Last week, after I had dinner in a restaurant with Ann-Christin, a former Miami Ad School student who was in Amsterdam, my ATM pass got swallowed by the machine. So I had to run home to get money with my Belgian pass. The day after it seemed that the Dutch pass was blocked because of a skimming-threat. Because my bank account is still on the address of my parents, I didn't receive a letter about it. But they did send the new pass to my parents house. So that's a nice occasion to visit my parents again. And therefore I left work earlier to go to Alkmaar. In a few hours I'm going to leave again. It's too short, but I'll be back soon.

Storytelling

2010-11-09T13:09:00.002+01:00

Something as simple as a story can give a product the extra benefit it needs. In a way that's how advertising works. And that's where good copywriting comes in. This weekend I went to an exhibition called W8N8, which was organised by a former colleague of mine, Miranda. It was located in one of the waiting rooms of the central station, and there were DJ's playing. Now that's what I call a brilliant combination.

As a real copywriter, I didn't only look at the photographs, but I read the background of the photographers and the meaning of their pictures as well. Something as simple as a photograph of a white bridge all of a sudden becomes more interesting when you read that this bridge was brand new at the time. And that the photographer's goal was to immortalize this clean bridge. Because half a year later, it was already full of grafitty. All of a sudden something as simple as a bridge becomes very interesting.

Even food can become more interesting with stories. Yesterday my colleagues and I had dinner with our client IKEA at a place called Di Gigi. His 'restaurant' simply consisted of a big kitchen in the back of his house. There, the Italian Gigi cooked and served the food. And with every dish he stood beside our large table and told a story. About how he brought his paprika and other vegetables straight from Italy in his bus, how he prepaired all the food, at which private vineyard he got his red wine. Sometimes the stories were a bit too long. Because after hearing for 10 minutes about the history, the origin and the preparation of a pumpkin pudding, you're craving to try the little piece of delicacy. But it didn't matter, because it did make the already delicious food even better. Gigi is the living proof that there's still hope for long copy. Numerous pages of it.

Me too advertising

2010-11-03T13:29:00.004+01:00

What? Another flashmob for T-mobile?

Funny how you can always spot certain trends in advertising. The trends usually start with a great idea, and everybody trying to copy this great idea because they think they can win an award as well. Miami Ad School graduate and my former coach Menno Kluin set a trend with a 3D typography campaign, many more 3D typo ads followed. In Holland the funny Albert Heijn commercials are now cloned by other supermarkets. New technology can also start a trend: last year it was augmented reality, this year it's raining chatroulette campaigns and projections on buildings-campaigns.

And then there's the flashmob advertising. This hype started with the famous T-mobile dance, and many many more me too-campaigns followed. Eager advertisers and agencies who tried desperately to get a piece of the success with their own half ass-version of the flashmob. Nobody really succeeded. And then Saatchi London comes with...another flasmob for T-mobile. At first I thought: oh no guys, don't even bother. But I was surprised when I saw it. It's executed so good, produced with such love for details, that they get away with it. It's still not as good as the first one, but to get more than a million hits in three days, that's a big accomplishment already. Once again, this is a proof that good execution is just as important as a good idea.

In the meantime in Belgium...

2010-10-21T23:05:00.003+02:00

Tonight in Brussels there's a lions night, during which they honour all the Cannes Lion winners of Belgium. One of the bronze ones is mine. It's my very first one. But instead of being on a stage with spotlights and a big audience, I'm at home. It's not because I want to. It's because Brussels is not exactly next door and I couldn't find a place to sleep at the last moment. And I'm not the type of person who spends a hell lot of money a hotel just to go to an award show. So I leave the honour of getting the award to my former creative directors (and they deserve the statue as much as I do, so why not).

Instead, I got a day off tomorrow as a compensation for the shooting on Sunday. I probably going to spend half of my day off lying in bed because this weekend it's Amsterdam Dance Event. So tonight I'll be in a club dancing on goa-trance or some other underground music. I'm still not sure if I should have gone to Belgium and paid an expensive hotel instead, but as long as I enjoy myself I don't really mind.

Exodus

2010-10-17T21:48:00.004+02:00

When Gert-Jan Kuijvenhoven, Roel Pijnacker and Wietse Vonk left Belgium to go back to Holland, I thought the 'exodus' of talented Dutch creatives to Belgium has reversed. But soon another talented young team is going to that little country south from the Netherlands. Gijs Sluijters and Joris Tol are going to work at Famous Brussels.

I think any young creative team should at least work abroad once. To work abroad, even if it's as close as Belgium, forces you to think in such a different way that you can only get better. After all00, you're considered more unique when you work abroad and when you come back you're more unique because you've worked abroad. And all the Dutch creatives I know who worked in Belgium (myself included) somehow came back with a better porfolio and more awards than ever. Gijs and Joris are full of great ideas and the plan to go to Belgium is probably one of their best ones.

Welcome in Hamburg

2010-10-11T22:21:00.003+02:00

It's funny how a city that's so far from my city of birth can actually feel like home. On Thursday I went to Hamburg by plane and I arrived at around 23.00. I searched for the apartment of my good friend Salvatore, which is in the colorful neighborhood of St. Pauli. I was in a street near Jung von Matt, one of the most famous agencies in Germany. It's a neighborhood where every wall seems to be full of posters. A district full of little restaurants, second hand stores and smoky pubs. I couldn't find Salvatore's apartment at first, but to kill the time a bit, I talked to a beggar with a big grey beard and drank an Astra in a chinese place. As soon as I figured out that the phone number of my Italian friend needed a landcode in front of it, Salvatore himself walked in, lured by the sound of my voice and looking to see if I was near.

I can't imagine any other city where I'd feel so comfortable to walk the streets while being slightly lost. Of course, this is the city that I lived for more than a year. Where my Miami Ad School adventure first started. That weekend I visited my old school again, where the headmaster Niklas made some time in his busy schedule to have a talk. I also met Rhea Hanges again, a former Miami Ad School student who moved from New York to work in Hamburg. And I met tons of new people, amongst them Anne Mauro and Glenn, who made the wise decision to study at the Miami Ad School.

What's great about Hamburg is that the city rocks so hard that every weekend looks like a festival. This weekend wasn't an exception. We stayed until late in loud, underground punk clubs and the next day I took the train -still with a slight hangover- back to Amsterdam. Advertising, Astra, Salvatore, Miami Ad School, JvM, parties; this weekend was like all the memories of Hamburg in a nutshell.

Go go go!

2010-10-06T13:22:00.003+02:00

How ironic. Sometimes you make an ad especially to win awards and then it doesn't win anything. And sometimes you make something because you believe in it or just for the heck of making something cool, and then it wins awards. The animation 'Go South Africa' is a clear case of that. Before I even knew I'd go to Holland, the director Robbert-Jan Vos asked me to help him writing the script and I decided to help him out. Because it was a fun project. Because I can't stand a script full of spelling mistakes. Because I got caught in Robbert-Jan's contagious enthusiasm.

No matter why I decided to participate, in the end I was happy to have a beautiful animation movie in my portfolio. Especially one with such an appealing message. But now the short movie is nominated for two film festivals that I never knew existed. First nomination is for the Holland Animation Film Festival and the other one is for the Viral Video Award 2010. At first I thought the last one was some bogus award invented by a geeky blogger, but it's actually part of the International Short Film Festival Berlin. And it will be shown on a big screen. Sometimes doing something you believe in is enough to get the ball rolling.

A familiar face

2010-09-29T12:00:00.003+02:00

Monday I came from the ferry (yes I go to work by a boat, how Dutch can it get?). At the platform I was flabbergasted to see a former schoolmate of mine: Dirk Geleijsteen. He's the third dutchman who graduated at the Miami Ad School Europe (I am number 4). It was surprising because I thought he still worked at Jung von Matt in Germany. We couldn't talk for a long time because his boat was leaving, but it was a nice but short meeting and Dirk is apparently working for a coffee store now. He's never ceases to surprise me with his creative career switches.

And yesterday I also met Celeste, another Dutch MASE-graduate (number 6). She visited the school when I was in my last quarter and for the rest I saw her at a few quarter ending parties in Hamburg. All MASE-graduates have a lot in common so one hour was way too short. In between sipping glasses of red wine she told me she's working in a brand new agency called Screw the line. Never heard of it, but what a great name for an agency.

Wanted: art-director

2010-09-21T23:16:00.004+02:00

After half a year of succesful working with my art-director Luiz Risi, the teamwork has come to an end. This time it has little to do with the quality of the teamwork, but rather with the simple fact that the IKEA account is too Dutch. I love working with foreign talents and especially with a Brazillian art-director with a list of awards that covers at least half of his resume. But a Dutch shooting is just too difficult for somebody who doesn't speak Dutch. And considering we're shooting commercials with the speed of a machine gun, there was no other option then to split up.

Luckily, Luiz will stay at Lemz. So he'll keep on surprising us with awesome artwork. He's just not working for IKEA anymore. But this means I'm going to look for a new art-director. And this time he or she needs to be Dutch (or Flemish of course). Preferably with a lot of experience with television and with award winning work. In the meantime I have dozens of new scripts to write. This time without an art-director who can warn me for the most awful ideas that spawn from my mind. But I have a special technique to cover up for that. It's called: write so many scripts that it's statistically impossible to make something bad. Always works.

IKEA, now with subtitles!

2010-09-17T11:27:00.005+02:00

TV commercial Handcrafted

Because I've finally managed to put subtitles under commercials, it's going to be easier for me to share my new commercials immediately. Above you can see the result. It's one of the commercials as part of a campaign where we broadcast a new commercial every day. Every week I want to publish a different commercial on this blog. Sunday I'm going to have a shooting for another 15 commercials so there'll be more than enough to choose from.

Robin in IKEA land

2010-09-16T13:37:00.005+02:00

Even the streetnames are branded here

It's a bit late to write about the subject, but last week I've been to Älmhult, Sweden. Together with the clients of IKEA we went to the village where the first IKEA store started. And we stayed in the IKEA hotel. Now guess what kind of furniture they have in there...

Remarkable about Älmhult is that everything is IKEA there. Not only the store, but also the IKEA museum, the Concept Shop, the prototype factory, the studio and the main office is there (just to mention a few things). Not less than 80% of the inhabitants of this little town is working for IKEA. I felt like I was in IKEA-Disneyland.

You learn so much about the furniture brand, that it's almost brainwashing. After the trip, I realized that this is the first time in my career that I get to know a client so well. In most agencies the deadlines are so strict that there's simply no time to go to the factory or to do an elaborate study. After all, with all the internet-access you have all the information you need for an assignment at your fingertips. But this doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. You lose touch with the core of a brand when you only see it in browserpages.

If every client would give creatives a chance to get to know them in the way that IKEA does, there would be a lot less misunderstanding. And better work will come of it.

Slime your class

2010-09-07T16:37:00.003+02:00

The TV commercial for Nickelodeon

It looks like the campaigns are rolling off a conveyor belt now, but my latest campaign was actually my first assigment at Lemz. Which means that this competition for Nickelodeon took me almost half a year to make. In the Slime Your Class-campaign you can win getting slimed with your entire class on TV. Besides a TV-commercial, there's a print ad, an ambient campaign and a special promotional website.

This Slime-thing has a history with Nickelodeon. In the U.S. celebrities already get 'slimed' during the Kid's choice award. The winner gets slimed, so (believe it or not) it's actually an honour to be covered with the icky green substance.

In Holland the sliming is not very known yet. But that will change very soon. Until now, almost 2500 classes and more than 20.000 students have uploaded their class on the special page on Hyves (which is the Dutch version of Facebook). Here you can place your profile picture in a class picture. Afterwards you can see a moving version of that class in the gallery. If you have a Hyves account, you can see the site here.

Raving and shooting

2010-09-05T23:17:00.004+02:00

Big costume party at Valtifest

"I wonder when I'm adult enough to stop enjoying this music", I was thinking while I was looking at Aux Raus, a 170 BPM hardcore electro-punk band where you're very likely to get beer or crowdsurfing people on your head. I guess I was born to love chaos and noise. This Saturday I went to Valtifest, a festival where they celebrate the end of the festival season with a big blast.

The fun part about Valtifest is that there is a dresscode. This year the dresscode was: religion. I've never seen so many priests, nuns, jewish, muslims, greek gods, roman gods, angels, devils and jesusses dancing and partying together. Dressing up for parties seems to be back. Even the gothic parties, where the dresscode is quite eccentric and dark, seems to gain popularity.

Trend or no trend, I just had a great day with nothing but good craziness. And I was back in time to get some necessary sleep. Because today I got up at 5 o'clock to go to a shooting for IKEA. I'm usually home around that time on Sunday morning but this morning I was in a taxi on my way to my colleagues. And after a long day, the second half of the commercials for the month September is finished. What a beautiful mix of partying and working this weekend was. Need sleep.

Launch of the IKEA campaign

2010-09-01T20:55:00.003+02:00

The very first IKEA commercial (in Dutch)

Today is the start of my new IKEA campaign. The first commercial is broadcasted and many more will follow. Every day there's going to be a new commercial. For the English speakers: in the commercial above the girl says she wants something new. On which the employee replies: "Oh you're lucky, because this here is new, this is new and me, I am new as well". This is to promote the 1000 new products of IKEA.

If you have comments on this commercial, let me know. I'm continuously working on new scripts. In fact, I'm writing new scripts for October already. And, just like IKEA, I'm constantly trying to improve the quality of my work. Every day different, every day better.

New IKEA campaign

2010-08-30T13:12:00.004+02:00

The news video about the new IKEA campaign

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there's no hope for it. This quote of none other than Albert Einstein, applies totally to the new IKEA campaign that I've made at Lemz. To show the versatility of IKEA, we're going to broadcast a new TV-commercial every day. So that means 365 commercials a year!

To make such an amount of TV-commercials sounds absurd. But we knew from the start that, in order to win a huge pitch like this, we had to create a tornado instead of a nice summer's breeze. In fact, the idea sounded so absurd that everybody in Lemz thought: yes, it's risky, but what if it is possible... From then we never let go of the idea anymore.

And then we started trying out if we can really do it. Teamwork was essential here. From the very first beginning, we worked with production company Cake to see if a project like this was possible within the limits of time, technique and budget. Hundreds of scripts and a few test video's later, proved that it was possible. But the real test came on the actual shooting, where we had to run through the IKEA store to make 14 commercials in just one day.

This Wednesday, the first IKEA commercial will be aired. And, of course, many many many more will follow.

Sugar moments

2010-08-24T22:37:00.003+02:00

It's not that I like being at the dentist. But it might seem so, judging by the amount of time I spend there. Since I turned 14 I've always had problems with my teeth. I don't know why, but I guess it's nature's way to compensate for me being resistant against diseases. Any physical problem I get is always teeth-related. And Amsterdam is a good place to be if you need dental care. Okay, you have to plan your appointments a month in advance, but at least the dentists are good here.

My new dentist said, after refilling a tooth from which a part had broken off, that I already had quite a lot of crowns and fillings for my age. And he warned me that if it goes on like this, I might need a denture in about twenty years. He also asked me how many sugar moments I have in one day. It's the amount of times you eat, drink anything that contains sugar (including fruit, fruit juice, tea with sugar and wine). I told him I lost count. "So," he said, "if you'd just reduce the amount of sugar moments you might get rid of all your teeth problems".

That's a nice perspective for somebody who has gone through all the horrors imaginable at the dentist office and the hospital. So I decided to listen to the man. So today I didn't touch the jar of candy that they put on the table during a meeting with IKEA. It's tough, because I love sugar. And instead of drinking wine the entire evening, it's even better to drink a bottle in once because that would count as only one sugar moment. I don't know what a doctor would say about it, but I'll drink to that.

Shoot

2010-08-22T23:12:00.004+02:00

Isn't it ironic? I went to Lemz because I wanted to make different work than traditional agencies and now I'm making more films than ever before. Not that it bothers me in any way, because the commercials that will come out soon are far from traditional. On Friday I shot a commercial with 25 children on it and today I shot a total of 14 commercials for IKEA in one day. And on Wednesday we'll have the final presentation of a 2 minute animation film (yes, another one).

There are so many projects running at the same time, that me and my teampartner need to split up so we can attend two different edits at the same time. It's a pity that I cannot be everywhere at the same time, but at least I'm not bored. Right now I'm just very sleepy so I'm going to get a good rest before my working week officially starts.

Work work work

2010-08-19T13:13:00.003+02:00

There's so much to do over here that I don't know the planning until I arrive at the agency. Looking at casting proposals, recording voice overs, shootings, writing heading for billboards, perfectionizing scripts, pre PPM's, PPM's, presentations, meetings. Yesterday I found out that there was a meeting, only because a director of one of the projects walked in. It was then that I knew I've completely lost the overview. Even Luiz is working on other projects than I do because we don't have the time to work together on everything. But I'm glad that I'm more productive than ever. And as a result, soon there's going to be a lot of new work on this blog.

Festival vacation

2010-08-11T14:02:00.003+02:00

Like father, like son: rolling in the mud during a festival

And another week passed by. Time flies when you're having fun. I've had vacation for just a week and after a regular timeshift during the day, it's great to be in a more flexible mode again. Sleeping out is great when you're not used to it anymore. But it wasn't exactly a quiet vacation. I spent the first few days enjoying Amsterdam and the next days I was at two different festivals in Belgium.

The Belgian cities seem to have an enormous budget for their festivals. Especially the small ones. In my city of birth Alkmaar they are already happy when Marco Borsato is willing to throw a concert, but in Lokeren a festival week takes 10 days and there are artists like Alice Cooper, Public Enemy and the Human League! I only went there on Thursday. One one evening I've seen both the Dandy Warhols and Sisters of Mercy. The day after I went to the Dranouter festival, where my favorite was the Italian jazz legend Paolo Conte. This week I went back to work again, exhausted from my well deserved vacation.

Why it can take a week to write one post

2010-07-27T13:02:00.009+02:00

The wonder of Photoshop: Marton, me and the film Lion

So, I got this really cool picture from my former teampartner Marton Jedlicska. Where he photoshopped the bronze film lion in between our pictures. Because he's in San Fransisco and I am in Amsterdam, the chance that we'll ever hold this particular lion (which is still in Cannes) together is close to zero. So this is a nice substitute to celebrate our successful teamwork.

I like the picture, so I wanted to show it at the top of my post. But then I had to write something about it. At first I thought about writing about the making of the winning commercial. But during the writing I thought: I'm repeating myself, I've written this before. Besides, this blog is to describe what's happening now. What happened before is old news. Right now I'm very busy working on TV scripts for this great client IKEA. And my girlfriend came over from Antwerp to stay in Amsterdam for a few weeks. And there's a very experienced freelance copywriter whom I'm working with and from whom I learn a lot. Enough to write about.

And because all these subjects have no relevance with Marton's Photoshop collage, I left it out. But then nobody would know how it took me more than a week to make a new post. So I explain it. And because readers have no clue what the picture looks like, I put it back again. And yes, this whole process took me an entire week. Conclusion: a vacation would be nice.

Teamwork

2010-07-20T22:40:00.005+02:00

You can't hide where you're coming from my man,

so kick your ol' shit back in Amsterdam

This quote from Osdorp Posse suddenly feels very relevant to me. I'm only back in Amsterdam since April, but I'm already seriously kicking ass here. Probably everybody in Dutch advertising heard about it, but Lemz just won a big pitch. I was strongly adviced not to publish anything about it, but the news is already here and here on the internet, so it would be a bit silly not to share it with the rest of the world.

And yes, I was in the team that was responsible for this tremendous success. Because it was a team. I had to leave Duval Guillaume because I missed a permanent art-director. At Lemz, I have the impression, I didn't only get a teampartner, I got an entire team. And the team I worked with these last few weeks proved to be as strong as the Dutch soccer team. The only difference is that we did win the final.

Passion

2010-07-15T11:34:00.003+02:00

When I was a junior copywriter, working at McCann in Amstelveen, one of the creatives already told me that about 50% of the work that goes to a presentation ends up in the trashbin. I think that was even quite optimistic. In advertising you do a lot of work for nothing.

Or so it seems. Cause if you think about that in advance, it's not very motivating. And the thought of not producing the ideas you make might end up in a self fulfilling prophecy. The only way to motivate yourself to keep on producing new ideas, to keep on making mistakes, to keep on passionately making presentations, is the fact that at least afterwards you can say: no matter what happens, I gave it all.

We've had another one of those weeks with an endless workload. Now it's finally over and the concept is presented. Was it worth all the effort, endless discussions and sleepless nights? Definitely. Because regardless of whether the client takes the idea or not, we learned one thing: that by working together you can push yourself to such limits that the outcome is nothing less than brilliant. No matter what happens, we gave it all.

Paul the PR octopus

2010-07-09T13:44:00.004+02:00

Paul the octopus doing his predicting

One of the best publicity stunts of this world championship soccer is not even made by an agency: Paul the predicting octopus. This phenomenon will certainly draw more people to Sea Life in Oberhausen than any ad campaign can ever do. This oracle octopus predicted all the matches that Germany played right, even their loss in the half final.

Today he predicted that Spain will win against Holland in the finals. Nonsense of course. But even if he's going to be wrong, the publicity stunt is already spot on.

UPDATE: Damn, the little bugger was right.

Finally busy

2010-07-07T20:15:00.003+02:00

Last week was the busiest week I've had in years. Because we've been put on a special project, the general manager of Lemz thought it was a good idea to show up at work at 8 o'clock in the morning instead of nine. And Monday I worked until 1.00 in the night. I took the last ferry boat, which was loaded with drunk girls from a nearby theatre festival.

The quiet times are over and I like it. I like the tension that comes with the responsibility you get. I like working together with a team of professionals who all have their own specialisation. Together we managed to create a campaign that is solid as a rock. Yesterday, after the presentation I still couldn't get a normal sleep because the Dutch team won from Uruguay and there was a big party in Amsterdam. And I'm not exactly the one who's sensible enough to skip the party and crawl in my bed early.

A different lion

2010-07-03T16:39:00.004+02:00

My happy (and drunk) colleagues after the victory of Holland

I've never been a big fan of soccer. Any sport where people start rolling on the ground in agony after a lowkick seems kind of lame to me. But I do like a good party. And the good thing about the world championship soccer is that people watch it in the pub. And the excitement there, contaminates even a soccer hater like me.

Yesterday Lemz closed earlier so that everybody could see the match of Holland-Brazil in the pub. It's a pity for my Brazillian teammate Luiz, but Holland was victorious. The lion seems stronger than ever.

Talking about competitions: because Holland is about as small as Belgium, it's only natural that the Dutch advertising industry compares their amount of Cannes Lions with that of our neighbour country. And Belgium has won again. Holland has won 16 lions and Belgium has won 17 lions. So the irony is, that in a way I am responsible for the one lion that gave Belgium the advantage ;-).

Bronze!

2010-06-27T13:55:00.003+02:00

This is not the actual lion, but a picture of it

I finally did it. After years of hoping, sweating, swearing and brainstorming I finally won a Cannes Lion. It's a bronze one, but I never judge an award by its colour. This is by far the highest award I've won in my whole career.

Again thanks to Marton Jedlicska, who already won a lot of student awards but who is now one of the few Miami Ad School students who already has a Cannes Lion. A lot of thanks to Niklas Frings-Rupps for proposing this brilliant student for an internship to be my art-director. Also, a lot of thanks to Patrick the extra who proves that being yourself can make you a brilliant actor. And I can't thank Peter and Katrien enough for their inspiring coaching and for polishing our pearl of an idea until it shines.

And congratulations to my former colleagues Eva and Catheline, who also won their first Cannes Lion with this awesome TV commercial for Telenet. It was only a matter of time before these two smart girls would break through. As soon as the lion statue arrives in Brussels, I will go there to make a picture.

Shortlist Cannes

2010-06-26T11:42:00.002+02:00

The TV commercial starring Patrick the extra

This week the Cannes advertising festival started. Duval Guillaume sent in four of my works for the award show. After four days there wasn't any entry that became shortlisted, so all hope was settled on the film category. My best work, the Telenet TV commercial Extra, was sent in for that. But Film is also the most difficult category.

So yesterday, when I looked through the list of nominees, I was very happy to see that it was nominated. This is my second shortlist in Cannes ever, which indicates already how difficult this festival is. Even the donor ad didn't get a nomination. A lot of thanks to my hungarian art-director Marton Jedlicska, with whom I made the concept. And a lot of thanks to Peter Ampe and Katrien Bottez for helping us executing the commercial up to perfection.

I'm already happy with the nomination, but on Sunday I will hear if I actually won a Cannes Lion. You can see the shortlists and winners on the website of the Cannes Festival.

Go go go!

2010-06-23T22:17:00.003+02:00

As soon as my animation movie about South Africa (see the post before my last one) was released, I was really curious how people will react on it. How will the media, the blogs, the visitors of YouTube and Vimeo pick it up? Well, I haven't been disappointed, to say the least. This commercial has had a bigger viral effect of all my commercials combined.

On YouTube I'm still waiting for the film to pass the 1000 hits. On Vimeo, on the other hand, there are already 42.000 hits! Not bad for the first two weeks. And then I started to wonder how this sudden rush could happen. What was the spark that made the video flaming hot? It's hard to tell for sure, but after some investigation I saw that the film was mentioned on some forum on the website. Which lead the film to become a staff pick, so it's on the main page for one day. Which lead to an incredible rise in hits. And after that it was mentioned on blogs and forums all over the world, which put the train of hits in full throttle.

Above that, the video got a 7,4 rating on Ads of the World. Now an animation that's crafted this well (thanks to Renske) can always count on sympathy of the sceptic viewers, but a 7,4 is exceptionally high. It was tough to complete this big project, but I'm glad to say the hard work pays off.

Success is relative

2010-06-17T22:06:00.003+02:00

Last weekend I was very anxious to see electro/hip-hop singer Uffie in Amsterdam. The concert was a total disappointment. Her mild performance couldn't excite the audience and as a reaction she scorned the audience for not dancing hard enough. At no point I had the impression that she's with the popular Ed Banger label, an underground-electro label founded by the former manager of Daft Punk. Maybe my expectations were just too high.

Success in the past is no guarantee that you will be just as good today. But the scary thing is that nowadays nothing seems to be a guarantee to have success. This became painfully clear when I heard that one of the world's top creative agencies FarFar decided to close down.

And another thing: de Fietsenfabriek (translated the bicycle factory) is declared bankrupt. Entire Amsterdam is full of bicycles and bicycle baskets from this trendy and innovative bicycle factory. If you see a bike with their logo about 100 times a day, it's hard to believe that this company has over 1 million Euro of debts. It seems very unlikely that you can actually have influence over your own success. Being talented, working hard, being good in business, earning a lot of money is no guarantee for the future anymore. Is life one big lottery where you can decide the stakes?

Go South Africa!

2010-06-11T10:04:00.002+02:00

The animation movie I've made with director Robert-Jan Vos

About four months ago, before I even knew I would come back to Holland, I had a drink with director Robert-Jan Vos in Amsterdam. While we were drinking a beer at a corner of a pub at a canal, he was talking about an idea for an animation project and he needed a copywriter to help him putting the idea on paper.

As soon as I read his first draft, it was clear why he needed a copywriter. The script was full of spelling mistakes and had the coherency of a ball of wool. In the little spare time I had, I wrote several scripts on which he had some comments again. For a while the scripts went back and forth between Belgium and Holland until we made the final script.

After that Robert-Jan found an animator who liked the script and wanted to invest time in the project: Renske Mijnheer. Together they started to produce the movie. Because it is all made in stop-motion, it was very time consuming. And it took about a month to complete the film. Because at that time I was already working at Lemz, I could only help them in the evening with the project. So sometimes after work I was also cutting out little pieces of cardboard and paper.

Above you can see the final movie. It's a movie about the world cup soccer, about racism and about South-Africa. Subjects that are usually quite heavy, but which now come together in a lighthearted, animated fairy-tale.

Elections

2010-06-08T21:17:00.003+02:00

One of the worst political promotion movies ever

Last post I was probably just imagining that nothing happens in Holland. Tomorrow the elections have started in Holland. And even though I don't really care about politics a lot, it is exciting to follow the news and to see all the debates between the aspiring politicians.

Less exciting are the campaigns around the election. Not one campaign has made a lasting impression on me. It's because most of the parties are conservative as hell. Not as in 'right-winged conservative', but as in 'a total lack of innovation'. When I walk from the station to the ferry, every day there's an army of political activists who try to push a flyer in my hand. A fucking flyer?!

2010 is the year when innovative media became common: social networks, blogs, iPhone, Youtube. And the political parties still hand out flyers on the street with a big toothpaste smile. Even the green parties do it (no, I don't care if it's printed on recyled paper). At least the socialist party gave a sponge with it, to symbolize that they want to clean up politics. Well, at least they try.

A party that also tries -but a bit too much- is Trots op Nederland, which translates as Proud of Holland. In the movie above, one of the ministers talks about politics while an old lady is beaten up right behind her. It's just hilarious. The rest of the movie is a compilation of literally translated Dutch expressions and bad clichés. It was a total hit on YouTube because anything stupid becomes a hit on Youtube. But according to the prognosis they're going to need a miracle to make it into the Dutch lower chamber. When does politics finally wake up?

Back to normal

2010-06-07T13:07:00.003+02:00

I can write the standard apology about not having written on my blog for too long, but that would be a bit of a cliché. I've been quite busy for these last few weeks, going from work to sports to the production of an animation I've been working on. And in the meantime I've met friends that I haven't seen for a long time. But even in the Miami Ad School I could always find time to write something. So what kept me away from my blog for such a long time?

Could it be that I simply didn't really experience something new and interesting? Maybe I'm not very surprised at things anymore now that I live in good old Holland again. For me, everything seems to be back to normal. But maybe I'm just temporarily out of inspiration to write. Like a temporary writer's block. I hope it's that last one, because the perspective of not experiencing anything to write about is a very depressing one. I want to live my life like a book and I hope that I'm not going through the boring chapters right now.

Abandon all hope

2010-05-27T20:26:00.004+02:00

Nobody who works in advertising can avoid it: the shitty jobs. The jobs that are not creative, aren't fun to do and often makes shitloads of money for the agency. The last reason is why agencies put up with clients who give these shitty jobs. Every agency has them, no matter how creative. I did a terrible job for Saatchi New York, I made loads of awful work for Duval Guillaume and within 2 months I've already made something bad at Lemz.

There's a common misconception that, if you are in the right agency and a more creative agency, you'll get better briefings. Yes, some agencies tell that they only have good briefs, but they are lying. But surely, the briefings get better when you become senior? Nope, if you have more experience you only get bigger shitty jobs.

I think you shouldn't hope too much as a creative team. The job you have now is your biggest opportunity. If you're not satisfied with that, you can always make the work you want on the side. No time? That's an excuse and it's not a really good one if you really want to achieve something.

Everybody congratulated us about that particular job that Luiz and I did. The client was really happy. This already gives me a feeling of satisfaction; the knowledge that we got the most out of an impossible mission. But somewhere in the back of my head there was a little voice that whispered: "you're a fucking sellout", and then I went back to work again.

Embarrassment

2010-05-20T21:35:00.003+02:00

Today I saw a guy on a scooter with fluorescent green pants, a tanktop with 'Zumba instructor' on the back. For the people who haven't heard of Zumba yet, it's the latest craze in gyms all over the world: it's aerobics mixed with latin dance moves. It's supposed to be sexy and a good workout. I think it's just another hype (like tae bo and spinning) and after one year most of the colorful Zumba-pants will be back into the closet, where they should be.

Don't get me wrong. I love to watch samba dancing, it's a dance with history and charm. And there's nothing like a tough workout. But I simply cannot understand why people would want to do a half-ass dancing exercise. If you wanna dance, follow dance classes. If you wanna get in shape, train until the sweat drops from your face. It's a simple as that.

Okay, so if people want to think it's the greatest thing ever, I'm okay with that. But this Zumba instructor on the scooter obviously wants to shout to the world what he's doing. And then I think: why? The only reason I can think of why a man would do a thing like Zumba is: to get a lot of pussy. Okay, I can understand that, but why show it to the world? It would be the same as wearing a shirt that says 'male stripper'.

Another embarrassing thing I've seen this week: a new campaign from car brand Seat. In order to promote their latest green car they've made hidden camera movies. For the people who don't understand Dutch: the woman is blocking the bridge and she tells people that she's allowed to be asocial because her car is good for the environment. If you can stand seeing a poor actress degrading herself to make money, watch one of the films here.

Garbage strike

2010-05-16T21:42:00.003+02:00

Pile of trash at the Prinsengracht

From the beginning of this month, the trashmen in Amsterdam are on a strike. Now where have I seen that before? Oh yes, in my first quarter in Hamburg there were also trashbags all over the city because the cleaning employees wanted more salary. So anyone who visits Amsterdam will see that huge piles of trashbags will block the nice view. The pile in front of my house is so big that I can simply throw my garbage over the balcony. How convenient. You have to see the bright side of this stinking mess.

At Lemz the business is still slow. Compared to Duval Guillaume, where they shoot briefings at you like bullets in a machine gun, working here feels like a vacation. This is nice for a change, but I'd welcome a bit more working pressure. But I was never the type to sit still. In the evening I'm working on a pro bono animation project together with director Robbert-Jan Vos. It's a project I do just for fun. When it's not busy, I keep myself busy.

Advertising talk

2010-05-07T17:10:00.004+02:00

When I worked in Holland before the Miami Ad School, I always thought that networking would be something both fun and useful for my career. I have to admit that going to all the advertising drinks, award shows and young creative competitions was a lot of fun. But it would have been more useful for my career if I spent more time working. Besides, walking around drunk at every party doesn't give you a reputation of being very serious.

When I worked in Belgium I didn't go to places where creatives are and that hasn't changed now that I'm in Holland. But of course there are a few exceptions. It's nicer to talk to people individually having snappy 'where-are-you-working-nowadays-talks' at a party. Yesterday I had a drink with an art-director called Jan-Willem Smits. I followed his work since he started his career at DDB and TBWA (which are pretty good agencies in Holland). After that he worked at Ogilvy (a less creative agency), where he got one award and nomination after another. You can fairly say that he's had a pretty turbulent career.

People overestimate working at an agency. All young creatives want to work at the big shot agencies who win the most awards. The problem is that everybody wants to work there. And a great agency is not always the right place for you. The career of Jan-Willem proves that sometimes a step back is actually a huge leap forward.

Chaos on Dam square

2010-05-05T10:59:00.002+02:00

Surprised faces after the anxious moment

I was at the Dam square, where the war memorial was taking place. During the 2 minutes of silence, even the smallest sounds from outside become loud in contrast to the thousands of people who were silent. I heard a scooter in the street behind me. And then I heard a long scream. And a big bang, like exploding fireworks. It was the sound of a panick-stricken mass escaping whatever it was that scared them. A big crowd of people ran towards me, running for their lives and so scared that they had no regard for the people in front of them.

I had to run with the scared mass for about 5 seconds otherwise I'd have gotten trampled. After that, I turned around and tried to comfort the running people by screaming: "take it easy! Take it easy!". All of a sudden the panic was over. Afterwards, I heard on the news that a man dressed up like an orthodox jew was the one that screamed, which caused a chain reaction of panic in the crowd. Around 60 people got wounded in the rush. Sometimes man's own fear can be its biggest danger.

From Young Dogs to young lions

2010-05-03T22:34:00.003+02:00

Young Dogs waiting for the result of the 24 hour pitch

Pale-faced, exhausted young creatives sitting in a big room after having worked day and night. I immediately got a Miami Ad School flashback. But these were all Dutch people who put their sleep to the test in a tough 24 hour pitch. It was organised by the Young Dogs, an organisation that helps young creatives to make their first steps on the career ladder.

I was once a boardmember of the Young Dogs. Yesterday I went to the pitch to take a look and to meet the new Young Dogs. I was glad to see the club is still in hands of a nice and enthusiastic group of people. When I came in today, the room was grey from the cigarettes smoked by the nervous participants who waited for the result. I knew 5 of the 24 competing teams, so there was a pretty good chance that someone I knew would win.

And I'm happy to say that my colleagues Floor and Annelied won the first prize. As a result, they are going to represent Holland in the young creatives competition in Cannes. Next month they'll go to the south of France to compete for a prestigious Cannes Lion.

Always on the move

2010-04-29T17:40:00.002+02:00

I like changes, but to change apartments for the second time in one month is a bit odd. A few weeks ago I heard that I had to move out of my apartment already. So I started a search for the holy grail in the city of Amsterdam. Because to find an affordable apartment in the city centre is almost impossible. So I went for the second best option: a not so affordable apartment in the city centre.

That's already a bit easier. Still, you have to be very careful in Amsterdam. Housing is scarce in the capital of Holland. And a lot of conmen know that. So there are various stories of people who had to make a run for the cash machine in order to pay the first month's rent and the deposit. Just to find out later that they're one of the 10 owners of the key to the apartment.

And there are also crooks who claim to be abroad, and therefore they cannot show you the room in advance. But if you put the money in a deposit, he can send you the key and you can take a look at it before you give permission to pay the rent. The e-mails are always written in the same way. They first tell you they're abroad for business. Then they usually tell you that the last owner made a big mess in the apartment, so this time they have to be really careful. And the flat can be yours if you transfer the money using the step-by-step procedure. Of course that's one big scam. Oh, and usually these people have a Scandinavian name like Martin Blirup or Erica Paulsen.

But all the ploughing through the jungle of housing offers paid off. I've finally found my dream apartment. It's in a district called the Jordan, near the central station. It's not exactly cheap, but it's certainly a fair deal. In Amsterdam, if you think twice about an apartment it's already gone. So after viewing the apartment, I immediately said I'm going to take it. If I survive all the wild partying on Queensday, I'm going to move to my new apartment the first of May.

No ADCN

2010-04-23T20:05:00.004+02:00

Tonight almost everybody who has anything to do Dutch advertising will be at the award show of the ADCN (Art Directors Club Netherlands). Nobody can't wait to see who won Holland's most prestigious awards, which is in the shape of a lamp. Lemz is nominated twice for a brillant IKEA-campaign. Any award show who wants to be taken seriously should award a campaign like that. And I don't just say that because I work there. As I'm writing this, everybody is standing in line for the ADCN, wearing a tuxedo or an evening dress, the mandatory garment. So you guessed already that I'm not going.

I'm not going there on purpose. It's not, like so many stubborn creatives who are not going, that I have something against the ADCN. On the contrary, I think they're doing a good job to bring Dutch advertising on a higher level. I just feel that there's no point in going there if I have no chance to win an award myself. It felt the same about the local Belgian award show.

Now this is a really personal thing. And if I tell it to my new colleagues they think I'm a bit of a nutter. It's also difficult to explain why I'm not going. For some reason I just don't see the point. To see the winning work is not inspiring to me because it's only a fraction of the good work that is made worldwide. I don't want to go there for the networking because I'm already in the agency that I want to be. So that only leaves the party for me. A party is always good, but why should I watch three hours of people walking on a stage who receive an award of which only Dutch advertising people know it exists, just to go to a party? Then I might as well go to a pub and start drinking immediately. Which happened to be the plan for tonight.

I don't want to win a lamp-award anymore and I think that because of this attitute, I will never make the typical work that will get me one. But still I can't help feeling a bit excited to know whether Lemz won one. They certainly deserve it. And it's always good to see even happier faces in the agency.

UPDATE: as expected, Lemz won a silver lamp in the category Interactive. I'm proud of my agency :-).

Longer copy

2010-04-20T00:34:00.004+02:00

It's 0:35 and I'm still working on a long copy for Doctors without Borders. They asked me if I have time to write the copy and I told them: "no, but I will make time". So now I'm stuck with a copy assignment on which I'm working past midnight. In the meantime, due to some weird error, my screen flipped 180 degrees. So I wasted more than half an hour solving that problem. The most difficult part is that there isn't enough input for the copy and I have a strict amount of words that I must stick to.

I've learned by now that the doctors who volunteer for my client have even less means to perform their work properly. And that they're even getting out of their tent in the middle of the night if they're needed for an operation. So I shouldn't complain. Anyway, it's an honour to work for a client like Doctors without Borders and that thought keeps me awake for a long time.

Remains of my life in Antwerp

2010-04-18T22:17:00.003+02:00

Since I'm working at Lemz (from the first of April) I haven't worked one entire week yet. That's because my first week lasted only 2 days, it was easter in the second week and this week there was a concert of Grace Jones in Antwerp on Thursday evening. For this I already bought a ticket when I was still living in Belgium and when I still thought I would continue to live there. Luckily it didn't mess up my planning and everything goes really well with my first assignments. Who says working parttime in advertising isn't possible?

Of course I'm very curious to see what the creative outcome is if I work fulltime. So finally this week I'm working five whole days, wow. Besides, I can't help feeling a little guilty for not being in the agency whenever people need me around. I guess that's the workaholic in me talking.

But I did have a great time in Antwerp. The concert of the legendary Grace Jones was a must-see. The soul diva hasn't changed a bit since the eighties. She looked as if she put herself in a time capsule and beamed herself to 2010. I spent the rest the weekend with my girlfriend, hopping from one bar to another in the centre of Antwerp.

Today, before I took a train back to the Netherlands, I removed the last little things from my old apartment in Antwerp. Afterwards I cleaned it. I took a last peek out of the windows, seeing the splendid view over the historical buildings in Antwerp. Memories came back of when I first arrived in the apartment, of all the friends that came over for a drink, of the one night stands with unknown girls until I spend the night with the girl whom I'm still in a relationship with. It made me sad to realize that I will probably never see my home in Antwerp again.

Familiar faces

2010-04-14T19:25:00.003+02:00

If you've worked for six years in Dutch advertising and if you went to almost every advertising party and you've been active in a young creatives organisation, you can't help meeting a lot of people. So it wasn't a complete surprise that I happened to know the new creative team that walked in the Lemz building this week: Rogier and Matthijs.

And slowly I see more and more people again. Last week I saw a former Young Dogs boardmember at the terrace under my agency and today I met an art-director who was on the ferry back to the central station. Advertising is a small world.

Talking about small worlds, in my hometown Alkmaar there are also people with creative ideas. Some friends of mine at NmTrix, a 3D animation agency, made the nice internet film that you can see above. It's a better than most advertising agencies promote themselves. Or your name must be Grimm Gallun Holtappels.

Shit card

2010-04-11T22:32:00.005+02:00

Checking in at the public transport with the chipcard

If there's any business that knows how to shake money out of their customers' pockets, it's the public transport business in Amsterdam. Not only did the prices of the fares go up tremendously in the past few years, but they also introduced a new way to prevent people from taking free fares: the chipcard. You have to check in when you enter the bus and afterwards you have to check out.

It's good that there's a system that forces people to pay honestly for their fares. But the problem with this card is that if you forget to check out, you pay the maximum price for a day, which is 4 euro. And it's only human to, despite all the signs and warnings, forget to check out. So of course, it happened to me as well. After a day of hard working I mindlessly walked past the little flipdoors in the tram.

To prove that the public transport company aren't the money hungry wolves that they appear to be, they temporarily give you the opportunity to get your money back. For this you have to send a letter with a receipt and they put 4 euro back on your bank account. Of course even a moron understands that they use this cumbersome procedure to get your shitty little amount of money back is invented to reduce the amount of reimbursements. And this cunning scheme probably works, even with the stingy Dutch people.

And it works for me as well. I'm not going to send a stupid letter. But I do want my money back. Just out of principle. So in order to spare my valuable time and that of the poor fools who need to open the incoming letters of tightwads, I get the money back my own way. While checking in I simply hold the card in front of the check in machine just far enough that it looks like I'm checking in, but not close enough to activate it. This way I travel for free, and the best thing is... I don't have to think about checking out. I will do this for five fares, so that I have exactly the amount of money back that I've lost. After these five times, honest as I am, I'm going to pay again. I've done it four times already and it's amazing how simple it is. Tomorrow I will have one free ride on the tram and then I'm reimbursed. Without anybody knowing it and without filling out stupid forms. Big middle finger to the public transport of Amsterdam and their shitty little chipcard.

First days at Lemz

2010-04-07T22:42:00.005+02:00

It's hard to tell how things are going in an agency from the first days. In the past it happened to me twice that the first briefings went so bad that my teampartner and I were kicked out within 2 weeks. It's what often happens to a team that wins awards in a too early stage of their career. We blamed the creative directors back then. But the expectations were simply too high and we simply couldn't live up to those as a junior team.

At Lemz the expectations are even higher. That's because they teamed me up with a Brazillian art-director with a great portfolio and considerable list of awards on his resume. See his portfolio here. It looks like a perfect match. Which also means the pressure to make outstanding work is even higher. Oh well, as a creative it's good to be a bit uncertain sometimes. Yesterday we had our first review and it went quite good.

The good thing about this agency is that an original insight or a big overall thought is more important than making just one outstanding ad. Also, the strategic planners play an important role in the concept development. They are participating instead of being a small cog in the wheel. I can't tell yet what kind of work this will lead to in the end. It will be good, solid work and I'm sure it will be effective, but will it be outstanding from a creative perspective?

This will remain a question for the time being. But one thing is for sure: it's very refreshing to work like this and I'm already glad that I've joined this little group of advertising professionals in the North of Amsterdam.

Lemz

2010-04-01T12:15:00.005+02:00

The agency building at the harbour of Amsterdam

I wanted to share my new agency with the world a lot earlier, but I agreed not to until I'm actually working there. But today I started. On April fools' day. My new agency -without joking- is called Lemz. Who? Outside of Holland they're not very known yet, but that's the destiny of an independent agency who predominantly makes very Dutch work. In Dutch advertising they are very well known. They have a reputation of being the agency where all the big clients go to.

I understand why. In my opinion Lemz has always made good and effective cross-media campaigns for their clients. It's one of the reasons why most of their clients haven't left the agency since its foundation and it's one of the reasons why clients are drawn to it in times of crisis. A lot of advertisers are looking for smarter ways to invest their advertising budget and Lemz seems to provide in that need. If you look at www.lemz.nl you'll get a pretty good idea of the campaigns they make.

Since the Miami Ad School and at Duval Guillaume I've made enough work to prove that I can make good advertising in all media. The next step for me would be to make campaigns that brings all of these media together. After having having learned from top traditional agencies like Saatchi New York and Duval Guillame Brussels, I figured that working at another traditional agency would be a repetition of what I've done before. So I looked on purpose for less traditional and more online driven agencies.

At Lemz I cannot rely on making one funny TV commercial or one good print ad. They only make big campaigns here. So here there's no other way: I have to make the insightful, through the line ideas that I truly believe in. The only way to do that is to forget everything I've learned about advertising so far and to think and work in a different way. It's a big challenge. One that I'm going to face while enjoying the splendid view over the docks of Amsterdam.