BlogFonks Fonk for Thoughts: Åsk Wäppling

I chat a little about Adlands history and a lot about advertising in Blogfonks quest to see "what Fonks creative peoples minds?"

BlogFonk: Is there difference in mentality of creatives in the countries you've worked?
Wäppling: Not really, creatives fit certain stereotypes wherever you go. There's the 'work-smart-not-hard' guy who clocks off at 5 to pick his kids up from school, the never-stop-working types who scribble on napkins at bars until the wee hours, the cynical whiners, the hacks and rip-off artists, the 'good-enough' creatives who never put up a fight for anything with the motto 'pick your battles', and the utterly crazy creatives who passionately come up with one groundbreaking idea after another can be found in every country. The only thing that really changes is the language (including the visual) which they speak. Every single country has someone who says: 'This country is not so ad-literate, we can't do that ad here. Maybe that ad would fly in [insert other supposedly more ad-literate country here].' Seriously.

Every country I have looked for work in has at least one agency head that says with a straight face: 'We do very Danish/Swedish/Dutch/French advertising here.' Seems they forget that creatives can sell expensive cars to rich old men, even though they themselves bike, tampons to women, even though they are men, and diapers to mothers, even though they are childless. It's our job to communicate to people in various 'cultures' - be it a national one, or a target groups culture. We research and get on with it, cultural insight doesn't have to come from being born within it, but can come from observing it with an open mind.

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