Christian Schuck aka Kidde, Chief Creative Officer of the M+C Saatchi Group Europe, in an interview about campaigns, inspiration and the Cultural Power Index launch
CREDITS / DETAILS / VIDEO EMBED LINK
CREDITS / DETAILS / VIDEO EMBED LINK
CREDITS / DETAILS / VIDEO EMBED LINK
Christian Schuck, alias Kidde, is Chief Creative Officer of M+C Saatchi Group Europe and one of the three CEOs of M+C Saatchi Berlin House. In the midst of Berlin's vibrant cultural scene, he and the product and interior design studio llotllov designed the agency's new offices in the neo-brutalist Brandlhuber Haus on Brunnenstrasse, making it into Wallpaper. M+C Saatchi is also celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and Kidde has been an important part of the agency network for 15 years. Current clients in Germany include Lidl, The North Face, Whoop, Ferrero, Porsche Design, ING, and the international sponsorship account of Porsche AG. At the European level, other brands include adidas, Heineken, Geox, Carrera, Polaroid, Eni, the DeLonghi Group, and many more. At GoSee, the creative gives us an insight into his work, and we look forward to welcoming him in person to UPDATE Berlin in May.
Your agency realized a fantastic film with the Stuttgart Ballet for Porsche. Can you tell us something about the campaign? Kidde: This film and the image catalog are a great example of craft. I wasn't on set, but my colleague and Executive Creative Director in Berlin, Javier Suarez-Argueta, was. His background as an art director gives him a better eye for it. With each new program from the Stuttgart Ballet, there's a new look, which we implement with Porsche as the main sponsor. Cultural power, however, doesn't come from a single film or campaign, but from the sustained commitment of a brand that uses cultural momentum to stay relevant. This includes the "Ballet in the Park" event, which broadcasts a performance in the park to make culture accessible to everyone, as well as the content surrounding the guest appearances worldwide. As the global lead agency for Porsche sponsorships, we also work in the areas of tennis, golf, kitesurfing, and big-wave surfing. We're developing the world's fastest surfboard for Sebastian Steudtner's world record quest, partnering with the Stuttgart Ballet as an aesthetic and performance partner, and supporting the kitesurfing community with a custom-designed kite featuring the Porsche Sau logo. We support the culture of the communities themselves, rather than just placing logos.
With "Cultural Power," you want to position yourselves as pioneers in helping brands shape cultural trends. What does that mean specifically for your work? Kidde: As Creators of Cultural Power, we don't set out to shape cultural trends. That sounds far too easy and is far too difficult—and short-lived, too. Rather, it's about ensuring that brands exist in today's culture in the first place and play a truly relevant and credible (important!) role in people's lives. In a time when the world's 100 largest brands suddenly lose $200 billion in a year and a billion ad blockers have been installed, you can no longer simply press the advertising campaign button and look forward to growth in the next quarter. Only brands that understand culture and its subcultures, support them with their resources, or better yet, help shape them, can achieve this. And that is precisely the competitive advantage we want to create with and for our clients. To do this, you have to factor in "lots of littles" into your budget.
The global launch of the Cultural Power Index in March of this year included a revised visual identity from M+C Saatchi. What exactly is the Cultural Power Index? Kidde: The Cultural Power Index is one of many investments we've made in our new proposition for clients. It's our new, AI-based tool that allows us to measure the "cultural power" of brands and their business impact—and thus, of course, ourselves. Previously, this was only possible very superficially or subjectively, or with a lot of expensive research. Thanks to advances in AI, this is now finally possible. In addition, my smart colleagues in the network, who know a thing or two about this sort of thing, have developed a formula to put the four important parameters of brand desire, brand influence, brand presence, and, above all, momentum, into the right relationship. Based on this formula, the AI then analyzes billions of data signals. Not just numerical ones, but also visual and verbal ones—and that's what makes it so exciting, in my opinion. The tool can also generate predictive insights from which we create individual playbooks for brands to advance their cultural power (more via CulturalPowerIndex.com).
Regarding our visual identity: We were founded in 1995 under the philosophy of "Brutal Simplicity of Thought." Accordingly, our visual identity back then was brutally consistent: pared down, bold, and black and white, because that's proven to be the most legible. We've retained this mantra as the "how" we work, but what we create through it—Cultural Power—simply needed more color, more diversity, and more inspiration, without losing its boldness. Our brand experience design professionals at M+C Saatchi Re did a truly excellent job. One important change is replacing the ampersand "&" with a "+" in our logo, which represents our growth promise.
You work in the sports and entertainment sector and place a strong emphasis on "cultural power." What sets you apart from traditional advertising agencies? Kidde: That touches on the origin of our new cultural power proposition, something we've actually been doing for a long time, but are only now claiming for ourselves. The Saatchi name has always been associated with culturally relevant work – especially in the UK – and the M+C Saatchi network has grown from and with remarkable specialists who have intensively studied cultures and subcultures and what drives them. This makes us the largest independent creative network in the world.
One of these specialized agencies is Sport&Entertainment, which has been transforming sponsorship and activation for 21 years and created Passion Marketing. Sponsorship used to be limited to printing logos on jerseys, advertising boards, and the like – the bigger, the better. With S&E, we focused on becoming part of the fan culture behind the sponsorships. If done right, there's hardly a more relevant and powerful form of engagement for brands. Today, passion marketing is no longer limited to athletes and events; it's an important component of cultural power in our work. To strategically identify the right passion fields and evaluate whether they are suitable for activation and media coverage, we have a tool called Passion Pulse.
At M+C Saatchi, we don't see ourselves as a traditional advertising agency, but rather as a creative solutions company. Clients come to us with a problem, and we solve it using creative thinking and, above all, a media-neutral approach. It's always about the idea and the brand story, not about filling out a media plan. This isn't entirely new, but with so many specialists under one roof, whom we assemble as needed to create an agile and diverse team, we can perhaps speak up a little more loudly than others.
You've been part of the network for 15 years – what's kept you on board for so long, and what fascinates you about the idea of "cultural power"? Kidde: Yes, when I think about it, I find it crazy how long I've been here. It's actually atypical for the industry, but perhaps that's the beginning of my answer: It is atypical here – at least for the reputation that the industry and advertising agencies in general enjoy. I've always experienced flat hierarchies here, with access to everyone. No alpha males or females, no elbow-to-elbow mentality, no long night shifts, but still plenty of opportunities to implement ideas. Everyone gets the responsibility they want, as long as they act conscientiously.
I returned to M+C Saatchi in 2010, having already had my first junior job there. While my classmates were working hard at other agencies but producing little, I had already implemented four campaigns in my first year – one of them completely on my own as a junior without a creative director. This kind of responsibility fascinated me and had a profound impact. Power is not given, it's earned.
Cultural power is fascinating because everyone wants to work in a relevant and meaningful way. Creating something that generates real added value – not just monetary for brands, but also for their communities – simply feels good. This is a principle we have always followed, but now it has reached the next level. What I find most fascinating, however, is the consistency and speed with which our new Global CEO, Zahid Al-Qassab, recognized our strengths and translated them into a vision. Implementing a change of this magnitude so consistently and successfully in just eight months is remarkable. That is also a kind of creation. And it shows how strongly everyone believes in a cause, which ignites the can-do attitude within us.
Is there a campaign from your agency that you are particularly proud of? Kidde: Of course, I will always be associated with the Kinder Riegel campaign, which was my first major one as a junior and is still running successfully today. The cultural power that a chocolate bar can develop through communication has always impressed me. But even smaller projects make me proud, like the poster campaign for Lidl, which even the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on. We provoked the competition so much that a "non-hostile" exchange of blows developed that made a big media splash. Another example is an HR campaign for Lidl, in which we discovered the rap talent of a store manager and produced a music video with him that was even praised by music experts. I am now proud of many things that go beyond pure project creation: We have created a workplace where everyone feels comfortable and established a successful international collaboration with the M+C Saatchi Group Europe. We are winning clients that many of us dreamed of as children.
Roughly how many campaigns do you implement per year? Is there a certain proportion of large productions versus smaller projects? We used to have a game where we calculated how many campaigns we implemented each year per employee (all of them, not just creatives). This was particularly funny during our heyday with Ferrero, because we worked for 16 brands simultaneously and were therefore featured in almost every German advertising block. I think the highest value back then was 2.3 films per employee in one year. That must have been around 68 film projects back then. We don't do that anymore, but there are still a lot. Especially with Lidl, in addition to the large brand campaigns, we mainly implement many smaller and more agile projects. Lidl recognized the value of cultural power early on and implemented it with courage and a can-do attitude. The competition recognized this too, of course, and you have to become more and more inventive in order to continue to stand out and stay one step ahead.
For example, how strongly does a director's style influence your campaigns – and how much creative freedom do you allow? I would say: ideally a lot! Because every specialist in the creative process should improve the idea and the project with their talents and ideas. Of course, there are also projects where we have to conduct research before implementation, which means more predetermined decisions than with others, but otherwise, you have to remain open to every idea during the ongoing process.
An idea is a living object that grows through creative thought. We select directors and co-creators based on the style that best suits our idea. It would be insane not to let them do what made them what we chose them for. From the handover onwards, I see our mission as protecting the integrity of the idea itself and not controlling every single detail. And I think every creative person also enjoys being surprised by new perspectives instead of seeing what they already had in mind. You realize how good an idea is when it inspires others and gets them creative themselves.
What criteria play a role in the selection of directors, photographers, and production partners – and how open are you to new talent? Kidde: When it comes to directors, photographers, videographers, and creators, it's always what they've done before that catches our attention. And that's how we judge whether their style is in line with the direction we've envisioned for the project and the brand. The second step is personal conversations – not just about the project itself – are extremely important. I like people who have a clear vision and fight for it, but today you need collaborators who understand what else is needed beyond the main film and photography and is just as important. So personal instinct plays a big role – you just have to vibe if you haven't worked together before. The same applies to productions, which you select based on reliability, flexibility, and making things possible.
Sometimes you need a veteran for the job, but sometimes you need the fresh air and unseen style of a young talent who goes the extra mile because they see it as an opportunity and not just the next job. When we and Lidl recruited Lothar Matthäus for a Football Legends Edition of Kong Strong last year, we were working with a very young production company. I don't even remember if they were still studying at film school or had just graduated. But they had the chutzpah to find out the phone number of '4 Blocks' director Marvin Kren and simply call him. And it worked out in the end, and it turned out to be a really cool project that RTL even reported on on TV.
What current trends do you see in sports and lifestyle communication? I'm a bit afraid of trends because you can only chase them, or they're over by the time you've jumped on them. Like with stocks: by the time everyone's talking about it, it's too late to invest. But you can definitely sense directions. In sports, the focus is still on the experience, and fans should be as closely tied to the brand as possible by becoming part of it. Technological innovations are helping to find new ways of doing this. One example is "The Everyday Tactician" by my new Joint Global CCOs Rob Doubal and Laurence "Lolly" Thomson. In it, they got the best FIFA Manager player a job as a tactical coach at Bromley FC to honor the community's knowledge and address the problem of big clubs simply outspending smaller ones.
In lifestyle, I call it vibe marketing. Moving away from concrete products and toward emotions, community, authenticity, and identity. In lifestyle itself, nothing works anymore without creators and collaborations. I'm often delighted when a brand creates a wow factor entirely from within itself, rather than from a collaboration. There was a time when it felt like three awesome collaborations came out every day. I like a good collab, but to keep it special, they can't become commonplace.
What inspires you personally as a creative director, and what are you currently working on? Kidde: I'm particularly inspired by architecture and interior design. Just flicking through magazines or scrolling through my feed (which is full of surfaces and textures) often brings ideas for current briefs. Sometimes it's fashion, but that has to be very conceptual and clear. Another inspiration factor is my music library. I put it on shuffle until I hear songs that appeal to me emotionally. Whether it's a film, an event, or a stunt—everything has a soundtrack in my head. When I find an inspiring piece, I listen to it on repeat until the images in my mind become clearer and clearer. I try not to use the industry as a source of inspiration for fear of copying something that already exists. In my early years, my role model was Gerry Graf, but I've learned that my sense of humor and taste don't always suit German clients. I'm currently working on a secret project for an international brand—a childhood dream on steroids. We see products (only from memory) and have to position them strategically and emotionally. Since then, I've been listening to music nonstop and drawing inspiration from architecture and design.
More campaigns and projects from Kidde via https://mcsaatchi.com/europe
CREDITS
Director Peter Kaaden
Production Saltwater Films
FEATURING: Christian SchuckUPDATE SALONSHOWCASE by UPDATE
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