Updating all connections and knitting them together into one platform here at GERMAINE #GERMAINE #Gonzales #Migraine

Het is al van onze vriend Rorschach dat we weten dat wat je in een afbeelding ziet, méér zegt over diegene die iets ziet, dan over de afbeelding zelf. Zo moet je al Jef Geeraerts zijn om hier twee Afrikaanse vrouwen in te zien.

Maar het kan nog gekker. Wie merkt het werkelijk aanstootgevende element in dit spotje dat we voor het BIVV maakten?

Gelukkig was er die ene alerte kijker die de penis op seconde 17 had opgemerkt. Gelukkig dat die ook de JEP waarschuwde. En gelukkig greep de JEP in en verbood ze het spotje. Want dit soort obscene pornografie zomaar op onze zenders gooien … !!!

Sometimes sheer talent comes along and you regognize it when you see it. So when Emilie came by at GERMAINE’s, more than a year ago, we were immediately impressed by her talent and were very happy to take her on board for a number of project - and we will be happy to continue doing so.

But Emilie, still being a student, had first to finish her school project - an animation movie - and now she has done so. And we are very proud to have been able to support it. Nice work, well done!!!

The movie can’t be shown completely yet, but here’s a trailer …

With the upcoming elections, and our agency being heavily involved in the campaigning, a lot of people ask me whether I have now also on a personal level become a converted “green”. Other put it more bluntly: will you vote for the green party in two weeks?

Three answers to that.

First of all: how come that literally everybody asks me this question, but before I was never asked whether, from now on, I would only travel via Thomas Cook, fill up at Q8, drink only Campina milk, call with a Samsung phone, and so on. Apparently, politics and advertising still remain this weird combination, that somehow you have to rationalize away. To make myself clear, I think that’s a good thing. I dread the day that politics is literally sld and marketed the way cereals or drinks are. There is the underlying idea, I suppose, that somehow, political ideas and convictions are not meant to be formed by marketing, but merely sold (and even then).

Second, and this is really the topic I wanted to discuss: as advertising people, we always have personal convictions and attitudes towards the brands we work for. And, advertising being inherently a subjective profession, these attitudes inevitably influence the work we’re doing. The strategies we develop. The problems we pinpoint. The creative work we’re proposing.

How can I not think of my own customer experience at, say, IKEA, when analysing shoppers experiences? Sure, part of being professional is being able to transcend your own point-of-view, e.g. by listening to consumers (through market research, private conversations, and obviously good old empathy). But being too professional, and therefore excluding one’s own experience, is a bad idea, I think. For various reasons.

- sometimes, the passion you feel for a client’s brand is a passion you already felt as a consumer for that brand. It’s an extra drive and motivation, and that’s a good thing.

- it’s easier to connect with consumers if you don’t forget to be one yourself

- let’s never forget communication, branding and the act of purchasing are emotional things. Try to analyse it only in a rational way, and you will be examining a dead product.

What is needed therefore - or rather, what I do in these situations - is not to hide away your own attitudes, but on the contrary, to examine them and be very aware of them. Because you know they will drive and influence your interpretations and actions, so better to get it into the open. If, for instance, a client launches a product I adore on a personal level, then it’s good to realize that my enthusiasm for the campaign may be just my enthusiasm for the product. Which could lead me to re-examine the communication. On the other hand, should I work for a brand that I don’t feel for myself, then I should be aware of this, otherwise I will be throwing away any attempt at creation, because “I don’t feel it”.

Of course, getting personally involved with a clients’ brand can go too far. Our former CEO, when we still worked for Hoegaarden, used to hide all the other beer brands in the supermarket, so consumers would be obliged to buy our client. There’s motivation, and then there’s obsession.

But, as an answer to everyone who asked me the original question in the last weeks: Yes. I will.

Having worked all my adult life in advertising, I don’t know if an equivalent of the following conversation ever actually happens in other sectors …

Patient: Doctor, doctor, I have a sore throat

Doctor (after examination): Yes, you do. But also, you have a cancer. And diabetes. And you lead an unhealthy lifestyle.

Patient: thank you doctor. Can I now have some cough pastilles?

Translated to our business:

Prospect: could you please give us a new graphical design for our website?

We: yes, we could. But first of all, the structure of your website is incongruent, confusing and user-unfriendly. Moreover, there is no consumer insight whatsoever in your communication, and you’re actively not answering the most basic questions people ask when buying your product. How about we work on that first?

Prospect: No, thank you. We’ll go with the other agency that just proposed a new and very cool graphical design for our website.

And so we lost the pitch. Should we be sorry?

People who know me, or know my Facebook profile, are aware of my huge fondness, love and admiration for the work of Mark Rothko. Nothing, therefore, annoys me more than when people say: “Hey, I could have done this”. First of all because it’s not true, and second, hey, then why didn’t you?

Behind this misconception is the idea that because something is simple, it must therefore be simple to make. Which, as we all know when we think about it, is completely untrue, and in fact, just the reverse. It takes craftsmanship and tough choices to make something simple.

So why then am I writing about modern art and the virtue of simplicity? Because, since today, our new website is online, and simplicity was a topic in a recent discussion about the design of it …

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Jef and Pieter, our youngest creative team, have been selected as one of the two Belgian finalists in the BestYet competition, a European contest to find the Best Young European team. Last night, their proposal for retail chain Veritas was selected over that of 31 other teams. We’re happy. Even if it means we’ll have to miss them for 3 days in May, and who knows, if they do well in London, another week in Cannes in July …

But for now, guys: congratulations.