Poppe van Pelt did not earn an economics degree from the University of Amsterdam. Terminating his studies in 1991, he started media business BikeBoard. After getting bored with girls riding on bikes towing posters, he started as a copywriter at Campaign Company, Amsterdam, working on Robecco, Shell and Pioneer, among other accounts.
In 1995, van Pelt teamed with creative Diederick Hillenius. Two years later they became creative directors of the newly merged TBWACampaign Company and were responsible for such clients as Sire, Mercedes-Benz, Telford, We Fashion, Nissan, Delta Lloyd, United Nations, Heineken, the Consumer Safety Council, Albert Heijn and Holland Casino.
A little more than a couple of years ago, van Pelt and Hillenius teamed with Bas Korsten, the former DDB Amsterdam creative director, Michael Jansen, who came to Amsterdam from Australia (Y&R Adelaide, BBDO Sydney) and JWT Amsterdam Managing Director Otto van der Harst to launch Amsterdam ad shop Selmore.
Van Pelt, Hillenius, Korsten and Jansen brought to Selmore an extensive award-winning creative pedigree, turning out many lauded Dutch campaigns, which had netted a total of 23 Cannes Lions. Their decision to open Selmore generated considerable industry buzz and the agency remains one of the most watched in Amsterdam.
Today Selmore maintains a roster of about 15 clients. The agency’s work for one of those clients, NationaleVacaturebank.nl (Holland’s National Job Bank), is featured in this week’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery and prompted SHOOT to seek out van Pelt for his perspective on the industry.
Over the years, the creative team of van Pelt and Hillenius has won a dozen Cannes Lions, 18 Eurobest Awards, as well as eight gold and 17 silver Dutch Art Director Club Awards.
SHOOT: What was the creative genesis of NationaleVacaturebank’s spot called “Office”?
van Pelt: We were playing for some time with the thought of people in offices in need of salvation. But most ideas seemed a bit plain, until we found the absurd angle of hearing a rescue dog barking through the ceiling.
SHOOT: What made you take a leap of faith with a relatively inexperienced director, Matthew Helfgott, for this commercial? Why did you elect to produce the job in the United States?
van Pelt: Actually, Matt approached us first. Not me personally, but he mailed one of my partners [creative Director Bas Korsten] to see whether we had some nice scripts where he could set his teeth in. Then we got interested and got in contact. In the meantime we were under a lot of time pressure to get this campaign made in time, so we sent out two scripts to quite a few directors, all Dutch and one more American. And after talking to Matt for some time, we decided to go with him.
Besides having an excellent interpretation, he was also the only one who got somewhat close to the budget our client had in mind. What surprised us was that it was cheaper for us to shoot in the USA then in Holland, with two shooting days instead of one. And another advantage of shooting in L.A., there’s a really high level of experience throughout the whole crew. Where else would a dog have two personal trainers?
SHOOT: What’s your take–and/or involvement–in emerging media beyond the traditional 30-second spot?
van Pelt: It’s funny that the 30-second spot is seen as a dinosaur, but now with broadband being widely available and people getting familiar with concepts like YouTube, we get to see more and more video on the net. It’s probably still one of the richest media to tell a story and to get people involved. What is changing is the fact that an advertiser could just hijack content with money and put their name on it and you kind of had to watch. The art of getting viewers involved is now much more delicate and difficult. That also means there’s less and less room for irrelevant rubbish and in the end that’s a big improvement of course.
We just finished three viral films for the same client we made this commercial for. And I found it a really big relief that you’re not tied to the 30 seconds or 35 or more you usually have to fit in. If a story is best told in 30 seconds and five frames, then that’s just fine. And 13 seconds and two frames are okay too.
SHOOT: What’s the state of advertising creativity in Amsterdam today? Does the market face any hurdles it needs to clear to get to the next level?
van Pelt: There’s a lot of focus on Amsterdam right now. Based on the success of W+K and 180 and some others, a lot of international trade press is watching Amsterdam. And that gets attention of advertisers as well and that’s good, that offers new opportunities.
But it seems like there are still two worlds, the local Dutch agencies with their Dutch clients and the ‘Americans’ with their international clients. I hope these two will merge more. If the general level of creativity will rise, everyone will profit.
SHOOT: You made quite a splash in The Netherlands with the launch of Selmore, which has carried on the country’s tradition of being a marketplace for hot start-up shops, following in the footsteps of such agencies as Kessels-Kramer, Strawberry Frog and 180 Amsterdam. Now with two-plus years under your belt at Selmore, what lessons have you learned about starting up an agency? From a business perspective? A creative perspective?
van Pelt: Coming from a big agency and starting up something new, you suddenly realize how well organized everything was. And how big of an influence that was on the quality of your work.
So, if you start, don’t save on hiring good people to get an organization going. Don’t fool yourself by thinking that you can do everything yourself.
Don’t waste too much time by doing things you’re not good at.
Stay focused on the creative work because in the beginning there are a lot of issues that can distract you. On the other hand, it’s a big opportunity to do things different than at your previous agency, to think of different structures or ways of working.
And that can be really good for the creative output.
SHOOT: Educate us a bit about Selmore itself. Who are your major clients? What work have you done there that you’re particularly proud of?
van Pelt: When we were still at TBWA we asked our biggest competitors at DDB if they were interested in teaming up. A year later we opened.
We started off with Coca Cola and Fortis ASR. At the moment we are now working for about 15 clients–for example Conimex, a Unilever brand for oriental cooking, Consumer Safety, Jumbo Supermarkets, a big retailer, Quote Media, Skoda, Sky Radio. And just recently MTV Germany and De Volkskrant, the biggest Dutch quality newspaper, De Bijenkorf, Holland’s version of Harvey Nichols and NationaleVacaturebank.nl, the biggest jobsite in Holland.
We are particularly proud of our work for Conimex, Consumer Safety, Jumbo, Skoda, Sky Radio and the NationaleVacaturebank.nl and proud of other work that is still in the making.
