Founded by Eric Kessels and Johan Kramer in 1996, this is one of the most creative agencies in Amsterdam – and Europe, for that matter. The agency, based in a church, is famous for not liking advertising awards, showing irrelevant information on its website and for its many very creative, non-commercial side projects. Given the broad interest of its founders, it is no surprise that Johan Kramer left the agency in 2005 to become fulltime film director. And though Kessels is still working full time for the agency, his photography related projects draw a lot of media attention. KesselsKramer’s best work was for Hans Brinker - it very effectively promoted the budget hotel as the greatest shit hole in Amsterdam. Other work was published in 2005 in a book called 2 Kilo of KesselsKramer.

www.kesselskramer.com

Lauriergracht 39
1016 RG Amsterdam
+31 (0)20 530 1060
church@kesselskramer.nl

Though these two ("Trees and Bo") seem to be stuck in this banner, “they’re not stuck with Ben”. Because Ben doesn't do year-contracts. Ben is the mobile phone provider (the name translates: Am – as in ‘I am’) made famous by KesselsKramer in 1999 with a very distinctive campaign; “Ik ben Ben”. After killing the brand in 2003, to become T-Mobile, it was reintroduced in 2008. To never change a winning team, KesselsKramer was awarded the account for a second time. But unfortunately since the relaunch we haven’t seen – or at least can’t remember having seen - any memorable work. And though this might be judged as a great ad by the average consumer, we of course remember the best banner ad (if not ad campaign) of 2009 for Belgium bank Axion, created by Boondoggle. A very similar idea – though better – that won a ton of international awards – among which 5 (!) golden Lions in Cannes this year. Our conclusion: Ben Was.

Though Zack McDonald recently left KesselsKramer and moved to Sid Lee, he wanted to share his last KK project with us. Together with Christian Bunyan, designer Angela Lidderdale, and Happy Pets, he created INK. The book is about tattoos and people’s often unusual motivations for getting them. The tattoo stories are quite diverse and well written, featuring drug-fuelled trips to Thailand, Scottish teenagers running amuck, and the world’s most precise tattoo artist. Each story has inspired a special one-off illustration by Swiss designers HappyPets. INK appears in a limited and numbered edition of 250 - you can order the book here.

This website, Hello I am Johan Kramer, is one of the funniest ‘under construction’ websites we’ve ever seen. Instead of simply saying ‘under construction’, Johan Kramer’s uncle Bob starts by saying "Hello my name is NOT Johan Kramer". He explains why there isn’t a website. First uncle Bob hired a Swede, than an Ukrainian web agency, and now an innovative agency from Letland. Johan still doesn’t have a site, nor sound. But fortunately there are subtitles, so you can follow the whole story. His monologue is fairly long for saying 'under construction', but easily engaging enough to sit it all out. We’re not sure whether the site is really under construction, but that doesn’t matter cause it will create buzz anyway. And that is something Kramer can use, cause he just released a new film, called Johan Primero. It’s based on a true story about a guy who drives his Citroën 2CV 50 times around FC Barcelona’s football stadium, Camp Nou, every single day. He believes it brings his team good luck. Kramer is the founder of the world famous agency KesselsKramer. He left the agency 5 years ago to become a full time film director. But he clearly hasn’t lost his feeling for advertising yet.

The Hans Brinker budget hotel likes to tout its 'what you pay, is what you get' (= not a lot) business model. Like in this banner, based on  'research' that showed that 47% of the visitors don't use their bed at all - they are too busy partying. Apparently the sleeping is often done when Amsterdam has already been left far behind.  The agency that made the ad, KesselsKramer, is practically married with the hostel. Over the years the consistent anti-advertising (of which the most famous example is the 'shitvertising'; Amsterdam dog turts adorned with little flags that say "Now there's even more of this at our main entrance") delivered the hotel an incredible amount of budget travelers. In reverse, the hotel delivered  KesselsKramer an incredible amount of free publicity. A symbiotic relation in 'optima forma'. The banners will be appropriately displayed on hostel.com and Tripadvisor. Who said online display advertising is not effective anymore? You just need to use the medium in a smart and relevant way.

KesselsKramer is known for every now and then creating stuff that is not necessarily made to sell products. It just makes its employees – and the world around them - happy. Take for example this website, called ‘All the banners of the web’. It was sent to us by Zack McDonald from KK, with a little note: “Unless you are a newborn baby, a prisoner of war or a pet rock, banner ads are an inescapable part of your life. You see them every day, yet you don’t know anything about them. Not really. Now is your chance to get to know Vertical Rectangle, Wide Skyscraper, Micro Bar and the rest of the gang. Learn about their fears, their desires, their ambitions, their fetishes. See them as the unique individuals they are, rather than the anonymous annoyances you imagine them to be”. So when you click on a banner, you can read about its personality. For example the rectangle (a banner we sometimes – but not very often – use on our website) is described as: ‘Rectangle likes to party hard’. Apparently it’s a female, cause ‘sometimes she kisses a stranger’. And if you think that is a bit trashy, you don’t have to worry, since ‘she rarely goes all the way with someone she just met’. Besides, ‘her friends are just catty little prudes with sticks wedged way far up their butts’. And this is just one of the banners. If this site is to sell anything, it is KesselsKramer’s creativity.

This commercial semi poetically explains that 4000 million years ago our ancestors lived in the water permanently. So it’s only natural that some of us never want to leave it, once they’ve found the perfect surf spot. It is part of the new activation campaign ‘Never Leave The Water’ for surf and snowboard brand Protest - created by KesselsKramer. Last year Protest persuaded the fanatic surf crowd to ‘Drop it all’, when the surf was up. This summer Protest goes one step further and invites the surf dudes and dudettes to stay on ‘Island Protest’, a custom-built, floating sanctuary where you can stay in the water for as long as you want. The island is equipped with ‘comfortable couches, WIFI, a toilet [the Ocean?], a kitchen and even ping-pong’. It will travel to some of the world's top surf events this summer. A smart combination of facilitating your customers in their needs and creating big ass guerrilla presence in the perfect umfeld.

Erik Kessels is founding partner and ECD at KesselsKramer. When he was a kid he already loved drawing, but he is careful to address this as creative moments. He loves storytelling and among the creative minds that inspire him are: Jim Jarmusch, Marlene Dumas and Helmut Krone. What he enjoyed especially about his first job in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather was working with people from different backgrounds. His favourite client is Hans Brinker Budget Hotel and he loves to shop at Parallaxe – specialized  in photography accessories. Click here to read the full interview.

It is not always easy to sell snowboard  related products. The advertising needs to have a well balanced campy-hip-casual undertone - otherwise the picky crowd doesn't 'buy' it. With this guide to Rudeville - a guide that should draw attention to the well equipped snowboard chalets, called rudechalets™ - KK Outlet (KesselsKramer’s London annex) did quite a good job. First we took it for a hoax - which is a good sign - but the chalets actually do exist and are located around Chamonix, France. They are facilitated with “Xbox 360s in every room as standard, bubbling Jacuzzis and a Burton on-site test centre”. What else do you want? The guide is larded with well written bullshit. For example, it introduces a fictional character who runs the bar ‘Chez Roger’: “Some foolish types believe the bar is named after Roger, but he in fact changed his name to Roger when he bought the bar in 1989. (…) Rumour has it he has a tattoo of his face on his face and won his snowboarding-dog Paul in a bare-knuckle fight with Brian May”. We rest our case.

Here’s one of several mini films, made by by KesselsKramer (KK) for Protest Boardwear. KK asked different young and upcoming filmmakers to give their own interpretation of Protest’s brand proposition: “Every obstacle to the slopes is an enemy of Protest. Protest exists to help riders overcome these obstacles.” This kind of collaborative creativity, where agencies work together with small creative cells outside their own agency, is becoming a trend. Although the film in this post, called ‘Protest Sightseeing’, is the exception to the rule and made by two KK creatives; Ewoudt Boonstra en Zack McDonald. Other films are called Grocery shopping, Obstacles, Traffic jams and Bad weather. Older films can be found on the Protest website. The reason why we chose to highlight this film, is that the old 8mm footage that was used, makes us think of Erik Kessels’ (co-founder of KK) passion for abandoned photographs. Kessels already made several photo books with photographs that he found at flea markets. We were told however, that this is merely a happy coincidence. Boonstra already made a photo book himself with found photo’s, called Anonymous.

This arty commercial was made by KesselsKramer (KK) for J&B Spain. When the whiskey brand asked KK to develop a ‘digital event’ this summer, the Amsterdam agency chose to translate the quality of the spirit into two icons representing aroma and taste; a 24 carat golden nose and mouth, weighing both a kilo and worth €25.000 each. In an online game in a surreal London, the consumer can search for the icons and win them. Since the website is only in Spanish, we haven't really been able to understand the exact rules of the game, but we definitely like the strong iconic images and the well executed Avengers-style commercial. A convincing way to make the brand stand out from its often conservative and dusty competition.