With branch offices in Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Düsseldorf, Prague, New York and Zurich, thjnk is a place of not just clear but extremely creative thinking: what the agency group’s specialised companies "loved", "thjnk 24/7" and "thjnk Media" all have in common is the ambition to change markets and make brands irreplaceable. “A single thought has the power to change everything”, is what thjnk has been convinced of since it was founded in 2012.
In order to position Deutsche Bahn as an attractive employer, an interdisciplinary thjnk team developed, among other things, a special applicant portal: As many teenagers today refuse application photos, individual avatars can be created here. "Particularly exiting was the design and animation process of the individual 3D job avatars within the lens, which were intended to present the inner strenghts of the potential applicants in a striking and entertaining manner", the creative minds behind the portal explained.
Red Dot: For Deutsche Bahn, you developed an applicant portal that creates and uses digital avatars instead of portrait photos. Was this a request from the client?
thjnk: The client’s original brief was to develop an attention-grabbing campaign for the target group of teenagers, presenting Deutsche Bahn as a multifaceted training company that focuses exclusively on the individual skills and strengths of their applicants. The idea to bring these values to life through a playful and innovative update to the traditional application process arose later after an analysis of the real needs and concerns in the everyday lives of the target group.
Diversity is currently is one of the big corporate issue. To what extent can this be subtly reflected in communication?
Above all, diversity must actually be lived daily in the company before it can be credibly integrated into external communication. This has been the case at Deutsche Bahn for many years now. The next step is not just to shout out diversity as a big claim in loud messages, but to demonstrate an understanding of the issues that really matter to people out there and to make this understanding tangible in the way the messages are communicated.
Porsche was looking for points of contact with target groups that want to be addressed with new global-liberal values from the art and culture scene. They typically have a particularly keen sense of qualitative content, which is the only content they are willing to share.
Red Dot: What is the idea behind the project “The Art of Dreams”?
thjnk: With the new art and event series “The Art of Dreams”, which is strategically based on the brand purpose “Driven by Dreams”, Porsche seeks to establish itself as a partner of the new creative leaders, the driven youth and driven females.
What was your solution for this?
Together with the "loved" Production-Unit "moved", the strategic creative consultancy "gravity" and creative director Ralf Geutner (PEAK) developed a narrative for the artist, a website, a moving-image concept, a social media strategy and the event as such. For the porsche.art/Paris website, a four-minute documentary was created that traces the life, dream and project of artist Cyril Lancelin. The installation “Remember your Dreams” opened in Paris in autumn 2021. Like the installation and the entire exhibition week, the grand opening was accompanied by the "moved" camera team and edited in numerous reels and stories for Instagram. The film’s specially produced soundtrack was released digitally worldwide and a dedicated Spotify channel was set up with the opening party playlist and a curated playlist matching the location/installation.
With “IKEA – Unbelievable”, thjnk managed to create an entertaining short film that gives an insight into how the agency approaches new challenges: whether consulting, strategy or creation, everyone here is creative and gets involved in the project from the idea-generation stage. This time, the finishing touches were applied in close cooperation with the film production company Zauberberg and director Frieder Wittich.
Red Dot: Your film for IKEA takes a humorous approach to focus on sustainable production. How important is it to convey such a serious issue tongue-in-cheek?
thjnk: When you’re talking about what everyone else is also talking about, you have to tell it in a way that is a bit more entertaining. Otherwise, you will get completely drowned in the run-of-the-mill drivel of the usual sustainability communication.
Sustainability as a corporate value – has this by now taken root in the industry?
Absolutely, and that’s why we established “thjnk green”, where we only work with companies and products that strive to be sustainable. The knack is to talk about the issue in such a manner that it is not just hackneyed alibi babble, but remains credible, graspable and honest.
What’s the role that moving images play in corporate communications today?
Regardless of the medium, it's all about entertainment in the content competition. The idea that a 15-inch cutdown will be shared on social media in exactly the same way is one of the misconceptions. It is simply still about a precise address that is geared towards the channel, occasion and target group.
