On the spot: ADCN XXX Expats

How very interesting...
Was it interesting? Yes it was. The gathering of international and Dutch creatives in art club ‘De Kring’ on invitation of the Dutch Art Directors Club. To spice it up 5 expats were asked to give a small Swot on working in Amsterdam.

Positive: The work/life balance. Negative: The Dutch go home at six o’ clock . (Not long ago that was the time when London creatives returned from lunch.) What puzzled me was this: what will happen to the work/life balance and the work/kids balance if we all go home late at night? And beside that Bill Bernbach said : ‘If you’re creatively stuck, don’t stay sweating behind your desk, but go to the movies.’

The one most obsessed by the six o’ clock issue was Chris Baylis from TribalDDB, maybe because he was the only one employing more Dutch than expats. But Chris, why worry if you run a multiple awarded creative cloud?

Ron Smrczek of Taxi arrived rather recently in Amsterdam.
Coming from Toronto, working several years in New York and now here, he felt Amsterdam was a kind of homecoming.
And he, as well as Eric Quennoy (Wieden+Kennedy), praised the creative atmosphere of global village Amsterdam.

Jennifer Skupin (KesselsKramer), coming from Germany and living in Amsterdam for eight years now, loves living and working here but is considering to move on to Berlin as the new place to be. Coincidentally Erwin Olaf, one of our best and famous photographers is also planning to move to Berlin. Not for the first time in history the place to be if you wanna dance on the edge of the volcano.
Life is a cabaret my friend, so come to the cabaret.
Let’s hope enough international talent will stay in the global village of Amsterdam. Stephan Hancock from 180 probably will, for he praised the challenging climate in Amsterdam with its strange combination of madness and restriction. A few years ago he opened an expat complaint site: notpossible.nl.

Interestingly enough this might have led to their famous Adidas Campaign: Impossible is nothing. It is exactly this attitude that marks the difference between the international and the Dutch creative community. There where international creatives are surrounded by people that want to make things possible, Dutch creatives have to fight the Dutch mentality of (false?) modesty and frugality. Great idea but not for us, we don’t have that kind of budget. If we succeed to beat that nasty Calimero in our Dutch selves and find the right, international, clients: Impossible is nothing.
Hey Sony listen, we have e great idea for your colour tv’s: Why don’t we spend a million dollars on filming a few hundred thousand small coloured balls bumping through the streets of San Francisco?