In this exclusive interview with the father of Creative Alchemy, Kentaro Kimura talks about innovations, his shift in career and his famous analogy on City and Forest thinking.
You started out as a planner, what made you shift into being a creative?
KENTARO KIMURA: It’s very simple. The position limited me into doing other things. I always come up with the better idea in digital, PR or creative TVCs but I can’t tackle on the creative side because I’m limited into the responsibilities of being a planner. I’m only a planner yet I always end up doing everything. That’s why I train people in Kettle. All 30 people in Kettle don’t have a job title. There’s no copywriter, no art director, no nothing. For me everyone should be able to do everything. Every beginning of the year, I interview them and assess what projects they’ve done. I then analyze and assign them tasks they’ve never done before, because otherwise they will tend to stick to a task where they’re comfortable and familiar. I avoid having people stick to their comfort zone.
What’s the age range of these thirty people?
They are in their thirties. They’re a little bit old because we don’t hire freshmen. Kettle is a place for career expansion. We have people in their 20s but they’re very few.
You’ve mentioned two kinds of thinking, the City and Forest thinking, can you elaborate on that?
City thinking is conscious thinking while the Forest is subconscious. City involves logic and structure while Forest kind is full of wild imaginations and risk. Going to the forest will bring brilliant ideas, however, if you’re looking to pursue a client brief, these wild and adventurous ideas will need to take the back seat to inject a dose of reality.
This year at Cannes, there’s a focus on innovation. Can you give us your thoughts about that?
Innovation is humanizing the data and its function. Make things more human centered rather than tech centered. The keyword is humanization by bringing life to the function. There’s a lot of opportunity for to us to humanize. We humanize technology not only because we want to make things convenient, but also because integration of life and emotion is important. Humanization of data and technology is going to take us in the next few years.
The kind of work you do reflects the kind of power the advertising industry has. How do you encourage people to create more projects which actually make a difference.
They have to realize that there are a lots of areas, which need humanization. It doesn’t matter if it’s through new media or technology. The key message here is that there are a lot of opportunities for us.
Excerpts from “Kettle’s Boiling”, featured in adobo Magazine’s September-October 2015 issue. Kentaro Kimura will be a featured speaker in Manila on November 13, 2015, at the adobo Main Course. For ticket inquiries, call 8450217 and look for Ms. Joche Guerrero.
Read more about Kentaro Kimura’s reflections on the industry in the latest issue of adobo magazine, available in leading bookstores, subscription, or the Buqo app.
