The best of both worlds!
Fusion and constant further development, two themes which characterize all business categories in which creative agencies knock themselves out nowadays; advertising, branding and design are experiencing a profound mutation and fusion. What happens more and more frequently in pitch situations covering the widest variety of topics is that a large ad-agency delegation from an Anglo-American network meets up with the small, local ‘HotShop for Branding & Design’. Hamburg versus Frankfurt or Berlin, versus London and versus Paris... the winner? At any rate the one who lets themself be inspired anew time and again, who utilizes multiple cross-category and cross-country impulses and converts them into relevant brainwork.
Why are there more and more companies who like having these bouts, for example Hamburg vs. Paris? Are they hoping to attain a difference in inspiration and ideas for themselves? Does a French communication exist? A German? A French design? A German?
As a representative and aficionado of both cultures, all I can do is spontaneously reply: absolutely, several clichés still apply to this day:
- for Germany a sense of conceptuality, structure, precision or technicity (just think… “Bauhaus”);
- for France a sense of lightness, aesthetics or fantasy (just think… “Inès de La Fressange”).
And since our business is very culturally anchored as well, these differences definitely exist. Compare a German commercial break and a French one. Or a French supermarket and a German one: They are worlds apart – which makes the whole thing more exciting, for both the consumer and the agency.
Yet even so, these days I find a similarly healthy blend of strategic systematics and creative wealth in both countries, enhanced by a pinch of the provocative. Not only in our business, by the way: for example, very similar content with relation to status quo, problems, strengths, vision and targets for one’s own country can be found again and again in diverse speeches made by Angela and Nicolas.
Do I miss something when I compare the Branding & Design scenes here and in France? Oui, for instance:
- the understanding of Branding & Design as a high-quality, luxurious (because tailor-made) form of craftsmanship for brands (associated with clients’ acceptance to pay for this commensurately);
- the feel for elegant, finely tooled aesthetics, along with the will to stand up for them in everyday work and defend them vis-à-vis clients;
- the healthy culture of arguing & debating from which even-better-yet ideas sometimes emerge...
In contrast, what delights me in Germany is the high degree of acceptance on the part of clients, even for very ‘Germanic’ brands, to have myself advised by cosmopolitan teams and become acquainted with ‘the new’. If I were a German woman in France, I am convinced that I would never encounter a similar sort of open-mindedness. Viewed together with the pragmatism, the eye for detail and the high standard that distinguish ‘the creatives’ here, the result is a work environment that suits me amazingly well. And has made Dragon Rouge, the different agency with a French touch, successful for many years here in the Federal Republic.
Anne Luneau, Managing Partner Germany
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