woensdag 30 januari 2008

Menno Kluin, Saatchi & Saatchi New York


Fellow Dutchman Menno Kluin is one of the first graduates of the Miami Ad School Europe. And he's by far the most successful one. Since his graduation he works as an art-director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York where he won a total of 9 (!) Cannes Lions. Last year he was the most awarded art director in Creativity Magazine. Despite being really busy, Menno still made time to write about his week.

Here it is.
And it will be like my week.
Written stressed, rushed and maybe sometimes confusing.
Monday to Friday "reply all" E-mails, meetings, conference calls, presentations and lunches.
Sometimes I wonder if it's possible to forget how to be creative.
When was the last time I actually did an idea?

This week is really about getting things done. Writing more mails than humanly possible. Running up from the 18th floor to the 15th floor. (where the Saatchi studio is. Whoever thought of that should be shot) Yes there is an elevator, but it's just too slow. Comping boards for spots. Comping roughs for presentations, finding money, finding photographers, finding illustrators, finding directors and hopefully finding some time for Guitar Hero (see picture).

This week was also about pitching beer, glamourizing hair, a candy that turns your mouth blue and a portable yogurt. In a weird way the glamourizing hair was the most fun. Although the other ones seem sexier its always nice to do something on such a hardcore selling packed goods product that has been around for ages.

This week is even more chaotic than usual because Paul Schulman, our creative manager who controls the lifes of 40 teams, is on holiday and Gerry Graf is still not here yet. Tony Granger our previous CCO quit some time ago to become the worldwide creative director at Y&R. Chaos is supposed to be good for creativity, but not if creativity consists of so much management. But when Gerry gets here I am sure things will calm down again.

But I shouldn't forget to actually write about creativity. And the fact that Gerry Graf is coming made me think about the following: the next couple of months is going to be interesting because my specific type of creativity will change. Gerry is a completely different CD than Tony (big visual) and therefore it seems logical that I will have to change my style as well. At least let's hope so because his work on Combos, Skittles and Snickers is great. Would love to have a spot like that on my reel.

This week was as well about realising for the first time ever how much sugar is in things. Maybe common knowledge to the rest of the world but it still came as shock to me. Ketchup has about 60 cubes. 1 Liter coke about 50. (if my calculations are correct...)

That was it.
My week.

1 opmerking:

Kimmie zei

Hoi Menno,

Ik weet niet of ik iets verkeerd gedaan heb (misschien krijg je nu 2 reacties achter elkaar...) maar goed dan is het niet anders! Ik ben nog steeds niet altijd even handig met computers/internet etc.

Via www.wieowie.nl kwam ik op deze site en wilde je even de hartelijke groeten doen uit Holland. Je timmert aardig aan de weg!

Je zal het vast te druk hebben om te reageren dus bij deze nog heel veel succes en een dikke kus,

Kim Levisson-Heijnen (en mamma in spé)