The Rembrandt Tutorials
ING
Issue 51 | June 2019
Agency
J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam
Creative Team
Creative partner Bas Korsten Founding Partner Ralph Wisbrun Creative Directors Maarten Vrouwes, Friso Ludenhoff Senior Art Director Tunchan Kalkan Copywriter Nils van der Assen Creatives Marius Gottlieb, Jasper Korpershoek Senior Creatives Saskia Meijer, Rene Verhagen
Production Team
Technology Producer Michiel van der Schalk TV Producer Michiel van der Schalk Digital Producer Reinier Slothouber Senior Producer Eline Paardekooper Producer Julie van Lanschot Designer Ronald Mica
Other Credits
PR Director Jessica Hartley Digital Strategy Director Wybe Sallows
Date
March 2019
Background
To commemorate the death of the great Dutch master Rembrandt, his voice was recreated so that, on the 350th anniversary of his passing, he could once again teach people how to paint.
Idea
Over six months, a team of experts studied Rembrandt’s technique as a painter, his personality, his use of language and even his voice.
A team of academics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA, studied all Rembrandt’s self-portraits. These allowed them to reconstruct his skull and deduce the size of his vocal chambers. AI helped define his speech patterns.
Meanwhile, the Dutch Language Institute examined the sort of unfussy and straightforward language Rembrandt used in his writing and translated six ‘how to’ tutorials into the language and manner of speech of the 17th century.
As a result, with The Rembrandt Tutorials, anyone could learn to paint like the Master himself. The series covered various topics, including sketching and portrait painting, techniques and materials, use of light and underpainting and colour composition.
Results
The Rembrandt Tutorials, now available at www.ing.nl/rembrandt, were launched at an event at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam which alone sparked PR across 180 national and international publications. Four million impressions were registered on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined while the YouTube tutorials have already amassed over a million views.
28% of the population of the Netherlands over the age of 18 were made aware of the campaign and 10% engaged with the tutorials.
Unprompted awareness of ING also rose to 28%
Our Thoughts
This is the same collaboration of client, agency and academia that brought us “The Next Rembrandt” in 2016, when the portrait of a 17th century Dutchman who never existed was recreated using data and technology.
This new development of the Rembrandt theme is equally provocative in its way. Where the first idea asked challenging questions about how bots can (or cannot) create art, this asks new questions about how technology may (or may not) redefine mortality.
Despite the agency’s travails elsewhere in the world, it is good to see JWT’s creative flame burning so brightly in Amsterdam.