Michael Karnjanaprakorn

Brian posted a review on the book, Advertising is Dead, Love Live Advertising a couple of posts back and I got a chance to read through the book myself. He was dead-on when he said that this book was like a yearbook for non-traditional creative. I would recommend it to a lot of people that want to see what other agencies are doing outside of print and tv. Tom writes a lot on his personal theories on the advertising industry which is worth a read itself.

I caught up with Tom Himpe, the author of Advertising is Dead, Long Live Advertising and chatted with him about his book, advertising and Brussels…

The title of your book is very interesting. Is advertising, as we know it,
really dead? If so, aren’t we all out of jobs?

The title is an allusion to a quote which has been made quite often in the last few years, announcing the death of traditional advertising. I think this long announced death is happening slowly but certainly. It’s like this quote from Bill Gates: “We are overestimating what will change the next 2 years, and underestimating what will change the next 10.” That’s how it is with the traditional advertising formats. In two years, they will not have disappeared from the surface of the earth. But in 10 years, the landscape will be truly different. They might not be completely dead yet, but they will have lost most of their dominant position. As is most often the case in the advertising sector, revolutions happen slowly yet steadily, not overnight. There will be just as many jobs, quite probably even more, but the content and nature of the jobs will be completely different.

Speaking of the future, how do you think the advertising landscape will be different from today?

As boundaries will be fading increasingly between different communication disciplines and every company calls himself a “brand builder”, more and more agencies will end up very close to each other. This will create new opportunities for partnerships on the one hand, but increasing competition on the other. But there will be plenty of room for new, refreshing niche players, coming from entirely new directions, whether it’s game development, tv production or urban gaming. Finally, players that cannot offer true added value, will be replaced. Google is said to be working on a system to buy and sell advertising space online. That might hurt many online media agencies. And Business 2.0 recently called Nextmedium one of the 11 “disruption companies”. Nextmedium is a web-based service that handles automated product placement in films and television series. So to sum it up: the future will be one big pool with lots of ducks in it, all more or less quacking the same tune; there will be some very special blue and orange ducks walking on the side; and finally some dead ducks on the bottom of the pool.

Personally, I really enjoyed the book but was wondering what took so long for
something like this to come out. What was your motivation for writing it?

My motivation was exactly as you say: the fact that no book of this kind had come out yet. There were plenty of regular illustrated advertising books on the one hand, giving an overview of print, tv and other work, and plenty of theory books on the evolution in the advertising landscape on the other hand. But there were no illustrated books that gave an overview of all the off-beat, surprising, innovative communication campaigns of the last years. So I decided to do it myself.

You compare fusion cuisine + fast food to advertising, how are the two related?

I compare fast food with the traditional advertising formats, and fusion cuisine with the new-school methods of communication. Old-school advertising is about using and repeating well-known, familiar, standard recipes, tested and approved by previous generations. The metaphor of fusion cuisine refers mainly to this: stop going for the same old ingredients that everybody is using, and start experimenting with new and diverse ingredients. Communication today needs to be more experimental, diverse and complex, much like fusion cuisine is much about experimenting with new cultures and flavours.

Your book goes into some examples of “fusion cuisine” but how can agencies start thinking differently? It’s actually a lot harder than it sounds and most companies will resort to what they know and what has worked in the past.

I think it’s a matter of applying a few simple rules. First of all, agencies need to recruit people with a broad and open mindset. That might seem logical, but it really isn’t. There are many old crocodiles out there. If a senior creative isn’t opening up his mind to the new rules, I would personally be inclined to replace him or her by a 20-year-old. Secondly, include the thinking of people from different backgrounds, from music to tv industry, from product developers to event organizers. Different brains and mindsets create new fusions. Thirdly, get rid -as much of possible- of unnecessary, artificial boundaries and structures between communication disciplines. Fourthly, encourage experiments. As an agency, you have to walk the talk. Try things out and see how it turns out. Finally, do the basics: read, inform yourself, see how a 12-year-old is using media. It’s all out there. You just need to let yourself be sucked in.

Everyone is talking about two-way communications with consumers but you take it a step further and say that brands should engage in guerilla warfare. Can you explain what you meant?

Literally speaking, “guerrilla” means little war in Spanish. What I mean is that communication campaigns shouldn’t be this one big bomb, this one huge campaign. I think it’s wiser to invest in a wide array of smaller and quite often more creative and innovative ideas. Russell Davies talked about the dominance of the one big idea. I totally agree. There are plenty of little, smaller “wars” to fight with very diverse target audiences. So it’s not just about a dialogue with all consumers, but a series of dialogues with different groups of consumers. It will also ensure that the brand is present during a longer period of time, because not all budgets are swallowed by this one big campaign.

The big debate with non-traditional is measurability. In your book, you
talk about the amplification effect. Can you explain further and do you
think clients will buy this?

The amplification effect refers to the amplification of niche or less conventional ideas through various channels and media, both paid and unpaid. The most commonly used include free publicity, traditional advertising formats, co-creation, branded content and online seeding.

I think off-beat and truly original actions or initiatives should be the heart of a campaign. Rather than being the cherry on the cake, they should be the cake. But on many occasions, these ideas are rejected because of insufficient reach. Many advertisers still consider quantity and reach to be more important than the intrinsic quality of the content. I believe very strongly in the force of great content. I’d rather spend 80% of my budget on something truly amazing and amplify it as much as possible, than to spend 20% in the production of mediocre content, which I then distribute in traditional, interruptive channels.

After spending months writing the book, are there any campaigns that still
stick out that you thought that were pure genius? Something along the lines of “I wish I came up with that idea.”

I still think the HYPE Gallery campaign is quite terrific. When it came out, it was one of the first and valid examples of consumer-generated content. It is also a very integrated campaign, involving many channels used in a very consistent way. It offers true value for the consumers. And has been expanding globally ever since. Finally, the fact that the client gave a traditional brief for a traditional campaign, makes it all the more brave.

You used to be the strategic media director for mortierbrigade / Brussels.
Anything I should definitely check out in Brussels? Favorite restaurants,
sights, etc?

Well, the whole neighbourhoud near the Stock Exchange is very vibrant, a lot of nice shops and pubs. Go and have a drink in the Archiduc, a very cool bar with an old, authentic architecture, in the Dansaert street. Go to the Beursschouwburg, a terrific complex that celebrates theatre, film and… partying.

Last question, best Belgian beer?

I’m a sweet mouth, so my favorite beer would be Kriek Lindemans, which is the best cherry beer in the world.

Tom Himpe is a strategist at Naked Communications in London. You can reach him at tomh@nakedcomms.com
If you would like to be interviewed for future posts, please email me at mikekarnj@gmail.com