GoSee travelled to Hamburg and visited the art buying team of the internationally renowned Grabarz & Partner advertising agency, which is made up of Garnet Lange, who has been with the agency for eight years, Indra Hohns, who has been part of the team for four years and Anna Simdon with five years of experience at G&P.
But before we give everything away, let us introduce the agency here on GoSee: Grabarz & Partner are located in the heart of the city, just behind the town hall. The independent and owner-operated advertising agency is one of the most creative agencies in Germany and the world and employs over 200 staff that look after clients such as IKEA FAMILY, Targobank, DEVK, HR3, maxdome, mobilcom-debitel, Sennheiser, Volkswagen Pkw as well as the international lead agency Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.
After a warm welcome – as usual – and a very tasty latte, Garnet tells us that the agency is focusing on digitally integrated work: ‘classic campaigns made up of three print images are yesterday’s news. It’s important now to create content for all disciplines’. The latest example is the introduction of the Golf 7. A big project for which they developed images for the digital presence as well as an App and Visualizer, besides the classic campaign and catalogue motifs.
This was also the reason why Anna Simdon went to Los Angeles for two weeks last year – she was in charge of coordinating a shoot on location there. She returned to Hamburg with a lot of new experiences and impressions. Anna tells GoSee: ‘you always think once you’ve completed a massive job like this, nothing can really surprise you anymore. And then the next job comes along and it’s even bigger. The jobs are structured in a completely different way now than they were even a few years ago.’
Integrated campaigns are produced on a much larger scale – but unfortunately with the same timeframe as before. Which means new tasks such as moving images, have to be integrated into the usual schedule. Anna elaborates: ‘today we have to know and keep in mind what the requirements and ways of working for digital media are. Some days you have to learn a lot in very limited amount of time – but learning is of course the best bit and highly interesting.’
Indra adds: ‘of course integrated campaigns require a more tightly knit way of working within the agency itself. We can tell that this has changed by the physical proximity to our moving images sister department and technology pool, but also because we are included in the project developments at even earlier stages now. But even if the projects are becoming more and more digital and clients order less portfolios to choose a photographer, we are still very much looking forward to meeting photographers face to face everyday, looking at their portfolios and talking to them personally.’
Grabarz & Partner go against the current trend to select the photographers online and they still order portfolios in for different jobs. All three of them tell us: ‘for us this is still the best way to select a photographer.’ They also see it as their responsibility to support young photographers and help them get a foot in the door in their chosen field, which still works best in a direct exchange and by flicking through a physical portfolio. We are therefore always pleased to welcome the art buying team as loyal guests to our UPdate event every year (next UPdate: 25. October 2013). But don’t worry: GoSee is their media of choice and they read and explore online and seek inspiration, photography, film and artists in the new MOODBOARDS feature.
Garnet says: ‘working in art buying at Grabarz&Partner is great. We have a wide variety of clients, a flat hierarchy and lots of opportunities to get our voices heard. We are asked and challenged to change internal processes and contribute our own ideas to agency life. I think that is extraordinary and this is the reason I like the agency so much and have been a part of it for as long as I have.’
An example? The board of directors made the spontaneous decision last year to put on an exhibition in the newly renovated ground floor area. The first work they showed was by people photographer and GoSee member PAUL RIPKE. 500 guests came to the opening and admired his 12 pieces, among them were art buyers, editors and creatives mainly from Hamburg.
They also put on a portfolio viewing once or twice a year in the nice lounge-like ground floor area. At the end of last year the theme was ‘Mappenglühen’ (portfolio warm-up) and KOMBINATROTWEISS, ARTBOX NL, KFE and Stink came to Hamburg to make contact with agents and get inspired by beautiful portfolios in a relaxed atmosphere.
And we asked the three experts for a general piece of advice for the photography community. Their answer: ‘be braver and more daring. At the moment everything is a little too slick and commercial’. Hear, hear and this is coming from Germany. We second that!
