Germany: Thjnk

Wary of joining the ad industry’s jittery pursuit of the Next Big Thing, Gerrit Zinke, managing partner (creation) of thjnk Hamburg, successfully balances old-school tenets with new ways of working. Alexander Barlow finds him fuelling up his shop’s creative engines and reaching for emotional, stratosphere-busting highs

We really didn’t want to go there – that hoary old cliché about the German sense-of-humour deficit. But Gerrit Zinke, managing partner of the Hamburg operation of German ad agency thjnk, had the good humour, ironically, to bring it up himself. “You know, sometimes, when I look at the UK’s output, I’m frankly a bit jealous,” he says. “The agencies there often seem driven by a certain kind of humour. There’s guts there, definitely.”

In Germany, by contrast, it’s all a bit more rational. “Strategy plays an important role in defining the basis of every campaign, but when it comes to a creative approach, we should avoid being too precise; there’s room for more humour,” he says. That’s not to say the German adscape is any less evolved, business-wise. “But, creatively, I think there’s space for us to be a bit more… playful.” Yet increasingly, big, witty engagement campaigns are becoming more common. “If you look at the big international awards,” says Zinke. “More and more, Germany is up there.”

Shooting for the moon

Ah yes, awards. For the past decade, ever since Gerrit joined thjnk (formerly known as kempertrautmann) from Springer & Jacoby, where he worked on Mercedes-Benz, there have been awards. Lots of them. Around 400 in fact. This year they came care of the laudably big-balled Mission to the Moon campaign for thjnk’s anchor-client of 10 years, Audi.

The idea: put together a crew of scientists and enter the German carmaker into the US$30 million Google Lunar XPrize competition. To win, entrants need to send a rover to the moon and get it to drive around, then send high-res images back to earth. Take-off is imminent.

“It was the night before the pitch and someone just said, ‘We need to find the ultimate proof of Quattro [Audi’s all-wheel-drive tech]. Why don’t we send it to the moon?’” explains Zinke. Audi went for it and the campaign won two gongs at the ADC Germany awards show and a bronze Lion at Cannes 2016. Why did it work so well? “Space travel, the universe, survival, the unknown – they’re all very emotional themes for a lot of people, I think,” replies Zinke. “And, ultimately, the content fit the client: it just felt so plausible that a brand like Audi would take on this mission.”

The real prize for Zinke is having maintained a relationship with Audi for over 10 years. “That’s given us an incredible opportunity to build and cultivate the brand. Over the years we’ve given them a really strong tonality and character,” he says. So how do you keep a client like Audi on side for so long? Well, it helps if you’re really into cars (which Zinke solemnly promises he is), but passions aside, structurally, you need to evolve.

With the move to complex, discipline-agnostic, multi-everything campaigns, the classic art director-copywriter structure at thjnk, as elsewhere, is pretty much redundant. “Now, when I get a brief, I take a blank sheet of paper and make a list of names,” Zinke says. “It’s all about combining the right talent for a specific project – now, nothing is static. It’s challenging, sure. But it works.”

thjnk could be one of the few agencies that proudly mixes church and state: account managers are given creative say-so. Zinke makes sure of it. “When you’re in a project for so long, you need new perspectives. When I present to [the account team] I can immediately feel if they’re convinced. It hurts sometimes, their feedback. But it’s right to bring them into the creative process. I think that this is a big part of our long relationship with Audi – they see that, as a team, we are really, truly, united.”

Strategy plays an important role in defining the basis of every campaign, but when it comes to a creative approach, there’s room for more humour.”

Never fear the shock of the new

Upending agency anachronisms, redefining roles and breaking down structural silos is very much the core of the thjnk strategy going forward, taking clients like RWE, IKEA, Commerzbank and ThyssenKrupp with them.

Even so, Zinke is cautious not to get too caught up in the ongoing obsession with advertising’s Next Big Thing. “The industry feels a bit nervous at the moment. I mean, definitely, we have these new possibilities, this new media.

But let’s not be scared of [them]. It shouldn’t always be, ‘Oh, this is now the future.’ Or, ‘This will disrupt that. This is dead.’ Let’s take it back a bit. For me, the centre of the discussion should always be the idea, not the medium. The campaigns winning awards are still the ones that touch people, that have emotional reach.”

Balancing old-school ad nous with new-school tech won’t be easy, concedes Zinke. But it’s that challenge that inspires him to stay in advertising. Next, he’s off to the Andes, driving into the mountains for an Audi shoot. He’s never been happier to be in the driving seat of such a progressive brand – literally, and figuratively.

“Honestly, the whole business has changed so much that, even after 15 years I feel like I’m just beginning,” he says. “There’s so much to learn. Every day feels like day one.”