Pool Worldwide Online Agency

Like a thief in the night, Pool Worldwide’s mischievous genius for pulling in online audiences has stolen the lead on their viral rivals. Stephen Whelan takes the plunge

Hesling Reidinga and Erwin Kleinjan. Mischief makers, rabble rousers, digital deviants. Call them what you will but before you call them anything you better make sure you’ve got them on your radar.

Pool Worldwide, the online agency the pair founded back in 2006, has gone from David to Goliath in just three short years, cornering the market for rapid-response stealth campaigns that tap the digital zeitgeist and rack up the page views in the process.

To date they’ve courted controversy with projects for Heineken (where they launched a fake electro girl-band that managed to infiltrate MTV’s airwaves), stirred up the comment boards with a slew of are-they-aren’t-they commercial virals for Bavaria beer, and channelled their community spirit into an online hook-up service called Nobelematch, that pairs charities with young creatives.

As Reidinga makes clear, Pool isn’t your average digital hot shop. “We’re not really the type that scours the industry media to see what other people are doing,” he explains. “We’re more interested in what real people are doing online. To us they’re our main competitors.”

The Pool creative philosophy lies somewhere between piracy and hijacking. With scant regard for rules and process, Reidinga and Kleinjan have developed a business model based on a firm belief in the power of online video with its loyal and media-literate audience. And before you go getting ideas, that doesn’t necessarily mean big fancy Flash-based behemoths.

“The beauty of web video is that it spreads quickly,” muses Kleinjan. “We don’t like to spend weeks developing whole web environments where people can experience your products as we don’t believe there’s a crowd spending time in those places.” Instead, Pool’s projects seek to appeal to those looking to avert their eyes from the come-hither gaze of advertising.

“To be honest, a lot of the stuff we do is pretty ugly looking,” admits Reidinga, “but it’s a look that the web generation are used to and accept. We’re not about high-end video production because that takes too long and means you can’t respond quickly enough to the trends and discussion topics that flare up online.”

While the pair admit to a preference for projects that allow them to bend and reshape the rules of digital communications, they’re equally comfortable working on more, dare we say it, traditional jobs. “Ultimately, advertising is about solving puzzles,” suggests Kleinjan. “The status quo now is that there is no status quo, and that’s the truth no matter who the client is and regardless of what the product is.”

Reidinga agrees wholeheartedly and believes that reports of the death of TV have been greatly exaggerated. “Television still has a place in the living room, it’s just that you’re going to be using it in a completely different way five years from now. Figuring out what that’s going to be and how it fits in with what’s happening on the web is what really keeps us excited.”