Geoffrey Hantson - 'In a digital world if you're not brave, you don't exist'

Hantson, the Executive Creative Director of Duval Guillaume Modem in Belgium, has been voted one of the 25 most creative people in advertising. He predicts that the Industry is going to become braver in years to come...adding that "in a digital world if you're not brave you don't exist".

In this regard they go for broke, with the staging of radical productions for clients such as Carlsberg - who in his opinion made the wrong move in ditching probably one of the world's best payoff lines - "Probably the world's best lager", in favour of the lame "That calls for a Carlsberg".

'You can never be safe about a fantastic idea'

In the case study that calls for a Carlsberg now, is the test of standing up for a friend. A Chinese gangster narrates the scene of a guy calling friends from a poker game the middle of the night asking them to bring US$300 to the third floor of a given address - or else. After five calls, nobody comes. The guy starts to get nervous, the client starts to sweat. The whole thing is an elaborate, unscripted reality prank. What if they're set the whole thing up for nothing? You can see why virality is a high-risk game, you can't predict the outcome.

Eventually, an unsuspecting friend and girlfriend arrive into the very dodgy setup, passing a whole lot of undesirable people and scenarios along their way to make their way up to the third floor, where curtains are dropped and a trendy Carlsberg bar is revealed to much cheering (and no doubt relief) by all parties.

'It takes bravery to provoke conversation'

This is the lengths to which creative agencies are currently going in order to earn valuable social currency and millions of YouTube views.

Other examples include the Button in a Square, doing drama for real - a man falling out of an ambulance, scantily clad girl on motorbike, squadron of quarterbacks etc play their part in the public drama that unfolds to illustrate the US TV channel TNT's promise: We know drama - and how to garner 8 Golds at Cannes, 5 Grand Prix and 50 million views!

According to Hantson, the necessity for excellence on new channels as opposed to TV, is that on YouTube "there are a billion things more interesting than your ad."

Bravery to stand up for social causes

Social power is not just a nice to have in a changed world, it has the ability to draw attention to pressing social causes. Stand out examples include http://www.stopthetraffik.org/, an amazing live staging in Amsterdam's red light district and the incredible Mindtunes for Smirnoff, who have aligned their brand for good behind three disabled musicians who use their brainwaves to create music in a collaboration with a DJ and technology.

Turning braveness into music

Although Hantson cautions that as a rule viral videos should not be more than 2 minutes long, the Smirnoff Mindtunes video runs for 11 minutes and has been viewed approximately 5 million times. The tune itself has been a Top 20 iTunes download with proceeds going to the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People.

"The world has changed, marketers need to build a brand on the content side otherwise they don't reach enough people, people will not talk about you if you are not brave!"