Home match at our place on Leidseplein: here's what I took away from it.

Last Thursday we had a great crowd over at our office on the Leidse. Together with ADCN we organised an event where I, along with Stefan Agus, Creative Director of the KNVB, gave a behind-the-scenes look at how we've contributed to the development of the Oranje brand over the past years: "The Making of a National Football Brand". Of course it was special to show where the Oranje brand comes from, how the strategy was shaped and how campaigns come about. But my biggest reflection isn't about the content of that presentation.

It's about the importance of moments like this themselves. One look at the audience was enough to know who we were sitting across from: young makers, producers and marketeers, the generation that will soon be shaping the brands of the future themselves. What stayed with me most was the dynamic in the room. Not a distant audience just listening, but creatives who asked follow-up questions immediately. Not only curious about the how and what, but especially about the why.

That reminded me again that inspiration is never one-way traffic. You can share knowledge and experience, but just as much comes back. The questions, the reactions and the conversations afterwards give new energy and show what really matters in building brands. It means you go home with insights you couldn't have planned in advance. And that's exactly where the value of events like this sits. In our field, everything often revolves around speed and output. Deadlines, campaigns, on to the next sprint. But without moments of reflection and encounter, stories stay behind closed doors. By sharing them, you become part of a bigger creative culture.

You're not just building brands, but also a community where creatives inspire and help each other forward. Back to where it all started:

ODB once started as a music and lifestyle blog and quickly grew into organising events. It's in our DNA to turn important moments into events and meet each other as a real community. It's precisely those experiences, especially now, that make the difference: learning together, finding inspiration and helping each other move forward.

Creating a world where brands inspire is genuinely our mission. By staying in close contact with the audience through an event strategy, we learn and meet each other in a way that goes beyond campaigns or content. For us they're not just an audience, but the source of inspiration: their energy, questions and perspective feed our work and keep us moving as an agency.

Yonah van Andel, Managing Director ODB

That's why Thursday felt like more than a stage to show our work. It was a reminder of why we do this job: to build brands that mean something, and to keep the conversation about it alive, with the generation that will soon decide the future of brands.

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