ADCN presents: Illuminating Talks
A report by VBAT
By Annet Kloprogge & Ilse Koks
Strategist & Creative at VBAT
Advertising avant la Lettre (attended by Annet)
By Pieter Roelofs (Rijksmuseum) & Michael Huyser (Rembrandthuis)
Pieter Roelofs kicked off the day by comparing his beloved 17th century to modern times. In the 17th century there were so many artists, that it was crucial to create a signature style. For example; painting landscapes, winter scenes or cityscapes.
In modern times, we are now able to recognise a painters’ work based on their signature style and can try to discover the story that the painter is telling throughout his work.
Having a signature style is equally important in modern times. And if you do it right, you will capture many minds with your story. No matter the time we live in, or the persons age.
Pieter Roelofs is very enthusiastic and passionate during his talk, I notice. He uses words such as ‘amazing’,‘unbelievable’ and of course; ‘must-see in the Rijksmuseum!’. He goes on with comparing ‘The Night Watch’ to a picture from our time, to point out that paintings are timeless and great to compare to current events. The similarities are quite good:
It must be hard for fellow talker, Michael Huyser from the Rembrandthuis, to top the talk that they are doing together/apart. As the director of the Rembrandthuis, he tells us that there is very little known about Rembrandt van Rijn himself, except for the fact that money was a big topic in his life.
We do know that he was commercially savvy; asking students to pay to work in his atelier and making extra money through etches. Rembrandt was popular until the day he died and managed to completely sell out his own archives.
Michael’s question around this topic is;
How can we connect to this story as a museum?
He shows several initiatives that the museum is hosting right now. Students that make videos about Rembrandt, ‘Etch your Selfie’, the Rembrandt Tower dinner, the Rembrandt Lab, an initiative for the elderly and a Rembrandt ‘voorleesbijbel’.
A list of 10 — Moments to Memories
(attended by Annet)
By Jochem Leegstra (…,staat) & Patrick Roubroeks (Xsaga)
After the enthusiasm from Pieter and Michael, the following talk was on a much lower energy level. Jochem & Patrick decided that they would present a top 10 of their learnings accompanied by case videos from their own agencies.
The list was the following:
- Dare to Dream
- Turn Product into Art
- Think Big
- Think Small
- Start a Conversation
- Turn the Audience into Fans
- Make a Statement
- Surprise
- Be the Perfect Stranger
- Trust Wow
Although the work by Xsaga and …,staat is truly amazing and every project looks like a top notch campaign, the talk wasn’t engaging and on top of that hard to understand, because the guys didn’t articulate their sentences clear enough.
Creativity is an Attitude (attended by Ilse)
Wesley ter Haar (MediaMonks) & David Snellenberg (Dawn)
Writer’s Note: The original speakers did only give an introduction to Paul Spies (Amsterdam Museum). Furthermore, this story has no logical story, as the speaker decided to hop from one subject to the other.
Through the core values of entrepreneurship, free thinking, citizenship and creativity, Paul Spies from the Amsterdam Museum, told the story about typical things from Amsterdam back in the day up until now. He explained that these core values are vital for success in any field of work.
“I’m afraid Amsterdam will fall apart. Back in the day everyone cared for each other.” Paul used to live near the lake at Geuzeveld Slotermeer, a really nice neighbourhood. Now that neighbourhood is sliced up into different boroughs, Paul thinks it’s declining. He told us stories about the Queensday Market, where his neighbours sold old things and went home extremely happy with €30,- in their pockets. “Nowadays we should care for each other, the same way we did before”, Paul says.
Paul also noted the differences between making donations in the U.S. and in the Netherlands: “When Americans give their money, they want credit for it. That’s the most important thing for them, to have their name next to the cause they’ve supported.” The Calvinistic Dutch on the other hand, think that supporting the cause is more important, not their name.
Cruijff lived his life this way as well, Paul shows. He cared for others. He gave, and received in return. He received his football lessons and career, and in return he started the Cruijff Academy.
He ended his ‘story’ with observations. Tourists only stay 1.6 (or was it 1.8?) days in Amsterdam, mostly going to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum and most of them only visit the Amsterdam Museum afterwards. He thinks that the 70's were the Golden Age for Amsterdam, because of the young people coming to Amsterdam, looking for the free-spirited atmosphere. Oh and, that we should vote for the Amsterdam Museum in some sort of award show.
Bravery (attended by Ilse)
By Mark van Iterson (Heineken) & Alvaro Sotomayor (W+K Amsterdam)
‘Bravery is going green in a sea of brown.’ Mark said. All the beer bottles were brown at the time, and Heineken wanted a green bottle.
‘Bravery is being ready to fail.’ Example of a failure; the WOBO — World Bottle from 1960's, was an innovative beer bottle that has a second life as a brick. In many developing markets this should result in less litter and better housing, but.. the two flat sides of the bottle don’t withstand the carbonation pressure in beer and the risk of exploding bottles was too high.
Mark went on with showing the Creative Ladder. This is a common and global language for creativity, to be applied at all stages of creative development.
- Legendary
- Cultural Phenomenon
- Contagious
- Groundbreaking
- Fresh
- Ownable
- Cliché
- Confusing
- Hijacked
- Destructive
Every layer has a separate explanation, for example; ‘Contagious’ means that the product or concept is so good, that you feel like you have to share it with your friends. ‘Cultural Phenomenon’ means that everybody is talking about it. And ‘legendary’ shows us that people will remember it long after we died.
Chipotle Mexican Grill is a good example:
He followed up the example with a small game.
Showing a range of objects, campaigns or products, we walked to the coloured chair that matched the word on the screen that corresponded with what we felt was fitting with the subject.
Next up: Alvaro Sotomayor. A fantastic man to listen to.
He told us: “We are all great at what we do. It’s true. Everyone has the best intentions to be significant, to be honest and to be good at what one does. But when you get good at what you do, one, somehow, repeats oneself. It’s like you cracked the code and you define your skills and expertise. You stop looking around. You become boring. One of our mottoes at W+K is:”
‘Embrace Chaos / Fail Harder’
Through the process of embracing chaos one learns to improvise, to innovate. To think outside ones comfort zone.
Alvaro explained to the audience that when he creates a campaign for a client, he can only reveal 60% of the concept. The rest is bound to change and surprise. A question from the crowd was: “That seems difficult, how can you win that trust?”. Sotomayor then answered: “As creatives, we have to take care that the client comes out of that comfort zone.”
Talking about University, Alvaro had one significant memory. The challenge was: ‘Enter a museum pretending you’re blind. Ask the people to explain the art to you.’
He decided to go to a Modern Art museum in downtown LA. Walked in and felt all the eyes were on him. His discovery was that they connected on a different level, people outside their comfort zone are more creative.
He learned to embrace the pain, be brave.
(Be sure to read this entire talk in the new Creatie magazine, where they explain more about their subject of ‘Bravery’)
Design as an Initiator (attended by Ilse/Annet)
By Robert Nakata (72andsunny) & Richard van der Laken (WDCD)
Oh boy, this one was a good one. Robert did a lovely little intro and quoted:
“Fifteen years ago, companies competed on price. Now it’s quality. Tomorrow it’s design” — Robert H. Hayes, 1995.
He asked the audience how many of them were from the Design industry and how many were in Advertising. Pointing out the importance that Design has and will have in the future.
..And then Richard started talking. ‘I’m in love’, he says.
He tells us a lovely story on how he met his wife Femke. Charming as he is, he went to the Art Academy and saw that Femke was a fellow student but from a different department. He went on to propose to the department where she was studying that he could make a poster for their upcoming event and used her naked body in a picture for the poster itself.
I wonder if she appreciates that he shows that photo to anyone who likes to see it..
Few years on, he married her, got children with her and they decided that they wanted to give their offspring a cultural upbringing. They tried to achieve this by bringing them to the Louvre in Paris.
Not so much a success..
But later on he could use this knowledge to open the Graphic Design Museum in Breda. Designpolitie designed one of its galleries for children aged 7 to 11.
In this room, children become acquainted with the graphic design discipline in an interactive way: they can have a go at being designers themselves. The walls are clad in paint containing iron, and magnetic figures are attached to them. With these magnets, you can make your own compositions on the billboards set up in the room and make painted shapes on the wall. You can also design digitally, using a design programme developed specially for this room on one of its computers.
‘I’m in love with freedom’
Inspired by Designpolitie’s Greek intern, Richard discovered through world reports, that the Netherlands is a very free country to live in and Greece is not. He uses this freedom to publish under the brand ‘Gorilla’ and showed a reel of their broad spectrum of work for the Volkskrant.
Empathy for Creativity (Attended by Annet)
By Dinesh Sonak (ADCN) & Reinier Steures (Natwerk) & the School of Life
So what does Empathy mean?
Empathy is the capacity to understand what another person is experiencing from within the other person’s frame of reference, ie, the capacity to place oneself in another’s shoes.
We started off with an intense exercise, indeed exercising empathy by placing ourselves in each other’s shoes. Picking a person from the room that we didn’t know, we had to place our chairs across each other and keep staring in their eyes for 2 minutes, without giggling or judging. (Good luck, Annet)
My lucky partner was named Martin and of course I started judging him right away (Sorry, Martin). But after a minute or so, I was thinking about what he was thinking of me. And with his pokerface I really couldn’t tell.
Then we got a new assignment.
‘Ask your partner what his or her’s favourite hobby is and ask five consecutive ‘Why’ questions.’
Ok. Here we go.
Martin is into kiteboarding.
Why is he into kiteboarding?
Because he enjoys the rush of it.
Why does he enjoy the rush of it?
Because it makes him feel like he’s conquering the sea.
Why does he enjoy conquering the sea?
Because it makes his mind empty.
Why does he need to make his mind empty?
Because it fills up with thoughts throughout the day.
Why does his head fill up with thoughts throughout the day?
Because he has a busy working schedule.
Next assignment:
‘Create a product that will make the persons hobby even better.’
I didn’t get to make a picture of my absolutely brilliant ‘monk wetsuit’ (obviously he’ll get famous as the Kiteboarding Monk, while making his head empty), but Martin did leave his beautiful drawing behind. A product that will assist me in my hobby of ‘Meeting New People’.
Give Patience a Chance (attended by Ilse)
By Lode Schaeffer (Indie) & Eva Rutz (Vodafone)
Lode started with referencing Alvaro Sotomayor from the previous talk. He agreed with him on the fact that you should try and build a relationship with your client and through that build trust. It should be a partnership. Patience is a virtue.
Then a Mystery Guest appeared: Hans Breevert, forester of the Oostvaardersplassen en director of De Nieuwe Wildernis.
He told us, there are so many hours in the making of the film (filming four seasons in over 2 years), not many people have that type of patience. But nature has no time, no quarters and with the commercial pressure of getting interesting footage, this is a very demanding task. What do the people want to see?
Eva Rutz explained: “I do not have any time, but you have to make it happen.” She’s asking design agencies to be patient. First and foremost her priority is to achieve the numbers that her company, Vodafone, has aimed for. This takes time. When this is achieved, there’s space for good ideas.
For four months, Vodafone wasn’t on Dutch television. This is the worst thing that can happen to a telecom provider. But the ideas simply weren’t good enough, and then it’s better to wait for the right one and do it right. Have patience.
Lode told us about a campaign where the commercial was absolutely perfect, in his opinion. The client agreed, but wanted to do one edit; they had to put in that the company was the #1 on the market. Lode thought this wasn’t a good idea, but decided to agree on good faith. The client saw the end result and finally agreed with Lode that the commercial was better before the edit and approved the commercial without the extra #1 feature.
The last note came from Eva, a lady that seems like she doesn’t want to be messed with. She tells us that we have to ask what’s going on with the client, to know everything that’s happening in the company, so both parties can respond to situations in a efficient way.
Conclusion
The first edition of ‘ADCN Illuminating Talks’ was definitely a success. We are both looking forward how this event will grow into a household name with compelling stories (with less agency presentations) to accompany the ADCN Awards.
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Annet is a Hyper Island alumni, currently living in Amsterdam and working as a Brand Strategist.
Also gives workshops in various creative methods, productivity & team development.
