VICTOR KNAAP
Victor Knaap is CEO and ‘Main Monk’ at MediaMonks. The digital production agency was behind several Cannes Lions-winning projects this year and involved "Sweetie" - an ingenious campaign to identify webcam child-sex tourists which won a monumental fourteen Lions including the Grand Prix for Good.
Victor Knaap, CEO, MediaMonks
How you got into advertising in a sentence...
A chance encounter: I bumped into Wesley (MediaMonks' co-founder and former classmate) at Amsterdam Central Station, having not seen each other for years. I was on my way back from a rather ambitious open-sea sailing expedition and looking for a challenge that could keep my feet dry.
The most recent campaign I’ve worked on...
The “Universal Typeface” Experiment with BIC and Tribal DDB Düsseldorf. A really nice piece of interactive work that crowdsources and combines handwriting contributions from all over the planet, in order to produce a universal average in the form of a font.
The best creative piece we’ve worked on is...
Terre des Hommes “Sweetie” by Lemz. I'm sure everyone is familiar with the work after its incredible win at Cannes this year – including a Grand Prix and 13 Gold. If not, the campaign used a 3D webcam avatar of a child to bait predators into incriminating themselves online, identifying 1,000+ offenders in the process.
We're proud to have contributed to the execution of the concept (amongst many other great companies that made this happen) and are glad that the Dutch agency Lemz has received the recognition they deserve for this one-of-a-kind campaign.
The next big thing in advertising is going to be...
High-end film integrated into digital campaigns. We're already seeing (and crafting) a lot of productions that incorporate film such as this. It isn't long before it will become an integral element of every interactive campaign, due to its capacity for bridging TV and other traditional advertising with digital.
The digital tool I couldn’t live without is...
My smartphone. I literally have no idea how I got all of my work done before they became ubiquitous. Not to mention we’re now getting to build some really cool stuff for mobile.
In a film about my life, I’d like to be played by...
After seeing the dotcom documentaries Startup.com and Magicminds (A Dutch internet company from 1999), I promised myself I’d never make a film about MediaMonks, nor myself. It seems a guarantee for epic failure.
A word or phrase I overuse ...
You’re welcome to take a seat in my office on a busy Monday morning and find out.
My last social media update said...
'Victor Knaap has joined Facebook'. Wesley does the socialising at MediaMonks. I usually stick to LinkedIn for communication and business.
My dream collaboration is...
I am a pretty realistic dreamer, so no world leaders or celebrities (although we did just do a shoot with Lionel Messi). But collaboration in general is something we think is really important: we're at our best translating an ad agency's big idea into a digital experience.
With this model we've already worked alongside some of the hottest agencies in the business. However, we’re about to open an office in LA so a few more from the West Coast certainly wouldn't hurt.
A piece of criticism I’ve received was...
Criticism?
9 July 2014
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