The Heritage and Daring Work of KesselsKramer
Established by Erik Kessels and Johan Kramer in 1996, KesselsKramer, based in Amsterdam and extending to London (with Dave Bell as creative director there) and Los Angeles, is a fully independent advertising agency known for its somewhat controversial and always groundbreaking work. With 12 beliefs of the agency, a few of them being ‘Start smart, then it’s all downhill’, ‘Advertising is unhealthy’ and ‘Don’t be safe’, KesselsKramer is definitely one of those originators that somehow always make it to the front page of the agenda.
Describing themselves as having a ‘restless attitude’ and as aspiring to do things differently in the field, KesselsKramer also extends its work to publishing. “All KesselsKramer Publishing projects are initiated by the creative thinkers of KesselsKramer. Each book or magazine expresses their personal passions, whether that passion is a collection of found photographs, short stories or a celebration of unusual artworks,” states the website.
With an impressive multimedia portfolio, a solid brand and a wide range of interests, KesselsKramer is exactly the type of company that would be able to blur the lines between commercial and exciting, relevant and irrelevant, controversial and curious. This is why creative directors Gijs van den Berg and Rens de Jonge (below) took the time to speak to us about the legacy and heritage of KesselsKramer and what their work looks like today. Both Gijs and Rens are concerned with creative direction and they work on various projects, for some of which they are in a team. And although they both have very different styles, they add up well. “I focus on making sure the work has an edge and fights against the mainstream, while Rens always makes sure the work has a heart and soul,” says Gijs.
Gijs started out his creative career as an intern at what he calls a very ‘traditional’ agency in Amsterdam. “All of the clichés of the old days were included,” he says, explaining that he strongly disliked the culture and work so much so that he swore to never work in advertising again. Following that, he spent another three years at agencies he felt better about, in order to save money and pursue his photography career. That was until he met Erik Kessels in 2009, with whom he shared his love for photography, ‘questioning the status quo’ and also happened to be born in the same region.
Similarly, Rens also had worked in a few agencies prior to KesselsKramer, but once he joined six years ago, it felt like the perfect fit. What felt right to him was the “advertising for people that don’t like advertising” attitude, but he also immediately knew he could make use of the space the agency gave him to both grow his talent and develop his personality through his work. “Here you can learn who you are as a creative, instead of trying to come up with ideas that others or your creative director will like,” says Rens. “I love that mentality and it is what provides original solutions for every brief and client.”
Gijs explains that KesselsKramer has always been about getting the work done - “In the time some agencies produced a new campaign, we made five,” he says. “And on top of that, we would still create some side projects in the after-hours. It was a result of a creatively driven agency.” According to Rens, KesselsKramer has always been about telling the truth, no matter the shape or form. “We didn’t and still don’t like lying about things,” he explains, “We don’t take ourselves very seriously, our work, on the other hand, comes with great responsibility - that, we take very seriously.”
The goal of always staying truthful also shines through the agency’s work, no matter how deep in its history you dig. Looking back, one of the projects that stands out is ‘The Worst Hotel in the World’ (also pictured above) , something the agency did for the Hans Brinker Budget Hotel, which happens to have been their very first client. At the time, Johan Kramer and Erik Kessels visited the hotel and “very quickly concluded that it was probably the worst hotel they ever visited,” shares Gijs. “Advertising it as a pleasant place to stay in Amsterdam would have simply been a lie, so they decided to be plain honest about it, and framed it as the worst hotel in the world.” A simple solution for a somewhat complicated problem, that still puts the client as the best at something…Even if that means they’re the best at being the worst.
The attitude of ‘plain and simple’ pointing to the truth instead of fabricating what a client might want to see in their brand, is something that can be seen in KesselsKramer’s first-ever project, but also in their very latest. The 2022 Monopoly campaign told it how it is - no use in pretending that Monopoly is a civilised family game where everybody comes out as the bigger person. So, KesselsKramer decided to work to the strengths of the brand - “We decided to be plain honest about the fact that you will always get into a fight while playing the game. Except, we showed that this can actually be a good thing,” says Rens.
Although with a different twist, the two campaigns are undoubtedly reminiscent of each other. The Hans Brinker Budget Hotel was honoured with a series of posters with statements such as “Now more rooms without a window”, or “Now even less service” which were undoubtedly unforgettable and did comedy advertising as it should be done. The Monopoly poster series, on the other hand, featured portrait photographs of young kids at the table, experiencing what seems to be the most frustrating, intense and emotionally charged moment in the game. “For learning how to calm down”, “For learning to cope with losing” and “For dealing with a setback”, the posters read.
Speaking of the Monopoly project, Rens says: “To our experience, the best work is made when you’re able to really team up with the client. When Hasbro Benelux asked KesselsKramer to come up with an original activation idea to promote Monopoly, we (myself and Maartje Slijpen, Associate Creative Director) soon realised that to be original for a board game that is so well known, we really had to turn things upside down.” In a time when screens dominate a lot of our day, both for adults and youngsters, the agency decided to focus the campaign on the positive effects of the agitated feelings everybody has when playing Monopoly. “But that is not something you just present and say yes to. It’s a collaborative process,” explains Rens, “In which the idea grows and becomes better every step along the way.”
Another historically famous piece of work by KesselsKramer is their ‘I AMsterdam’ campaign for the city of Amsterdam, which also included those signature comedy undertones, pointed out the truth, and this time, also poured empathy and emotion into the mixture. “Paris has the Eiffel Tower, London has Big Ben, Amsterdam has…a red light district and coffee shops,” says Gijs. To them, Amsterdam lacked the one landmark that could lead all of its campaigns. “But, if you dive into the numbers, Amsterdam turns out to be small, but a very diverse city, representing 178 nationalities. The insight for the campaign was that it’s the people that make the city, not the buildings.” Rens says, “That empathetic, human approach is a big part of our thinking. Humans are an infinite source of inspiration. Something you can also see in the work for citizenM by KesselsKramer London and Dutch brands like Ben and Bever.”
When thinking back on their favourite piece of work, Gijs and Rens both have a hard time due to the enormous portfolio of the agency, and mostly because everything seems to have its own story that brings new perspectives to the creators. Gijs eventually settles on the campaign he made for the Dutch government that aimed to increase the number of organ donors. With the question of ‘how can we make donor registration campaigns more effective throughout the Netherlands’, KesselsKramer found out that publishing local registration rates is what motivates towns at the bottom to “step up their game” and those at the top to “live up to their reputation.” By persuading people to take example from high donation rate cities, such as Goirle in the Southern Netherlands, the campaign essentially created a race between regions on who will donate most. People were not only able to see the Dutch Donor Ranking, but also use an interactive map to find out where their hometown stands in the rank list.
Rens on the other hand explains that in the past six years he has been working for NEMO, a science museum in Amsterdam, trying to “translate science into a language that sparks the fantasy of both kids and their parents,” which he found to be “an absolute pleasure.” He explains that for a scientific exhibition on humans, the agency introduced ‘The Average Person,’ a character that farts 17 times a day and checks their phone 85 times a day - “those facts, and others like them, I will never forget,” he says
So, with a rich history of projects and still standing as the ‘cool kids on the block’, KesselsKramer can serve as an example for daring, effective and recognisable work. When asked what advice they would give to the industry, Gijs says that it’s most important to “keep your feet on the ground.” He continues, “The best work you can make is work that is understood and liked by your parents.” And for Rens, empathy is probably up there with being grounded. “If you’re able to empathise with your client, your team, and your audience, you know what you should say.”
About advice they’d give to the rest of the world, Rens and Gijs keep it plain and simple - “Stop the self destruction of mankind and never become cynical.”
