Adding up to the quirky truth
The Age
Friday June 5, 2009
The work of an iconoclastic Dutch advertising agency continues to inspire, writes Ray Edgar. IT SOUNDED like the stipulations of a Dutch Basil Fawlty. Rob Penris wanted advertising for his budget Amsterdam hotel so he didn't get complaints from guests any more. The "any more" is telling.Produced on a minuscule budget, each of the posters devised by advertising agency KesselsKramer for Penris' Hans Brinker Budget Hotel boasted the luxuries of a door, the unique designs of three-legged chairs and cups with broken handles, and eco-credentials expressed by a patron caught using a curtain as a towel. Over a decade later, the campaign is still going strong. Guests arrive expecting the worst and come away impressed."In a way it hasn't aged because it has stubbornly kept the strategy of honesty as to how bad the grubby hotel is," says Dave Bell (right), KesselsKramer's partner and creative director.Not only did this left-field approach to "truth in advertising" and the "unique selling proposition" get picked up by the mainstream media, more importantly, it led to a 40 per cent increase in bookings. It also garnered KesselsKramer a gold Effie award, for effectiveness in advertising.The campaign's success is the subject of a book, The Worst Hotel in the World, while the work itself is part of a major retrospective of KesselsKramer's work at Melbourne's Guildford Lane Gallery until June 14."Creativity is an intrinsic part of their work," says Simon Hakim, managing director of Melbourne agency The Surgery, who has brought KesselsKramer's work out here, adapting an earlier retrospective at Rotterdam's Kunsthalle. "They believe in every creative facet."But as ad agency creatives regularly opine, real creativity is usually done outside office hours; and it's this highly personal stuff that keeps you sane, that contains no hint of compromise. At KesselsKramer, however, what most people relegate to moonlighting is an intrinsic part of their output.Amateurs' photos bought on auction websites, missing persons mugshots, non-celebrity achievers holding trophies, a photographic collection found in a Barcelona flea market: these are the subjects of their Useful Photography series.Specialising in the banal, abject and quirky, its themes seem to take over where Benetton's Colors magazine left off. But alongside this are their films: Johan Kramer's documentary The Other Final, which pitted the two worst-ranked soccer teams in the world against each other on the day of the 2002 World Cup final; or the 60 short films for children that screened on Dutch television that are as whimsical and imaginative as the work of Michel Gondry."It keeps everyone stimulated and their interests are satisfied. It also gives us a reputation and keeps everyone happy with working there," says Bell, who will present a seminar on his company's work on June 9.And yet looking at KesselsKramer's commercial work, you wonder why there is need for any extracurricular activity at all. The campaigns they have devised for Absolut, Diesel and Bavaria, to name a few, are some of the most iconoclastic advertising produced in the 12 years since they started in a 19th century church in Amsterdam.For Bell, the books and films are well and good but he finds projects that push beyond normal media outlets are more stimulating and potentially beneficial."Ideally (we would) make some of that free work more interesting for clients to sponsor - and not just books, but situate them to think beyond normal media outlets."So KesselsKramer encouraged Absolut, makers of vodka, to create a fashion label for emerging designers rather than simply sponsor a fashion festival, as many spirits manufacturers do. In collaboration with Dutch designers Droog, KesselsKramer also created a brand called "do", and then fitted the products around it. Another idea they are working on is the Unseen Screen Festival. "It's a film festival that uses the media screens that are rarely used for any purpose, like TV screens in banks, train stations and airport lounges," says Bell. "It's difficult to realise so you have to think twice about it, but it is a worthwhile idea. In the end it leads to better work."Betraying his Scottish roots and his years spent with the no-nonsense Dutch, Bell is uncomfortable making grand pronouncements or duff philosophical statements regarding the nature of their advertising work."It's a cut-through approach - very stubborn," he reflects. "In the UK, it was more polite. At KesselsKramer you try and cut through to the finished result quickly. It's probably part of the Dutch mentality. We just try to come up with a solid strategy that allows you to run free."KK Exports: 12 Years of Posters & Other Communications is at Guildford Lane Gallery, 20 Guildford Lane,Melbourne, until June 14.
© 2009 The Age
