The experimenters
With Rob Hartmann, Andi Portmann, and Raul Serrat, Wirz has added three new members to its existing leadership team led by Philipp Skrabal since the beginning of the year. Who are the new creative directors, and how do they work?
With the ambition to break new ground, Raul Serrat, Rob Hartmann and Andi Portmann stepped into their new shoes as creative directors at the beginning of the year. Since then, they've been pretty much under the gun. When the urge to create something new is added to their client responsibilities as creative directors, the agency's daily routine seems too short. That's why the three of them don't have much time to talk about their job as CD. They arrive at the meeting room on Uetlibergstrasse in staggered fashion, each of them having to leave soon after.
Serrat, Hartmann and Portmann have made it their business to implement unconventional projects. Projects that "are not advertising at all. When Wirz received an advertising commission from Brockenhaus, they didn't design a poster campaign as in past years, but instead conceived a literature exhibition. When it came to promoting Ikea's textile collection, Wirz revived the Tupperware party and relaunched it as a textile party. At the moment, a talk show is being implemented for Sternengrill (the Tages-Anzeiger reported), and a quiz show is currently being created for Mobiliar. "All new experiences. That's what makes it so exciting for me," explains Portmann.
Exciting - and costly. That's also one of the reasons why Wirz abruptly expanded creative management from two to five CDs. The assignments became increasingly complex with the integration of digital. "I see this organization as the best solution for working efficiently today in a creation with over 30 people," says Executive CD Philipp Skrabal. The eye of the needle in creation, which had previously consisted of Skrabal and the two CDs Hanspeter Schweizer and Thomas Kurzmeyer, became too tight. So Hartmann and Serrat, who had previously worked as ADs/conceptors, and Portmann, who oversaw projects as copywriter/conceptor, were appointed CDs.
"We always try to find solutions outside the comfort zone," Portmann continues. For a new campaign, the creatives don't take an existing recipe out of the drawer, but venture into new fields. And Hartmann, who joins the team somewhat late, adds: "We'd rather test new mechanisms than go the classic route right from the start." If there is no experience to fall back on for campaigns, everything is first tried out anew. To figure out how to build momentum for Ikea's textile parties, where Ikea teams work with party guests to decorate homes, the creatives held and analyzed test parties with Ikea. "We would have loved to be at every party later," they admit. For the furniture quiz show, test shows were recorded and then the concept was tweaked - until the result was convincing.
For the Brockenhaus, Wirz commissioned well-known authors to write about what the Brockenhaus objects might have experienced. The result was an audio tour of the Brockenhaus, with an opening night where the authors read their short stories aloud. "The consumer today has many choices. If you don't offer him exciting entertainment, he's quickly gone," Portmann explains. "That's why we don't want to just sprinkle the audience, but create real experiences." The vernissage was the actual core of the campaign, while the classic channels - posters and a special program on "Kulturplatz " on Swiss radio and television SRF - were the multipliers or the feeders.
"Wait, I'd like to add something," Serrat interrupts. "Not because I think very differently from the two gentlemen over there," he clarifies, "but a beautifully designed poster, a good photograph,a 30-second ad is still something big for me." Serrat's objection comes as no surprise. At Wirz, he is considered the "heart of creation" and, as CD, has a particular focus on getting the best possible visuals. In addition, he is organizationally responsible for ensuring that the agency's creative potential is exploited to the full. For just under a year, Serrat has been running the "studio," a 15-person pool of creatives from the graphic and digital fields. He no longer employs the classic team - an AD and an "Assi" - but puts together a different team depending on the assignment in order to make the best use of the talents.
"Just because it's advertising doesn't mean it has to look like advertising," Serrat says. "I like to remember how the graphic designers from the design shops used to laugh at us commercial artists." But the creative is convinced: high craftsmanship and great visual effort also pay off in advertising. He points to the Caran d'Ache "Let it out" campaign, with its colored pencils illustrated down to the smallest detail, which won a bronze Pencil and Epica gold at the One Shows in New York.
"Logical," adds Hartmann, who also previously worked as an AD/conceptual designer at Wirz: "I'm an aesthete, too, and I get annoyed every time something isn't carefully executed - whether it's a logo, banner or poster."
Breaking new ground
Hartmann prefers to talk about the new. "Rob is an ideas man, a lateral thinker who forges ahead," says ECD Philipp Skrabal about him. He needs the adrenaline rush that comes with venturing into new territory as an advertiser. When you never know in advance exactly how everything will turn out. When projects need intensive support because their dynamics require it, Hartmann feels he's in the right place: "If an idea doesn't seem feasible at first, that's a good sign. It's proof that it's new."
Portmann defuses: "We experiment, but are always seriously prepared. First, we play through the possibilities and thus take the experimental out of it," explains the biology graduate, who first worked as a journalist after graduating and then switched to advertising in 2006. A quick glance at the smartphone, the next appointment is waiting. Soon he will be saying goodbye.
"We have to dare to think out-of-the-box and boldly follow through with our ideas," Hartmann interjects again. "As the saying goes, there's no such thing as can't." When the creatives set out on a briefing, the first thing they do is think big. "The sky is the limit. " Skrabal takes a liking to that: "You shouldn't try to fly off with clipped wings, " the ECD emphasizes. Problems are known to be found quickly. It is only in a second step that the creative team's wishful thinking is adapted to reality, and the projects, which are not infrequently conceived a few shoe sizes too large, are coordinated with what is feasible.
The approach seems to be working. In recent years, the agency has made a big leap forward creatively. In the creative rankings, Wirz has moved up from sixth to second place. Wirz has also been able to score points in the digital awards. At this year's Best of Swiss Web, the creative agency was already listed in fifth place in the ranking of the "most successful and largest web agencies and providers in Switzerland" (behind Namics, Jung von Matt/Limmat, Unic and Hinderling Volkart).
Hartmann knows where he wants to go: "We want to be seen as a creative store where the new is seen as an opportunity and which realizes innovative campaigns for its customers."
He checks his smartphone. Soon he, too, will have to move on. Serrat, who as head of the studio is not least interested in acquiring new talent, rounds off: "And of course we want to attract good creatives with outstanding work. People who come to Wirz because they want to break new ground with casual people." He flips his black notebook closed and specifies, "Unconventional work - at a high level of craftsmanship." The graphic designers from the design booths should no longer have any reason to be amused by the work of their colleagues.
Isabel Imper
In a nutshell
Rob Hartmann (37) started at Wirz at the beginning of 2011. As an art director/conceptual designer, he worked primarily for Ikea, Mobiliar, Ochsner Sport and Thomy. During his communication design studies in Augsburg, he completed a one-year stay at Sidlee in Montreal. After graduating, he started working for Argonauten in Berlin in 2001. In 2002 he moved to Code in Zurich. Further stations were Advico Y&R and Euro RSCG (Havas). Highlights in his trophy cabinet include two Cannes Lions and a Grand Prix at Eurobest 2010, at last year's edition of which he served as a juror. Rob Hartmann has been a member of ADC Switzerland since 2011.
Andi Portmann (37) has been working as a concept writer/copywriter at Wirz for almost all major clients since mid-2010. His career led him via studies in biology and environmental sciences to major studies in zoology and journalism at the University of Zurich and at the "Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore" (India). Subsequently, he worked for two years as a journalist for the weekly newspaper (WOZ) and the Sunday newspaper (SonntagsZeitung). In 2006, he joined Advico Y&R as a copywriter/concept developer in advertising. He has been a member of ADC Switzerland since 2010, and was a juror at ADC of Europe in 2012. Five Cannes Lions in the last three years crown his creative record.
Raul Serrat (38) joined Wirz back in 2009 as Art Director/Concept Designer. His clients include Mobiliar, Swisslos, Local.ch, the BAG and Ikea. After training as a federally certified typographer and graphic designer, his path led him to Wirz via Euro RSCG, Publicis and SFLB (Leo Burnett). Serrat already took over the management and expansion of the studio (graphic, screen, motion, 3-D and product design as well as illustration), which now has around 15 employees, last July. Raul Serrat has been a member of ADC Switzerland since fall 2011. He has also already scored in all the renowned creative competitions.
