Creative awards are self-promotion
Amir Kassaei has been named the new Chief Creative Officer of DDB Worldwide. Dominik Imseng interviewed him.
Mr. Kassaei: You claim to be one of the "few truthful people in an industry of hypocrites".
I don't just say that - I try to live it. A huge difference.
Then please tell us the truth about advertising in 2011.
This is not fundamentally different from the truth about advertising in 1961: we are in an industry that is all about making companies, products and services relevant to people's lives. However, we have neglected this in recent decades.
Why?
For a long time, quantitative growth and the associated quantitative consumption were a sure-fire success. It was possible to create demand for meaningless things without much brainpower or effort. However, with the digitalization of the world and a gradual change in values, this is slowly coming to an end. But the advertising industry has another problem: every day we tell our clients that they should have the courage to break new ground. In fact, the last innovation in advertising is 60 years old: Bill Bernbach's creative revolution.
Advertising is one of the most structurally conservative industries of all.
Thank you! That's why we at DDB Germany have broken up the entire old structure. The classic situation of a copywriter and an art director poring over a client consultant's brief and looking for an advertising idea has been completely turned on its head.
You also wanted to reform ADC Germany, but you threw in the towel after a year.
I was not diplomatic enough - and also too naive. I can take comfort in the fact that the biggest changes in ADC history were initiated during my ten months in office and that my 10-point program will be pursued unreservedly by the new Board.
They wanted to abolish the traditional creative ranking.
I wanted to replace it with a ranking with ten different criteria to assess the performance of an agency. The agency with the most creative awards is not per se the most innovative. You have to understand creativity in a much broader sense: as the ability to solve a problem in a way that no one has done before. The only thing that winning creative awards proves is that you are good at winning creative awards.
...says one of the most awarded advertisers in the world.
The proportionality is simply no longer right. The system of creative awards is a system of self-promotion that has almost nothing to do with the real problems of the clients. It's like car manufacturers building bad production cars and awarding prizes to their prototypes. And we advertisers are surprised that clients no longer take us seriously? That we have a bad status in society? That we earn less and less money? That we have more and more problems with young talent? Why would anyone want to work in this sometimes very hypocritical industry?
Why "mendacious"?
Our industry is producing less and less demonstrable added value for our clients. However, it is our task and responsibility to use our creativity to solve our clients' marketing and business problems. Only this will lead to a better reputation for our industry, to an innovative definition of creativity and to a business model in which we are paid for our ideas rather than our hours.
Is that the philosophy of your creative consultancy Hubble?
Hubble is not a management consultancy. Hubble is, as the name suggests, our telescope into the new world. A global open source network that aims to make people's lives easier, better and more efficient through innovation. A modern think tank that proactively analyzes the world, technological trends and people's needs in order to produce substantial solutions.
What will people think of in 50 years' time when they think of Amir Kassaei?
If they cite me as an example of the fact that with passion, will and courage, you can make something special out of your life despite not having the prerequisites, I would be satisfied.
In a nutshell
Amir Kassaei - born in Tehran in 1968 - was a marketing assistant at L'Oréal in Paris and then worked in Viennese advertising agencies as an accountant, consultant, final draftsman, art director, media planner, copywriter and agency co-founder. In 1997, he moved to Springer & Jacoby in Hamburg, where he rose to the position of Executive Creative Director. Since 2003, Kassaei has been jointly responsible for the turnaround of DDB Germany as Creative Director and Managing Partner. This has not gone unnoticed at DDB's New York headquarters: Kassaei has just been appointed as the new Chief Creative Officer of DDB Worldwide.
