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.