Title	THE NEXT REMBRANDT
Brand	ING
Product/Service	FINANCIAL SERVICES
Category	A06. Financial Products & Services, Commercial Public Services, Business Products & Services
Entrant	J. WALTER THOMPSON AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation	J. WALTER THOMPSON AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Production	NEW AMSTERDAM FILM COMPANY, THE NETHERLANDS
Production 2	KREUKVRIJ Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Additional Company	MICROSOFT Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Additional Company 2	SUPERHERO CHEESECAKE Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS

Name	Company	Position
Bas Korsten	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Executive Creative Director
Robert Nelk	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Creative Art
Mark Peeters	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Creative Copy
Guney Soykan	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Sr. Creative Art
Kasia Haupt Canning	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Sr. Creative Copy
Emanuel Flores	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Tech Lead
Morris Franken	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Developer
Ben Haanstra	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Developer
Vinesh Gayadin	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Design Director
Jesse Houweling	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Digital Director
Agustin Soriano	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Strategy Director
Tim Arnold	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Editor
Robert Harrison	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Photographer
Jessica Hartley	Jessica Hartley	PR Director
Elisah Boektje	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Brand Manager
Frederique van der Hoeven	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Screen Producer
Mariska Fransen	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Screen Producer
Chariva Geurts	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Print Producer
Andre Ferwerda	Andre Ferwerda	3D Artist
Olaf Gremie	Kreukvrij	Animation
Juliette Stevens	New Amsterdam Film Company	Director
Sander Verdonk	New Amsterdam Film Company	Film Producer
David Navarro	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Creative Director
Jeroen van der Most	Jeroen van der Most	Special Advisor
Ferran Lopez	J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam	Special Advisor
Superhero Cheesecake	Superhero Cheesecake	Website Production

The Campaign

At 10.00 CET on 5 April 2016, a portrait of a man in black 17th-century clothing with a white collar and a hat was unveiled at a packed press conference in Amsterdam. The painting initially appeared to be an artwork by one of the old masters, but was instead announced as The Next Rembrandt: a 3D printed painting, made solely from data of Rembrandt’s work. The painting consists of over 148 million pixels and was created using deep learning algorithms and facial recognition techniques, based on a data lake of 168,263 painting fragments from Rembrandt’s oeuvre of 346 portraits. Thus bringing the Master of Light and Shadow back to life. Only this time, data is the painter, and technology the brush. Blurring the boundaries between art and technology, this artwork is a controversial conversation-starter about the relationship between man and machine.

Execution

The Next Rembrandt was unveiled in front of a packed auditorium of press and experts, who had received an ambiguous invitation one week beforehand.Once the painting was revealed, there was a live Q&A followed by TV, radio and newspaper interviews.At the moment of unveiling a press kit was sent to an exhaustive list of global media across all categories. Two aspects of the approach were particularly effective: 1.Only one exclusive was given:The Guardian broke the story just as the painting was unveiled.This strategy paid off,as the high traffic to the Guardian and the nature of the piece ensured intense press interest from all corners of the world. 2.Embracing controversy:The responses to The Next Rembrandt were, and still are, diametrically opposed.This clash of opinion fueled the momentum around the campaign.It easily became the number #1 trending topic on Twitter at launch. No media budget was spent to get the conversation.

- Earned media value: 12.5 million euro. - The Next Rembrandt was global trending topic on Twitter, reporting almost 10 million Twitter impressions on the launch day and finally 25 million impressions - Over 1400 articles (and counting) have been written. - All major news networks covered the unveiling, not just as news, but also deeper analysis and comment on how it will affect future innovations. - Globally over 1.8 billion media impressions. In the Netherlands: •234 news items •covering all national and regional newspaper •covering all Dutch TV news reports •the late night show of that day •>60% reach of general public (calculated by media agency) Next to the on-going global conversation about what this means for our industry and the future of creativity, there was another fundamental result: the technology developed for The Next Rembrandt is now used for the restoration of damaged and partially lost masterpieces.

The Situation

The Next Rembrandt is a purely PR driven campaign. No media budget was spent in driving the conversation. There were two objectives: firstly to spark a global discourse on where innovation will take us next; secondly to put client ING in the middle of this conversation. The intense media interest - and social conversation around - The Next Rembrandt is still on-going, but already over 12.5 million EUROs worth of PR has been generated, with 1.8 billion media impressions, helping to build ING’s reputation as one of the world’s most innovative banks.

The Strategy

A tension was needed to fuel a global debate. Divided and divisive opinions were encouraged between two different camps of influencers for the campaign: the pro-technology media and the traditional art world. This was achieved through on the one hand generating positive headlines in national and international press, such as ‘A computer has made a Rembrandt and it’s perfect’ (The Next Web), ‘Is this the ultimate Rembrandt portrait?’ (The Daily Telegraph); and on the other hand activating super-influencers, such as Jonathan Jones, art critic at The Guardian and Ernst van de Wetering, the world’s foremost Rembrandt academic, who described the project as “prostituting Rembrandt”. The strategy of embracing critique as vehemently as praise, fueled the debate and was one of the key factors that ensured the campaign gained a lot of public attention and went viral.