A few years ago, Belgian ad designer Jan Van Mol worked on a marketing campaign for an Asian carmaker, but the relationship hit a pothole before it even left the curb. The problem? The seats were too small for the average Dutch motorist. Van Mol told his client that “they had to change the product if they wanted to sell the car,” he says. “They responded with ‘You’re just the ad agency—you’re not entitled to an opinion.’”

Almost a decade later, Van Mol finally has his comeback: Ad!dict Creative Lab, a groundbreaking fusion of conceptual art and social networkers. Imagine Friendster for 4,000-strong photographers, graphic designers, and other creative types, sharing portfolios and design ideas instead of party favors and Hot or Not lists—a worldwide ad-hoc think tank for creative branding.

“Ad!dict Lab accelerates talent,” says Van Mol, 38. “The best design is integrated from the beginning—with art, process design, and advertising and marketing. When brands come to us to launch something new, we can dive into a big pool of people from different disciplines to really unify a product and make it different.”

Ad!dict Lab members are free to interact and collaborate with each other through the network on their own, but occasionally Van Mol invites specific members to work on customer-sponsored projects. When Diesel wanted to create an Indian-inspired line of clothing, Van Mol teamed Indian Lab members with company designers for ultra-authenticity. New clients such as Coca-Cola and Lancôme have forged a further merger of branding and high art. “A bioengineer teamed with some of our designers to create optics made out of pasta,” says Van Mol. “Technically you can boil and eat [these lights].”

Van Mol certainly drinks the Kool-Aid. One day, he believes, community R&D will be the norm in the corporate world. “Any process that needs integration will soon function this way—what you eat, chemical manufacturing, even politicians,” he says. “Creative people and industry will come together.”

“Can you imagine something as important as branding a city?” he enthuses. “It’s a lifetime’s work. But that’s what we do—we make the possibility of the Internet tangible.”—Ted Alvarez

addictlab.com

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