KesselsKramer - from the holy church to K1fighting

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

Enthusiastic PingMag readers remember their event at Super Deluxe a few months ago, where a 2kg brick could be used as a cruel garden-gnomes smashing method. After successful execution the 2kg brick got exchanged for a 2kg book containing all KesselsKramer work of the past years. I will certainly always remember that evening, because:

A - everybody had so much fun
B - it was such a relief when I finally hit that little gnome (I cheated and threw 4 times)
C - I suffered so much to carry this heavy book back home, that this is now my most precious piece in my entire library!

Last week, I went to have a chat with Marc Wesseling from the KesselsKramer Tokyo crew to find out what other memorable concepts this dutch communications agency already launched and what their next moves might be.

written by Uleshka

KesselsKramer 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 of Amsterdam with things like a beach watch tower inside, soccer TV area, loud music and quiet areas when you need to be alone…. A-m-a-z-i-n-g! Why doesn’t my office look like half that much fun? What is your secret of having such a good time?

That’s what everybody always asks: What is your secret? but I think, there is no 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 prestigious festivals… I guess it is the synergy of motivated international people who are really going for the same goals: creating good, new, innovative work and of course: having a lot of fun.

What is it like to work at KesselsKramer?

In our office in Amsterdam we have childcare, you can bring your dog, it is sort of like one big happy family. Of course, we have the same probelm with deadlines etc. but we always work very closely with each other. We can deliver very quickly because there are not a lot of stages you have to go to. In conventional agencies you have many different divisions whereas we combine all these divisions in small teams. 

The atmosphere in the office is very direct from person to person. Everybody is pretty relaxed and chilled, but actually everybody is also working very hard - besides having a lot 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, unless you screw up (laughs) but sort of in a good way!

I remember at one point there was this guy, who was very popular in the office and used to go out a lot but he wasn’t working much. One day they had a meeting with him, where they locked him up in  the closet 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 is a serious warning. Make it happen!!!

Did it work?

Yes, I think so!

Jesus! But it seems like you are quite successful with your model allowing everyone a big portion of freedom!

Sure, and if you have a good idea, we will try to make things move for it, like it happened with  “The Other Final” or like the “do” projects.

Yes! “The Other Final” project: when Holland just lost their decisive game for the World Cup, KesselsKramer thought about losing and the actual motivation behind soccer. You selected the two lowest ranking teams: Bhutan and Montserrat and actually managed to organize a big game between those two teams at the foot of the Himalayas, just for the beauty of playing. I am very grateful for realizing this amazing idea and making a nice documentary about it.

Is that your usual approach? Having a strong idea and then looking for potential clients or sponsors?

Yes, the idea is very important. Here in Japan, they always come 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 one of many cheap solutions to spend a night or two in Amsterdam. Nothing special. A low budget hotel: a room with a bed, that’s it. Instead of promoting it like: it’s in a very good location, cheap and we have a nice breakfast, though… We did the opposite and focused on all the bad aspects it had and created a hotel from hell.  Now it became some sort of cult-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.  

But that thing with the dog shit was just a shot for one of your Hans Brinker posters, right?

No, we put little flags on all kind of dog shit lying around in Amsterdam. That was quite effective.

You are crazy!

It worked! (laughs)

When I look at your works, I always find that they have a definite “human touch” about them. Even though they might be silly, exaggerated and ironic they are still real. Like the BEN campaign that just feels so authentic!

The BEN campaign was actually really unique! At that time the Dutch telecom market had all 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 everybody wanted to win new clients. When BelgaCom approached us, we decided to offer phones for real people. Instead of all this complicated subscription methods the other companies suggested, we just gave them one simple box: there was a phone in there, a simple explanation of how to swich on your phone and everything was one price. Simple!

We called it BEN, which means “I am” in Dutch, but which is also a simple short name. We used real people for our campaign. The actual people using BEN felt very connected with it and said: “This is my BEN!” instead of “This is my mobile.” That was quite amazing, even more so seeing, that they still do now after Deutsche Telecom bought BEN years ago.

You produced a BEN movie in Salt Lake City where you invited all kind of people called BEN. You created the occasion and basically filmed what happened. It was so real, simple and turned out so successufully. Is that what KesselsKramer 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 earth and so sober. That’s what makes them very strong, thinking that: I’m simple and enjoy simplicity. 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 some bullshit 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 people comfortable in all these different media?

When we really don’t know what to do, we have some sort of a lottery, but that’s only when we really don’t know what to do!

Yeah, right!
(laughing pause)

No really! When somebody wants to do something weird, we just do it and as long as everyone gets the fun out of it, it’s fantastic! Like our 2 company cars we are cruising around with: one is some kind of kangool and then we have a funeral wagon with lots of stickers on it saying “KesselsKramer undertakers”. There is just a lot of bullshit goiing on. We just do it, like the German uniforms book we just produced.

Yes - I always wanted to ask who is responsible for all this crazy stuff, like the privacy creator or the office sponge?

When you work the whole day with each other, at some point you get sort of mellow, you come to make all this jokes and then our attitude is just to say: 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 are ugly - and I mean seriously ugly…. I think we should give those people also a little more attention. When they are all surrounded by ugly people, finally they can be in the spotlight!

I see! What exactly is the difference between KesselsKramer products and your do brand?

The do brand is more serious. The office sponge is real bullshit, but do is where we also want to promote other people and collaborate with e.g. other artists. do is a creative platform where ideas get turned into final projects and get promoted.

Amongst your projects is also Diesel. How is it to work with Renzo Rosso and his team, who is said to have a very strong vision about his brand? To what extend are they involved in ideas for their campaigns?

Renzo Rosso made Diesel - completely - and gathered this great team around him. He insists that the advertising agency works very very closely together with their creative team. It is such a close collaboration, that it’s almost like we are part of Diesel.

You created the Absolut Vodka Label. What is that exactly and what did you do for them?

We gathered all kind of young creative fashion designers gave them some kind of subject they have to design about. This time e.g. we gave them the theme bag. We had big fashion shows, covers in all the big fashion magazines, all under the brand of the Absolut Label, which everybody immediately links to Absolut Vodka in everyone’s head,  but it is a label of it’s own. It is all about fashion and stimulating fashion designers, creating haute couture with the Absolut brand. All creations are collectors items in an extremely limited edition. Next year we will do Absolut Lingerie! That will be fun with fashion shows all around the world.

And what are your most recent projects from Japan?

I just released podcasting for Yomiuri Shimbun, which is the biggest newspaper in the world, but that is not so much linked with KesselsKramer. I also created a dedicated television channel for all the HMV stores around Japan. We do all the instore media for all the Lawson convenient stores right now, where we offer dedicated content for each particular 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 certain locations. Now with modern analysis, we know exactly when a person is there or not. Very focussed advertising is what I really believe in.

What is Japanese advertising like in comparison with Europe for example?

Their biggest problem here is, that there is a monopoly with advertising. There is Dentsu and Hakuhodo and only very few others and that’s it! Not a lot that happened in the last years in Japan, because there is a lack of competition. Now there is a lot of change and clients want to use more different kinds of media and advertising, so I think now is the right time to do all this new stuff in advertising. Last year internet advertising grew with 50% 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 art directors 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 sparring partner 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!

43 Comments

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