My top creative tips from the German school of taking the long way round
Germany has a reputation for directness. We like things to work – ideally with a manual, a warranty and a stamped form. So you might expect the best German(ish) work this year to be very direct. But it is not. The work from my home country I liked most starts with a simple truth, then takes the longest possible route to get there.
Hornbach/No Project Without Drama/HeimatTBWA
DIY is not relaxing. That idea was invented by people who do not do DIY.
DIY is dust, doubt and the wall, previously neutral, suddenly declaring war.
German DIY retailer Hornbach knows this. So instead of softening the truth, they stage a bathroom renovation as an opera, which sounds excessive, but only if you have never renovated a bathroom.
Laut gegen Nazis /§HOPLEFTING/Jung von Matt
This is our own work, so I’ll keep it brief.
Most campaigns against the Nazi movement are, well… campaigns. However,. §HOPLEFTING is paperwork. Trademark paperwork, filed first, exactly where the other side was not looking. Laut Gegen Nazis (Loud Against Nazis) trademarked the rights to Germany’s biggest right wing online merch shop – which funds the Nazi movement. It’s very German. The resistance has a registration number.
The RealReal/L’ultimo Uomo Reale/Team One
While not a German campaign per se, my dear old friends Sebastian Strasser (Director) and Sabina Hesse (Creative Director) made this, so it counts as emotionally German. The problem with luxury resale is that the product is not the bag. It is the trust that the bag is the bag. The film does not argue this point but instead, it gives us a strange parable about a man in a world that looks too perfect, until the perfect starts to peel.
All these approaches are very German somehow. Simple observations but refusing the simple answer. Even the scenic route has been engineered.
