Gallery
Interview with Satoshi Takamatsu, president of the jury
Satoshi Takamatsu, Founder and Chief Creative Director, Ground, Tokyo and President of the 5th CUP Jury: "Normally I get inspiration from judging, Clio, Cannes, this is why I like to be a judge. If I go to Istanbul for one week, my business in Tokyo is stopped, it is a bit painful, but always I get inspired from judging, process, look at the new work. I was inspired from the new, unfamiliar regions work. I am not familiar from the Southern America work, Turkey work, East Europe work. There are a lot of things that inspired me, I will get new ideas, new approach to my clients."
The CUP: You are judging the Cup for the first time. But you have experience a lot of them so far.
Satoshi Takamatsu: Yes, I have been judging many festivals, Cannes, Clio, D&AD, AdFest. This festival is slightly different from these.
The CUP: In what ways?
Satoshi Takamatsu: In international festivals like Cannes big brands like Adidas, Nike, Coca Cola mainly based in America or from a big country in Europe almost dominate grand prix or gold awards. Also jury tends to choose big campaigns, big clients work. It is very difficult to find a nice work from a small country or a small budget campaign or small works. But sometimes small campaign in small country is very creative and sometimes it’s very emotional or very high tech. In this festival I feel like here we are following another philosophy, different atmosphere. This is maybe because we are in Istanbul, in between Europe and Asia, in mixture of cultures so it’s easy. We open our mind to understand different culture from around the world, unfamiliar culture to us. We tried to understand what’s behind this. What is the cultural background, what is the concept, it was a long time and I am exhausted. We have good discussions for find the right one.
It’s easy to find big flower in Cannes, but it’s difficult to find small beautiful flower in Cannes. But here it does not matter how big the flower is, but if the flower is related to the cultural background we try to find it no matter how small it is.
The CUP: You are following the idea of genius loci?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I am jury president and I try to follow it. If the festival has not concept, all the international festivals will be the same. With the same results.
The CUP: It seems that festivals are meant to impress other agency people, and not so much the consumers. Do you think that the Genius loci concept is closer to consumers?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I think so. In Cannes is something like a competition between agencies: we are big, we are strong, we try to impress other agency, to present our big client. Sometimes we forget about the consumer. But here since we tried to look at local cultural background we tried to understand local consumers. If the work is coming from Columbia, we try to understand the insight of a Columbian. And it the work is coming from Slovenia we tried to understand what is inside of this country. In this festival not intentionally but naturally one look at the consumer, how they react to this. For example we had a work from Columbia for a taxi driver campaign for Chevrolet. In Columbia there are many taxi drivers, and their life have not changed for 20, 30 years. Taxi driver is just a taxi driver. But they created a university for taxi drivers. Not only taxi driving technics, but how to manage small company, how to be hospitable, than they have a pride: I have graduated. They have graduate uniform, and the drivers are happy, their families happy, the level of taxi driver in Columbia increased. Io love that kind of stories. Not only the client, but the consumer – taxi driver is a consumer in this case, because he purchase cars, not only Chevrolet – they open for all drivers. We look at the work and the background of that. We have some international big campaign and we try to be neutral. Global big campaign is great. But small great campaign is also great. We tried to b neutral, not just small, also big. Small flowers, big flowers.
The CUP: Are there any works coming from your agency?
Satoshi Takamatsu: Unfortunately not. Last year we had a lot of business, but no works to be awarded at the international festival. There are works increasing sell for our client and works for the international festivals.
We have been at Cup 2, 3 years ago.
The CUP: Will you find some inspiration for the future work? Will you change something about how you work?
Satoshi Takamatsu: Normally I get inspiration from judging, Clio, Cannes, this is why I like to be a judge. If I go to Istanbul for one week, my business in Tokyo is stopped, it is a bit painful, but always I get inspired from judging, process, look at the new work. I was inspired from the new, unfamiliar regions work. I am not familiar from the Southern America work, Turkey work, East Europe work. There are a lot of things that inspired me, I will get new ideas, new approach to my clients.
The CUP: Can you think of any work of yours, your client, that comes so close to the client? Anything that you have done that is a small flower?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I don’t think that anything I have done is a beautiful flower. Some are beautiful enough, some are so-so, honestly not all works very beautiful. But what I try to do. We have a client. We are not artist. We have to make a beautiful flower for the client. The client is like a girlfriend. It I have a girlfriend that likes red rose, I try to choose a beautiful red rose. Another client like white and big flower, I try to get her big and white. What I always think is I have to put something new. To the girl that likes red rose, a red rose is no surprise. I need to find lapping should be beautiful. New kind of rose. Arrangement. Virtual rose, not physical, computer graphic stuff, when I am in Istanbul. We have to have something new, new ideas. I have been doing that. Not always is amazing, outstanding. I try in my agency, which is not big.
The CUP: What is not big in Japan?
Satoshi Takamatsu: In Japan I think big agency is more than 100 employees. My background is Dentsu: 6000 employees. 46 floors. I have been working in Dentsu for 16 years. I quit Dentsu 7 years ago and established my agency Ground and we have 16 people. I like small size, could be 20. 25, not more.
The CUP: What is your niche?
Satoshi Takamatsu: We try to be a main stream. I advertising agency we have to pitch with Dentsu and we actually we won the pitch in most case. We can never lose a case. It should be outstanding. It’s big, it’s safe, reliable. We are small, so we have to be very attractive. We work very hard to be attractive.
The CUP: What kind of flowers are your jury members, what kind of bouquet is your group?
Satoshi Takamatsu: We have many different flowers around the world. Traditional flowers, as a typical rose. Some jury is something like new type of rose. Every year people try to invent new type of rose. Something like flower shop. They have traditional roses and exotic flowers. Every jury has that kind of attractive flower, but the mixture of flower is arrangement of this. As a jury president I try to make a bouquet. As a jury president I am a florist.
Satoshi Takamatsu: Yes, I have been judging many festivals, Cannes, Clio, D&AD, AdFest. This festival is slightly different from these.
The CUP: In what ways?
Satoshi Takamatsu: In international festivals like Cannes big brands like Adidas, Nike, Coca Cola mainly based in America or from a big country in Europe almost dominate grand prix or gold awards. Also jury tends to choose big campaigns, big clients work. It is very difficult to find a nice work from a small country or a small budget campaign or small works. But sometimes small campaign in small country is very creative and sometimes it’s very emotional or very high tech. In this festival I feel like here we are following another philosophy, different atmosphere. This is maybe because we are in Istanbul, in between Europe and Asia, in mixture of cultures so it’s easy. We open our mind to understand different culture from around the world, unfamiliar culture to us. We tried to understand what’s behind this. What is the cultural background, what is the concept, it was a long time and I am exhausted. We have good discussions for find the right one.
It’s easy to find big flower in Cannes, but it’s difficult to find small beautiful flower in Cannes. But here it does not matter how big the flower is, but if the flower is related to the cultural background we try to find it no matter how small it is.
The CUP: You are following the idea of genius loci?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I am jury president and I try to follow it. If the festival has not concept, all the international festivals will be the same. With the same results.
The CUP: It seems that festivals are meant to impress other agency people, and not so much the consumers. Do you think that the Genius loci concept is closer to consumers?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I think so. In Cannes is something like a competition between agencies: we are big, we are strong, we try to impress other agency, to present our big client. Sometimes we forget about the consumer. But here since we tried to look at local cultural background we tried to understand local consumers. If the work is coming from Columbia, we try to understand the insight of a Columbian. And it the work is coming from Slovenia we tried to understand what is inside of this country. In this festival not intentionally but naturally one look at the consumer, how they react to this. For example we had a work from Columbia for a taxi driver campaign for Chevrolet. In Columbia there are many taxi drivers, and their life have not changed for 20, 30 years. Taxi driver is just a taxi driver. But they created a university for taxi drivers. Not only taxi driving technics, but how to manage small company, how to be hospitable, than they have a pride: I have graduated. They have graduate uniform, and the drivers are happy, their families happy, the level of taxi driver in Columbia increased. Io love that kind of stories. Not only the client, but the consumer – taxi driver is a consumer in this case, because he purchase cars, not only Chevrolet – they open for all drivers. We look at the work and the background of that. We have some international big campaign and we try to be neutral. Global big campaign is great. But small great campaign is also great. We tried to b neutral, not just small, also big. Small flowers, big flowers.
The CUP: Are there any works coming from your agency?
Satoshi Takamatsu: Unfortunately not. Last year we had a lot of business, but no works to be awarded at the international festival. There are works increasing sell for our client and works for the international festivals.
We have been at Cup 2, 3 years ago.
The CUP: Will you find some inspiration for the future work? Will you change something about how you work?
Satoshi Takamatsu: Normally I get inspiration from judging, Clio, Cannes, this is why I like to be a judge. If I go to Istanbul for one week, my business in Tokyo is stopped, it is a bit painful, but always I get inspired from judging, process, look at the new work. I was inspired from the new, unfamiliar regions work. I am not familiar from the Southern America work, Turkey work, East Europe work. There are a lot of things that inspired me, I will get new ideas, new approach to my clients.
The CUP: Can you think of any work of yours, your client, that comes so close to the client? Anything that you have done that is a small flower?
Satoshi Takamatsu: I don’t think that anything I have done is a beautiful flower. Some are beautiful enough, some are so-so, honestly not all works very beautiful. But what I try to do. We have a client. We are not artist. We have to make a beautiful flower for the client. The client is like a girlfriend. It I have a girlfriend that likes red rose, I try to choose a beautiful red rose. Another client like white and big flower, I try to get her big and white. What I always think is I have to put something new. To the girl that likes red rose, a red rose is no surprise. I need to find lapping should be beautiful. New kind of rose. Arrangement. Virtual rose, not physical, computer graphic stuff, when I am in Istanbul. We have to have something new, new ideas. I have been doing that. Not always is amazing, outstanding. I try in my agency, which is not big.
The CUP: What is not big in Japan?
Satoshi Takamatsu: In Japan I think big agency is more than 100 employees. My background is Dentsu: 6000 employees. 46 floors. I have been working in Dentsu for 16 years. I quit Dentsu 7 years ago and established my agency Ground and we have 16 people. I like small size, could be 20. 25, not more.
The CUP: What is your niche?
Satoshi Takamatsu: We try to be a main stream. I advertising agency we have to pitch with Dentsu and we actually we won the pitch in most case. We can never lose a case. It should be outstanding. It’s big, it’s safe, reliable. We are small, so we have to be very attractive. We work very hard to be attractive.
The CUP: What kind of flowers are your jury members, what kind of bouquet is your group?
Satoshi Takamatsu: We have many different flowers around the world. Traditional flowers, as a typical rose. Some jury is something like new type of rose. Every year people try to invent new type of rose. Something like flower shop. They have traditional roses and exotic flowers. Every jury has that kind of attractive flower, but the mixture of flower is arrangement of this. As a jury president I try to make a bouquet. As a jury president I am a florist.
