"Being provocative is never the starting point:" Eric Kessels

Most of Adland would be familiar with Kesselskramer, the Netherlands based agency known for its provocative and controversial campaigns, besides being famous for being housed in an old dilapidated church. Catch excerpts from an interview with Kesselskramer’s founding partner Eric Kessels about what defines the culture at his agency.

How would you define the culture at your agency?
At Kesselskramer, we try to be as authentic as possible. Sometimes we could have taken on clients which would have been good for the agency to grow but not very good for our creative output. There was this time when we decided to not work with a client whose contribution to our revenue would have been close to 60%. We didn’t take it. Those kind of things are very important.

Would you say your reputation of being a creative hot shop helps in being able to stand up for your ideas, however radical they may be. Or would you say it’s easier because a client who comes to you is already looking for something off center and provocative? 
With some clients, yes, it gets filtered. They know they won’t be taken out for lunch every week and it’s only about the work. There are also clients who come and say, can you give me something like so and so. That’s not the kind of work that we do.  As for being provocative or being attractive, that’s never the starting point. To be effective with the communication, that should be the starting point.

For the entire interview and for more coverage of speakers from Kyoorius Designyatra 2008, read Campaign India’s latest issue dated September 26.