As part of our Favorite Brand Experience series, we’re pleased to bring you an interview with Burak Özyörük (nicknamed: il presidente) from OMD Digital in Turkey. 

Your idea about the perfect working day:   A perfect day always starts with a shower, if I don’t need to rush to the office, because I overslept as usual. If it is not raining or too cold, riding to the office by my motorcycle boosts my feeling of freedom.  At the office I’m usually busy with several  projects. If I can fulfill every one of them on time, that gives me a big sense of satisfaction at the end of the day. Plus if there is a good comment from some colleague or an appreciation from a client that completes my perfect work day.

Favorite Brand Experience:  My favorite ad on Eyeblaster was the new Renault Hatchback takeover ad. It was a fun process to create it. The concept of our client was ‘It’s time to change’. That road on the creative was symbolizing the lifetime, through which a person made certain decisions. Here the change in Renault reminds people how they gave up their decisions in time and how they change. ‘Remember when you said you’d never get a mobile’, ‘Remember when you said you’d never get a computer’, ‘Remember when you swore you’d never love anyone else’…  These sayings were used for the campaign to emphasize the concept.

That is why we decided to move the car through the road as a light ball and, at the end of the road, the new Renault Hatchback appears completely in its new look with a bright blast.

The reactions to this ad were so positive. People who saw the ad immediately said it was a beautiful piece of work. And as soon as it was published we started receiving compliments - even from other competing media and creative agencies - publishers and the clients.  Besides all these the returns of the ad in numbers were very successful. That showed us that not only experts but many other internet users liked the ad. This ad received the half of the click amount of the whole campaign which was 90.000 clicks in total.

Your muse best comes when:   It is always the best time to start a new creative if there is nothing else to deal with. I start to revise the campaign brief, visuals of the product and focus on what needed to be highlighted on the advertisement. My muse usually comes unconsciously, when I’m freely revising these documents and creating some tests for emerging ideas. On the other hand, the actual the quality of the creative comes from the brand or the products itself. If the concept is fun or something I’m already interested in, that makes me more enthusiastic to be more creative.

How did you start working in digital advertising/what was your ‘big break’?  Since I was a young boy, I was always interested in creating flash animations, web sites and the internet. Although I studied International Relations, I was always helping my friends with online projects at the Visual Communications department.   When I moved to Istanbul to settle down, a friend from that department asked me if I wanted to work with him. So I started working with him on digital marketing and he also instructed me a lot on the subject. Later I started working in the digital departments of media agencies, and now I’m here at OMD Digital.