Mark Chalmers is ECD at Perfect Fools Amsterdam. He studied architecture, because already at the age of 11 he wanted to build his own home. But he didn’t mind getting into advertising, cause marketing is essentially the same thinking process; you also create an environment – the important difference though is quicker gratification. He loves guerrilla advertising and that’s probably why he is a fan of Zevs, an artist who invented ‘visual kidnapping’. Chalmers is also influenced by Carlo Mollino, “a true Renaissance Man”. His most surreal experience in advertising was curating a choir of staff from the Japanese brand Onitsuka Tiger. And the most important lesson, he learned from Graham Fink, who had it written on his studio wall. Chalmers, who calls advertising ‘art with a deadline’, is fascinated by street art as it tells stories and represents the mood of a city. And he likes Amsterdam, because it’s like a Tim Burton set with wifi. Read the entire interview here.
Posts Tagged ‘Perfect Fools’
Interview: Mark Chalmers
Monday, June 21st, 2010‘Dreaming In Mono’ brought to you by…
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Stockholm/New York/Amsterdam based agency Perfect Fools created a whole new, unexpected and daring campaign for McDonald’s in the Nordic countries. The most striking thing about it, is that the campaign doesn’t revolve around bad burgers and salty fries, but around 60 minutes of “satire”. The story, written and directed by Jens Jonsson, was created together with TV production company Happy Fiction and is told over seven episodes on the website Dreaming In Mono. It is also broadcasted on four Nordic TV networks. The story is about a rivalry between two ski legends of which one wants to break a ski record on a monoski – this topic proofs how McDonald’s always thinks global but acts local. The first episode definitely made us curious to see more. Since the only link to McDonald’s is that the fictional characters buy their food there, we can easily imagine that this campaign will change the McDonald’s brand into a more exclusive brand – or at least less mainstream. And if McDonald’s would simultaneously upgrade its food, we can even imagine ourselves eating there! All in all, a beautiful example of branded content.
Ambi Pur tickles the senses
Monday, November 16th, 2009
G2 Amsterdam, together with Perfect Fools, created a website (this is an English demo, in Dutch the site is called ‘fragrances from nature’) for Ambi Pur that tickles almost all your senses – unfortunately not smell. The site, beautifully made with a combination of photography and animation, shows where Ambi Pur’s new ‘National Geographic’ fragrances ‘Japan Tatami’ and ‘Nevada Desert Flower’, come from. The joint promotion together with National Geograhpic (NG) feels a little stretched. Certainly NG is the specialist in showing remote and wonderful sceneries, but what has that got to do with smell? On the other hand, NG is a very strong brand that will certainly give credibility to the sceneries shown. Unconsciously the consumer might very well believe that Ambi Pur’s fragrances are therefore more exclusive, natural and special than those of the competition. Let’s see if both brands can think big and produce the first mass market scent DVD: ‘a fragrant journey into nature’ – or something along those lines.
Pro-amateurs wear Under Armour
Friday, July 10th, 2009
This website for Under Armour reminds us of the K-Swiss website we talked about last April; online video’s of sportsmen talking about their love for the game. No coincidence here, since both websites were built by Perfect Fools. The difference between K-Swiss and Under Armour, though, is that Under Armour is apparently only worn by ‘pro-amateurs’ (a beautiful contradictory euphemism). At least, that’s what this campaign suggests. A tricky strategy for introducing an unknown brand in a strong competitive market where the consumer is spammed with famous football stars showing off their sexy Nike and Adidas football shoes. Another question mark that popped up in our minds, is the fact that (according to the press release) the US brand is specialized in “moisture-wicking synthetic fabrications”. So even if you know the brand a little bit, football shoes don’t seem to be a natural product extension. But we probably just don’t know enough about the brand to properly judge it. In any case, the video’s are quite well made and inviting enough to linger around on the website for a while.
Sportsfashion by K-Swiss
Wednesday, April 8th, 2009
Beautiful website made by Perfect Fools for K-Swiss. Maybe it gives us a peek into the near future of navigation. It’s a bit of a (rudimentary) crossover between 2D and 3D navigation. And together with the video content, it’s typically a site that makes you want to hang around for a while. One thing that feels a bit awkward though, is the fact that it combines sports with fashion. We know that Nike and Adidas do both too, but always in separate advertising. And that makes sense, since the consumer psychology for choosing a sports brand is completely different from selecting a clubbing outfit.
Independent minds prefer Amsterdam
Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Last week thenetworkone and Campaign magazine chose the 16 leading independent agencies in the world. We were happy to discover that three of them (19%!) have an office in Amsterdam; Amsterdam Worldwide, Perfect Fools and Modernista! The selection was based on “creative achievement, spirit of curiosity, open-mindedness and collaborative approaches to solving clients’ communications problems”. Although it’s a bit of a subjective choice and not entirely independent, we are of course happy to hear this. What we like best about the election is that it comes with essays, written by the executives from each agency. Here’s the essay from two ‘Perfect Fools’; Patrick Gardner and Mark Chalmers – the latter set up the Amsterdam office last year. Their digital approach: “if you can think it, then it’s real”. We like the sound of that. And here the essay by Richard Gorodecky, executive creative director of Amsterdam Worldwide. We selected this quote from him to share with you: “The only constant we can look forward to will be continual change”. We agree. As Darwin already taught us; “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
Shoptalk: Perfect Fools and de-construct in A’dam
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
The international agency Perfect Fools hired Tim O’Kennedy as non-executive director. The Swedish online agency that opened its Amsterdam office only this year, wants O’Kennedy to expand the international business. Last year O’Kennedy unexpectedly left W+K Amsterdam. Another online agency opening an Amsterdam office is London-based de-construct. It will be managed by Neil Bedwell. Bedwell in Adformatie: “Amsterdam is at the moment Europe’s most important creative hub”. The real reason though for de-construct to expand to Amsterdam is the Adidas account, on which it will work together with 180 Amsterdam. Interesting is that both W+K and 180 once started offices in Amsterdam, because of winning respectively the Nike and Adidas account.
