KesselsKramer - from the holy church toK1fighting

21 Nov 2005Category: Features, Graphics, Products, Worldwide

Enthusiastic PingMag readers remember their event at Super Deluxe a fewmonths ago, where a 2kg brick could be used as a cruel garden-gnomessmashing method. After successful execution the 2kg brick got exchanged fora 2kg book containing all KesselsKramer work of the past years. I will certainlyalways remember that evening, because:A - everybody had so much funB - it was such a relief when I finally hit that little gnome (I cheated and threw4 times)C - I suffered so much to carry this heavy book back home, that this is now mymost precious piece in my entire library!Last week, I went to have a chat with Marc Wesseling from the KesselsKramerTokyo crew to find out what other memorable concepts this dutchcommunications agency already launched and what their next moves might be.written by UleshkaKesselsKramer is famous for their work, of course. We’ll get there in a minute!but besides that it is your office: a seriously old church in the middle ofAmsterdam with things like a beach watch tower inside, soccer TV area, loudmusic and quiet areas when you need to be alone…. A-m-a-z-i-n-g! Why doesn’tmy office look like half that much fun? What is your secret of having such a goodtime?That’s what everybody always asks: What is your secret? but I think, there isno secret!Or maybe the secret lies in the holy church? (laughs) Our aim is not to win a lot of prizes,since we don’t send in any work to all those festivals like Cannes or other big prestigiousfestivals… I guess it is the synergy of motivated international people who are really goingfor the same goals: creating good, new, innovative work and of course: having a lot offun.

The office in the church more church images

I wish this was my office…. …sigh!

What is it like towork atKesselsKramer?In our office inAmsterdam wehave childcare, youcan bring your dog,it is sort of like onebig happy family.Of course, we havethe same probelmwith deadlines etc.but we always workvery closely witheach other. We candeliver very quicklybecause there arenot a lot of stagesyou have to go to.In conventionalagencies you havemany differentdivisions whereas

we combine all these divisions in small teams.The atmosphere in the office is very direct from person to person. Everybody is prettyrelaxed and chilled, but actually everybody is also working very hard - besides having alot of fun.What happens when you “forget” to work having so much fun all the time?When you don’t deliver or when the quality of the work is not good you will hear it.Especially with a guy like Erik Kessels, one of the two founders. He is very relaxed, unlessyou screw up (laughs) but sort of in a good way!

I remember at onepoint there was thisguy, who was verypopular in the officeand used to go outa lot but he wasn’tworking much. Oneday they had ameeting with him,where they lockedhim up in thecloset in the

church, put him inside and asked: What the fuck are you doing?In the closet?Yeah, they locked him up in the dark and said: if you don’t wanna work, fine(!) but this isa serious warning. Make it happen!!!Did it work?Yes, I think so!Jesus! But it seems like you are quite successful with your model allowingeveryone a big portion of freedom!Sure, and if you have a good idea, we will try to make things move for it, like it happenedwith “The Other Final” or like the “do” projects.

The other final - Bhutan vs. Montserrat

The other final, played at the foot of the HimalayasThe other final

The other final

The other final

The other final

Yes! “The Other Final” project: when Holland justlost their decisive game for the World Cup,KesselsKramer thought about losing and theactual motivation behind soccer. You selected thetwo lowest ranking teams: Bhutan andMontserrat and actually managed to organize abig game between those two teams at the foot ofthe Himalayas, just for the beauty of playing. Iam very grateful for realizing this amazing ideaand making a nice documentary about it.

Is that your usualapproach?Having a strongideaand then lookingfor potentialclients orsponsors?Yes, the idea is veryimportant. Here inJapan, they alwayscome up with this

media-matrix: you have to do 30% television,50%print media, 10% web,10% outdoor or whatever….We always start with an idea and from that idea, we go and find the right media: anything!Could be TV, print media, little characters on the street or even dog shit! (big laugh)Ah! Now you are referring to the Hans Brinker Hotel campaign!The whole idea behind Hans Brinker is actually extremly clever. It used to be just oneof many cheap solutions to spend a night or two in Amsterdam. Nothing special. A lowbudget hotel: a room with a bed, that’s it. Instead of promoting it like: it’s in a very goodlocation, cheap and we have a nice breakfast, though… We did the opposite and focusedon all the bad aspects it had and created a hotel from hell. Now it became some sort ofcult-hotel, people go there and buy T-shirts like: I survived the Hans Brinker.That is one of our strengths, to look at it from a completely different angle.

Hans Brinker Hotel - It can’t get any worse… … but we’ll do our best

Hans Brinker Hotel I’ve been thrown out of the Hans Brinker Hotel

a little flag in every poo…. dog-shit campaign

Butthatthingwiththedogshitwasjust ashotforone of

your Hans Brinker posters, right?No, we put little flags on all kind of dog shit lying around in Amsterdam. That was quiteeffective.You are crazy!It worked! (laughs)

When I look atyour works, Ialways find thatthey have adefinite “humantouch” aboutthem. Eventhough theymight be silly,exaggerated andironic they arestill real. Like the

BEN campaign that just feels so authentic!The BEN campaign was actually really unique! At that time the Dutch telecom market hadall these global players focussing on: we are the cheapest, we have national coverage,all focussing on business people… There was a big telecom-war going on since everybodywanted to win new clients. When BelgaCom approached us, we decided to offer phonesfor real people. Instead of all this complicated subscription methods the other companiessuggested, we just gave them one simple box: there was a phone in there, a simpleexplanation of how to swich on your phone and everything was one price. Simple!

BEN campaign Ik ben BEN

BEN campaign Ik ben BEN

BEN campaign BEN and Ben in Salt Lake City

useful photography - a KesselsKramer project

We called it BEN,which means “I am”in Dutch, but whichis also a simpleshort name. Weused real people forour campaign. Theactual people usingBEN felt veryconnected with itand said: “This ismy BEN!” instead of“This is my mobile.”That was quiteamazing, evenmore so seeing,that they still donow after DeutscheTelecom boughtBEN years ago.You produced aBEN movie in SaltLake City whereyou invited allkind of peoplecalled BEN. Youcreated theoccasion andbasically filmedwhat happened.It was so real,simple andturned out sosuccessufully. Isthat whatKesselsKramer is

about: creating an occasion and letting things happen?I think that comes from the founders: Kessels and Kramer. They are just so down to earthand so sober. That’s what makes them very strong, thinking that: I’m simple and enjoysimplicity. Do you actually know how they met?Yes, at the cocker spaniel meeting in England, I read.That’s what you think… Every interview is just about telling silly things, so expect somebullshit stories from me as well!When producing so many different projects: commercials, books, products,advertising in general…. How do you find the right medium and peoplecomfortable in all these different media?

useful photography - a KesselsKramer project

Models - German uniforms Models - German uniforms

Office Sponge - sweat absorption, back support and love replacement

When we really don’t know what to do, wehave some sort of a lottery, but that’s onlywhen we really don’t know what to do!Yeah, right!(laughing pause)No really! When somebody wants to dosomething weird, we just do it and as longas everyone gets the fun out of it, it’sfantastic! Like our 2 company cars we arecruising around with: one is some kind ofkangool and then we have a funeral wagonwith lots of stickers on it saying“KesselsKramer undertakers”. There is just a lot of bullshit goiing on. We just do it, likethe German uniforms book we just produced.

Yes - I alwayswanted to askwho isresponsible for allthis crazy stuff,like the privacycreator or theoffice sponge?

Privacy Creator - just pull that tube over your head and you will feel much better….

DO projects - superlong T-shirt and various usage DO - a story

DO plastic bag how to knit your plastic bag

Whenyouworkthewholedaywitheachother,atsomepointyou get sort of mellow, you come to make all this jokes and then our attitude is just tosay: yeah! Let’s do it! Great idea!I still want to organize the ugly parade, you know there is the love parade, gay parade,but that’s all so outdated! If you are gay, you are already accepted, but when you areugly - and I mean seriously ugly…. I think we should give those people also a littlemore attention. When they are all surrounded by ugly people, finally they can be in thespotlight!I see! What exactly is the difference between KesselsKramer products andyour do brand?

The do brand ismore serious. Theoffice sponge is realbullshit, but do iswhere we also wantto promote otherpeople andcollaborate withe.g. otherartists. do is acreative platformwhere ideas get

turned into final projects and get promoted.Amongst your projects is also Diesel. How is it to work with Renzo Rosso and histeam, who is said to have a very strong vision about his brand? To what extendare they involved in ideas for their campaigns?

Diesel - save yourself campaign Diesel - save yourself campaign

Diesel dreams

Diesel dreams

Absolut Label - T-shirts

Absolut Label - T-shirtsAbsolut Label - bags

RenzoRosso made Diesel- completely - andgathered this greatteam around him.He insists that theadvertising agencyworks very veryclosely togetherwith their creativeteam. It is such aclose collaboration,that it’s almost likewe are part ofDiesel.You createdthe AbsolutVodka Label.What is thatexactly and whatdid you do forthem?

Absolut Label - bags

Yomiuri Podcasting HMV in store media

Remy Bonjanski last Saturday at K1 the KesselsKramer crew coming to support Holland

We gathered all kind of young creative fashiondesigners gave them some kind of subject they have todesign about. This time e.g. we gave them thetheme bag. We had big fashion shows, covers in all thebig fashion magazines, all under the brand of theAbsolut Label, which everybody immediately links toAbsolut Vodka in everyone’s head, but it is a label ofit’s own. It is all about fashion and stimulating fashiondesigners, creating haute couture with the Absolutbrand. All creations are collectors items in an extremelylimited edition. Next year we will do Absolut Lingerie!That will be fun with fashion shows all around theworld.And what are your most recent projects from Japan?I just released podcasting for Yomiuri Shimbun, which is the biggest newspaper in theworld, but that is not so much linked with KesselsKramer. I also created a dedicatedtelevision channel for all the HMV stores around Japan. We do all the instore media forall the Lawson convenient stores right now, where we offer dedicated content for eachparticular store. That is very interesting, because each area is completely different:Hokkaido is different to Kyushu but also within Hokkaido there are differences.I really believe in deditated dynamic advertising, really targeted within stores or certainlocations. Now with modern analysis, we know exactly when a person is there or not. Veryfocussed advertising is what I really believe in.

What is Japaneseadvertising like incomparison withEurope forexample?Their biggestproblem here is,that there is amonopoly withadvertising. There

is Dentsu and Hakuhodo and only very few others and that’s it! Not a lot that happened inthe last years in Japan, because there is a lack of competition. Now there is a lot of changeand clients want to use more different kinds of media and advertising, so I think now is theright time to do all this new stuff in advertising. Last year internet advertising grew with50% and traditional advertising with 2%. There is much more to do in new media!How do you feel as a lonely KesselsKramer fighter in Japan?Lonely! But right now 6 guys from Holland are here for the K1 fight, since one of our artdirectors will be fighting K1.Right!

No seriously! I know, you don’t believe anything more I say, but you can check him out!Dave Bell, a Scottish guy from KesselsKramer. He is actually Remy Bonjanski’s sparringpartner in a gym close to the church in Amsterdam. I hope he’ll be all right on Saturday!……..well, Marc!Thank you so much for the delightful interview. I certainly had a lot of fun!