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Legendary Advertising "Mad Man" Allen Kay Connects with London Creative Shop Ekstasy
Kay, who conceived the Brother Dominic "It's A Miracle" advert for Xerox, named one of ESPN's 10 All-Time Best Super Bowl spots, will help mentor Ekstasy's team of advertising creatives and film makers as the firm builds its presence in the UK and Europe and eyes expansion into the US.
Led by Mike Saraswat , Ekstasy is developing a reputation for fearless advertising, which challenges preconceptions about brands and marries creativity with effectiveness. Among the clients which have benefited from its approach are fintech challengers Starling Bank, Sumup and Klarna, as well as more established businesses including Samsung, SES Satellites and Amazon.
Saraswat first approached Kay to help inspire his team with a series of three training sessions this summer focusing on his concept of "Advertainment," Kay's belief that ads should be informative and entertaining, otherwise no one will stick around long enough to get the information. This was demonstrated through three unexpected, out-of-category classic adverts Kay developed - Virgin Atlantic Airways ("Take Us For All We've Got"), Tri-State Honda , ("The Car That Sells Itself") and Wilmington Trust ("Recognizing Worth") as well as uber-category campaigns such as Comedy Central cable network ("What the hell is going on here?")
This led to Saraswat and Kay agreeing that he should take a role as creative chair, mentoring the team and acting as a sounding board for Ekstasy's high-profile, unconventional ideas being developed for clients, as well as helping build the reputation of Ekstasy in the US.
Allen Kay said: "Ekstasy is a great agency with an entrepreneurial spirit and exceptionally bright, gutsy people eager to write a new chapter in the history of advertising. It's my kind of place."
Mike Saraswat added: "Allen shows us that striving for the impossible makes the difficult easy. He is helping us raise our sights and deliver the sort of fearless advertising that we believe clients need."
jason@nisse.uk
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