Paul Lavoie, Taxi, talking about the power of doubt at the Tomorrow Awards

Yesterday we were at the Tomorrow Awards, the award show that is to inspire the industry to innovate faster, as Ignacio Oreamuno explained in his welcome speech. It proved quite a long afternoon – at some point turning into a night – if you take into account that only 5 awards were given away. It helped that the event, held at Pakhuis de Zwijger along IJ river, was sponsored by Absolut and some other hard liquor brands and was hosted by the hyper active Haley Mancini of Boom Chicago. There was also some improvisational, interactive theater by some actors who perform occasionally at Boom Chicago to keep the crowd going, but only at the end of the evening this seemed to pick up – when the bottles on the tables started to empty. The most interesting part of the show were the four speakers leading some of the best agencies in the world; Paul Lavoie (Taxi), talking about doubt as an essential ingredient for great work and showing an 8 minute film he just made about the last two days of Vincent van Gogh’s life; Nick Bailey (AKQA) talking intelligently about AKQA’s many ‘human platforms’; Carl Johnson (Anomaly), announcing his new office in Amsterdam and wisely stating that the digital era needs more collaboration and less ego; and finally Jean-François Bouchard who very entertaingly and convincingly showed how at Sid Lee underwear is the preferred dress and crazyness key. There was one thing that all the speakers seemed to agree on; we live in exciting times. You’d almost forget that there were also some awards to give away. The winners were: Skype in the Classroom, Made by Many (UK); Halo Reach, AKQA (USA); What Do You Love, Big Spaceship and Google Creative Lab (USA); HypoSurface, Mark Goulthorpe (inventor) USA; Les Paul, Google Doodle Team & Google Creative Lab (USA). All cases were, as Oreamuno promised at the beginning of the show, digitally advanced. It was a pity though that there were only Anglo-saxon winners. But since this is only the second year of the Tomorrow Awards, it probably just needs some more time to get discovered by the rest of the world. In any case, we definitely agree with Oreamuno; less awards is more.

Last Wednesday the ADCN (Art Director’s Club Nederland) hosted a session in ‘De Kring’ on the Rembrandtplein dubbed ‘XXX Expat’ (XXX is part of the city’s shield), with the noble aim of bringing two parts of the Amsterdam ad industry together; the Dutch and the expats. Some would say these two groups are surely two sides to the same coin, others would say these are separate entities with little or nothing in common other than geography. The somewhat lacking relationship between these two communities has been well documented over the years, yet despite this, nothing has ever quite bridged that gap, except of course – modest as we are – Amsterdam Ad Blog. Lode Schaeffer (ECD at Indie), new chairman to the ADCN is determined to branch out and readdress the balance. The idea was simple; get five speakers from leading agencies in Amsterdam to each give a presentation about the experience of living and working in Amsterdam as an expat.

The evening kicked off with Chris Baylis (ECD at Tribal DDB, British), Baylis talked about “Dutch optimism”, something he applauded as one of the great positive cultural traits of the city. He continued, however, by showing how this optimism has a downside when applied to the work place, and quickly becomes a laissez-faire attitude to deadlines and overtime. He explained how shocked he was upon arrival that Dutch employees as a rule refuse to work weekends, a delinquency he had thankfully managed to stamp out of the agency by hiring more international folk who were prepared to sacrifice their free time and days off. So the thing you initially like and champion in a culture becomes the thing that you don’t like and try to change. This insight came up a few times throughout the evening.

Next up was Eric Quennoy (ECD W+K, Australian) who took us on a leisurely, sprawling train of thought following his journey of experience in Amsterdam during the five years that he’s worked here. This talk was more free-form than lecture, and all the better for it. The last 5 years of his career have been “the most productive and the most satisfying so far”, which he puts entirely down to the city itself. The “nurturing environment” and “oasis of calm” allows all the chaos to go into “your work instead of your life” and the “beautiful backdrop of the city” affects you positively as a creative person. He pointed out that in other cities you spend half your time competing with other companies, watching what they are doing, trying to stay ahead “keeping up with the Joneses”. Whereas here he feels free to do his thing. Just as great artists retreat to epic landscapes to create their final opus, “we ad people do our best work out of Amsterdam” – well said Eric.

Jennifer Skupin (Creative, KesselsKramer, German) started things off by unwittingly, but comically, reinforcing a certain national stereotype when asking to “be in control of her own slides”. The idea of structure and control versus fluidity was evident in her presentation as she contrasted German ways of defining things versus the Dutch way. The prime example being KesselsKramer, which is branding meets design meets advertising. This idea of blurring the lines between different disciplines would be all but impossible in her native Germany. She admired the Dutch “strong sense of design” and the importance attached to “corporate identity”. She made an interesting point by contrasting Dutch police cars and fire engines with German ones. Dutch design won, hands down. However not all aspects of life in Holland were equally pleasing and she termed Amsterdam a ‘stop-off place for the International crowd’ populated by the transient.

The following speaker was Ron Smrczek (ECD TAXI, Canadian) who was the freshest blood on stage with only ten months in Amsterdam under his belt. Therefore – as he admitted himself – some of his observations were “rose tinted”. His main points were about Amsterdam being beautiful, old, multicultural, yet English speaking and how the city stays true to its roots and history. TAXI merged with a local agency, so there’s a strong Dutch culture at the office, he joked about the way everyone took lunch together, which was great, but “WHY does it have to be exactly the same every day?!”
His final observation was that on the surface there doesn’t appear to be a huge ad or design industry here, but if you scratch away you can find little pockets of magic.

Finally, Stephen Hancock (Creative Director 180, British) set up his well thought-out presentation by observing that 180 still feels quite isolated “in our own spaceship” as an international agency – even after 13 years here. What attracted him to the ad scene in Amsterdam was the random mix of people and nationalities in the mix, as opposed to London, for example, which seems to churn out “one type of person, quite wanky.” He agreed with previous speaker Jennifer Skupin that it was easier to blur the lines here and many disciplines under one roof and noted that historically Amsterdam has always been progressive, global, outward looking. Another typical thing about the Dutch is that the way of thinking is far more polarized; you either “love or hate” something – which he literally quoted from the invitation – as opposed to the lukewarm “like or dislike” (see picture). The combination of a “no nonsense” approach and wanting to have “everything under control” is translated in Dutch design; it all looks so well ordered and linear. Designer Dick Bruna, famous for creating Nijntje (or Miffy), was mentioned as a product of this sense of restriction and discipline. His final point was the town and its industry is small enough that “everyone in this room knows each other by default” so there was no more excuses in bringing the Dutch and the International audiences closer together.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the speakers were on the whole positive about Amsterdam. Their insights were largely shaped by the amount of time they’d spent in the city and the experience of living here; as opposed to any really deep insights into Dutch culture – perhaps Stephen Hancock’s design references came the closest to this. Ultimately the event worked best as a rallying call and reminder to the Dutch ad community as to just why so many international folk move over to work in Amsterdam. In fact it’s sometimes far too easy to take the good life for granted.

Here some more pictures.

After Lavoie, Jeff Kling from Wieden+Kennedy took the stage and started his talk by making sure that everybody understood he was not responsible for the slight change in the title of his talk: ‘Show me the ad, you motherfucker’. It had been changed in (…) Motherf*****. He loved the word ‘fuckin’ and used it several times to make this point.

Kling’s seminar was easily the most entertaining and original. It was concise (only 15 minutes – ‘about the same time Jesus Christ would have needed for a sermon’), well written, very funny and positive with a cynical tone. First he explained why he hated cases studies – the work should speak for itself – and then, very eloquently, Kling talked about the things he thought were awesome; canned ravioli, Mexicans, Heavy Metal, and a lot more. He ended with: “Dear brand, don’t talk about yourself, talk about what you love”.

Brian Elliot from Amsterdam Worldwide, had a different message. The title of his talk was ‘Take this flag and shove it’ – as far as we know this was the original title… He showed a compilation of nationalistic ads – either promoting a country or making fun of another – and came to the conclusion that a brand should be true to itself, but not negative about others.

The last seminar we attended was presented by Mark Cridge and Martin Bailie from Glue London. Their message was; be irresistible, have a point of view and don’t think campaign, think continuous – which of course comes from Glue’s strong digital DNA. Cridge and Bailie showed some great online cases. Though Kling might have hated them for being cases, it offered an interesting glance into the future of advertising.

Source: Adformatie

Last Thursday Boards Magazine organized their first European creative ‘workshop’ in Amsterdam. The theme of the day was ‘The New Age of Storytelling’. Alex Melvin (founder of 180 Amsterdam) and Mark Aink (general manager of S-W-H) co-hosted the day and invited an interesting mix of international and Dutch speakers with different creative backgrounds and inspiring angles on storytelling.

Honest storytelling

Paul Lavoie, founder of Taxi, kicked off the day with a presentation about Taxi’s philosophy on honesty. Finding the truth of a brand, he said, should be the starting point for any form of storytelling. In fact, it’s the Dutch honesty that made him decide to open an office in Amsterdam. Lavoie supported this with a typical example; at Schiphol (Amsterdam Airport) when you’re not on time for boarding, the airport speaker won’t politely urge you to hurry up, but bluntly tells you that you’re delaying the flight and threaten to unload your luggage from the plane. To illustrate that instead of being honest, lying is so much easier, Taxi built a website to promote a fake product: Reversa.

Bob Deutsch (the final speaker of the day), a cognitive anthropologist, also explained the importance of being honest. Advertising, he said, should invoke a feeling of both surprise and familiarity. While the first element attracts attention, the latter is essential to give the consumer the feeling that the brand is like him and can therefore be trusted.

New forms of storytelling

Adrian Hon (Six to Start) was next and showed in a compelling way how for Penguin books his agency built the website We Tell Stories and how it fully used the benefits of the internet to literally find new ways of non-linear storytelling.

Also fascinating was the presentation by Guerilla Games and Zoic Studios. They showed their commercial for the new game Killzone 2, in which the camera angle and the speed of the commercial can be altered by the viewer. It gave an insight in the endless possibilities of ‘4D’ commercials. And the impressive quality of the graphics also showed why it’s going to be harder for the consumer to distinguish animation from real film. And – to speak with Lavoie – will make lying so much easier.

Ian Tate, creative partner at Poke, explained what advertising agencies can learn from Radiohead. Although Tate doesn’t like their music (too depressing), he loves the way Radiohead has used the internet to involve its fans in every possible way. Fans could literally create their own album price, their own music video, their own remix and even their own concert recording. The main lesson: it’s not just about telling a story anymore, the consumer has to be involved and should be able to ‘live the story’.

(Non) commercial storytelling

This was followed by a group of the world’s most talented directors showing their reels. A luxury treat. It was presented by Geertje Hoek of Liberty Films (BBDO).

Erik Kessels, founder of KesselsKramer, presented his agency’s best work. Apart from brilliant work for Hans Brinker Hotel Kessels showed a few of the agency’s non-commercial projects. The agency created a documentary, photo exhibitions, and many art books.

Amsterdam storytelling

At the end of the day we also asked Alex Melvin, Mark Aink, Paul Lavoie and Erik Kessels a few questions about Amsterdam and the future of advertising. Lavoie confided to us that it was not only the honesty of the Dutch that persuaded him to move to Amsterdam, but also the tolerant attitude, the pretty canals and the local government. According to Aink Amsterdam is becoming more and more a magnet for agencies and creatives from London, the States and the rest of Europe, because of its ‘open system’. Meaning that there is lots of collaboration going on between agencies and small, creative, expert entities that can bring in new angles and creative solutions to the problem at hand. According to Lavoie collaborating creatives are the future of advertising. In fact, he called creatives that want to monopolize the creative process ‘old school creatives’.

When Alex Melvin founded 180 in 1998, he already believed in the creative potential of the city. With 30 nationalities on board, Melvin told us 180 is the perfect representation of the international spirit of Amsterdam. In fact, he was told that Amsterdam in total counts 180 different nationalities – a happy coincidence. His agency will never be a Dutch agency, but he is proud of the fact that it’s a true Amsterdam agency.

Although Erik Kessels worked in London for a few years and opened an ‘outlet’ there, he still prefers Amsterdam, because of the pace of the city and the quality of living. And since the pressure is not so high, there is more time to launch projects that don’t necessarily make money, but show what the agency is really about; creative ideas.