R for Raw

Fashion brand G-Star Raw recently opened their first Dutch flagship store on the corner of P.C. Hooftstraat and Hobbemastraat in Amsterdam. It looks exactly what a G-Star store should look like: light grey concrete, dark grey steel and lots of denim, of course.

But there's something weird with the façade of the shop I didn't immediately see. After a closer look I understood that it had to do with the logo. What a great idea. Instead of putting the whole logo on one side, or the other, or both, they made it around the corner.

And not even just like that. It would have been very logical to put 'G-Star' on one wall and 'Raw' on the other. But they decided to bend it in the middle of a single character - the R. That's weird thinking. And it looks cool.

That, I think, is what creativity is all about.

Product is the best promotion

The summit of empty-headed terrace policy in Amsterdam

Yesterday I had a great day with a great girl. After dinner we decided to do a little kroegentocht. First stop was a bar near the Magere Brug. We sat down on the terrace and next to us a group of people was celebrating a birthday party. They had fun, standing there, having conversations, drinking beer and wine.

And of course: up came the reinigingspolitie, police officers trying to maintain the ridiculous terrace rules in Amsterdam. You can't stand on a terrace drinking. You need to sit down, or put your glass away. The bar didn't get a fine this time, only a warning. Oh, and there was one other thing: the chalkboard with the menu had to go inside. Illegal advertising...

The officers had a point here, because when you think about it - your product is still the best promotion. By putting the menu on the street the bar promotes their product, namely food and drinks. As if to say: please come in and join us. And when all bars and restaurants in Amsterdam start doing that, it's gonna be serious mayhem in the city.

One block further we ran into a group of vibrant guys and girls dancing out on the street in front of a little shop in the Utrechtsestraat. It turned out to be a gallery (Galerie Schaap) celebrating their last night at that spot. They have to move because the place is going to be rebuilded. We joined them for a glass of wine and stood there on the sidewalk drinking and talking. They even had a chalkboard on the front wall that explicitely said "This is an advertising message". The police drove by a couple of times and didn't do anything but friendly waving.

I love this town.

Strive for imperfection

This and next week the third edition of the Rutger Hauer Film Factory takes place in Rotterdam. It's a ten day international masterclass in filmmaking, with Rutger Hauer as the main inspiring master. Thirty filmmakers work on several short films and they get lectures from famous people in the filmmaking business.

Last year I was lucky to attend one of the lectures, given by Anton Corbijn. He showed us a lot of old and more recent videoclips he made during the years and shared with us how the ideas for these videos originated.

The thing that most stuck to me though, was Corbijn's plead for imperfection. The idea should be good, no doubt about that, but in the execution one should always strive for imperfection. That's what makes a piece of art, or advertising (or anything at all really) in the end actually closer to perfect.

How to tell a great idea from an ordinary one

The E.U.R.E.K.A. IDEA check

I've been doing a lot of research these days into the 'world of the idea'. Where do ideas come from? What is creativity? And when is an (advertising) idea a good idea?

Somebody told me once that to make 1 or 2 good ideas you have to produce about 80 to 100 ideas in general. But how do you find this one great idea in your list of 80? Experience, I guess. Some intuition of course. Imagination maybe, by dreaming up the execution of your ideas.

But apart from that, are there any hard criteria to sum up that every good idea should measure? When is an idea a good idea?

Here's my attempt. I call it the E.U.R.E.K.A. IDEA check. The 6 letters of the word stand for the 6 criteria (in Dutch).

Eenvoudig. Simple. The idea is unaffected and simple to explain. It's easy to understand and easy to pass on.

Uniek. Unique. The idea is one of a kind. It's inalienable and not exchangeable. It perfectly suits this particular goal of this particular organisation with this particular target group.

Relevant. Relevant. The idea makes sense. It actually helps the people for which it is made. It facilitates an existing want or need.

Effectief. Effective. The idea does what it has to do. It is a clear and useful answer to a distinct question. And it will provably and measurably add value.

Kansrijk. Promising. The idea has sufficient chances to succeed. The timing for it seems right, the execution is very well possible and there is the right network of people to work on it.

Aanstekelijk. Contagious. The idea is catching. Individuals and (mass)media want to pass it on.

Try this check on your ideas. See if it makes any sense. And please let me know.

How to be a writer

One day I hope to be a successful writer. But it's hard to imagine how to become one. By writing I guess. Trial and error. Maybe a course might help. There's lots of them. Even the great Charles Bukowski wrote one. In a poem. And it goes like this:

how to be a great writer

you've got to fuck a great many women

beautiful women

and write a few decent love poems.

and don't worry about age

and/or freshly-arrived talents

just drink more beer

more and more beer

and attend the racetrack at least once a

week

and win

if possible.

learning to win is hard-

any slob can be a good loser.

and don't forget your Brahms

and your Bach and your

beer

don't overexercise.

sleep until noon.

avoid credit cards

or paying for anything on

time.

remember that there isn't a piece of ass

in this world worth over $50

(in 1977).

and if you have the ability to love

love yourself first

but always be aware of the possibility of

total defeat

whether the reason for that defeat

seems right or wrong-

an early taste of death is not necessarily

a bad thing.

stay out of churches and bars and museums,

and like the spider be

patient-

time is everybody's cross,

plus

exile

defeat

treachery

all that dross.

stay with the beer.

beer is continous blood.

a continuous lover.

get a large typewriter

and as the footsteps go up and down

outside your window

hit that thing

hit it hard

make it a heavyweight fight

make it the bull when he first charges in

and remember the old dogs

who fought so well:

Hemingway, Celine, Dostoevsky, Hamsun.

if you think they didn't go crazy

in tiny rooms

just like you're doing now

without women

without food

without hope

then you're not ready.

drink more beer.

there's time.

and if there's not

that's all right

too.

A silly idea

About ten years ago, my good friend PJ wanted to start a band. He got together six friends of his who could play a little music. I was one of them. We sat together one night at PJ’s place and had a beer. We didn’t know eachother (well, some of us knew some others of us) and we had no idea about the band we were about to enter. The only thing we agreed about was that we didn’t want to be just another mediocre guitar rock band. We needed a concept - a brilliant idea.

One of the guys raised a question: “What is the kind of music you most hate?” We all answered it. Six out of seven answered “Country music.” One guy – guitar player – said he liked country music very much. The guy who raised the question said: “Ok. Let’s start a country band.” It sounded like the most ridiculous idea in years. I said: “Fine, but since we’re not from the United States we’ll never be real cowboys. So let’s call ourselves The Sissy Cowboys.” Everybody liked the name. We had a country band.

Since I was to be the singer the guys thought it was a good idea that I should write the lyrics for the songs. I started to read a lot about cowboys. And I bought myself a rhyming dictionary. That helped. I would just steal a sentence from a Lucky Luke book and then find words in the dictionary that rhymed to the end word of that sentence. That’s how I wrote songs like ‘Don’t You Dare To Call Me Chicken’, ‘A Real Cowboy Can Never Take A Day Off’ and ‘Carry Ann’s Push Up Bra’.

We've been kind of successful in certain crowds for several years and played in many venues and lots of festivals. And we even made a videoclip (ourselves) for the song 'Sherrif Please Release Me'.

All I wanted to say is: if you have an idea that sounds crazy, you're probably on to something.

Smoked sausage & condoms

This week I received my delayed parting gift from CCCP, the agency I used to work for as a creative director. The gift is a print on canvas of an idea I once made for Dutch warehouse chain HEMA. A few years ago they took up condoms in their assortment and asked us to come up with an idea to make that fact famous to a young crowd.

The half smoked sausage (halve warme worst, as we call it in Dutch)  has been one of the heroes of HEMA since years. So we came up with the image of the sausage with a condom around it. Sounds like an obvious idea, yet simple and powerfull. The people at HEMA were very enthusiastic.

At CCCP we did some great advertising work for HEMA, mostly thanks to the client. We made the Top 5 of Most Stolen Products, the 80th Birthday Film and of course the Rube Goldberg Viral. HEMA is a great brand: their proposition is clear, they're not anxious, and they know a good idea when they see one. And we as an agency understood them very well. The only time an idea was rejected was with this sausage and condom. What a shame. As the American writer Elbert Green Hubbard said: "The idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all."

Yes they're OPEN!

An Open Letter to Melle Daamen

The Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg (City Theatre) recently started a corporate campaign to attract people to the renewed venue. They now have an additional performance hall called the Rabozaal and a great restaurant (Stanislavski) in the former foyers.

The idea of the campaign is simple: they use the familiair shop sign with the words 'Yes we're OPEN' and add little sentences like 'Are you?' and 'to new ideas'. Nicely done.

What surprises me though is that it stops there. With this campaign they suggest a touch of crowdsourcing. Very modern, and very relevant for a public building in the centre of Amsterdam. But are they really open to new ideas? If so, they should have made it a little bit easier to share my ideas with them. On their website for example. Or put a big suggestion box at the entrance. Or organize an evening where the citizens of Amsterdam can come up with their ideas. Just some first thoughts. It might even help the Stadsschouwburg to get inspired and make the building and everything in and around it better.

It's a missed chance and a typical example of oldskool oneway advertising by just sending out a message. What a pity.

I have an idea for them. It's even free. Here it is: start communicating with your audience. And don't say that you're open when you're not really. I hereby offer the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam to help them figure out some great ways to start listening to their users. And, yes I'm OPEN, for a cup of coffee.