What's the best way to kill a cute little pug named Bobík? That's the question Prague-based agency Kaspen put to various directors in a recent campaign for Centrum, the Czech Republic's second-largest Internet portal. It's hard to imagine Yahoo! or AOL rallying behind such a macabre brief, much less the 30 to 40 darkly comical, web-only endings that saw the witless doggie grabbed by a zombie, run over by a speeding train or wrapped in seaweed, dipped in soy and eaten with a giant pair of chopsticks.

But the Czech public apparently loves to watch Bobík die. He'd previously met an untimely end in an earlier campaign, so the agency brought him back by popular demand with an added caveat: viewers had to log on to Centrum's website to witness his demise.

"The TV spot teases this idea, building up a story of our dog, the anti-hero. The second he is about to meet his maker, it abruptly cuts, telling the viewer, 'If you love happy, furry animals, you don't want to see what we do to them'," explains Lester Tullet, a creative director at Kaspen. "The thought was there was so much cool stuff on Centrum, it would be far too lively for some boring, happy, fluffy dog-loving squares."

Over three months, 30 alternate endings were added to the site, directed by professional and amateur directors, visual artists, Flash artists and 3D animators. As new spots were posted, the campaign took on a life of its own. Directors would call and say they could do better, so the agency staged a competition and let the public vote for the best ones.

Web campaigns are still in a nascent stage in the Czech Republic, simply because Internet usage is low. The Czech government's Statistical Office reports that, as of 2005, only 32% of the country's 10.2 million citizens were online - up from 28% in 2003. By far the biggest slice of the media pie is television.

Since the country came into being in 1993, the Czech TV ad industry has developed quickly, mirroring the rise of privately-owned media in the 1990s. With only two private channels and two government-run channels, ad rates are high enough to squeeze out mid-size clients.

But that's about to change. The UN reports 60 out of every 100 Czech households have a TV, and viewership is expected to grow rapidly when the National Council for Radio and Television Broadcasting starts granting licenses for digital channels. More small- to mid-sized Czech clients will likely start producing TV campaigns with interactive components, so to get noticed, agencies and directors realize they have to be proactive to get edgy and interesting creative on the country's conservative airways.

"Obviously if you want to do something new or different, sometimes you have to take the lead," says Tullet, a New Zealand-native who's worked in Prague for nine years. "But there's really no set pattern here. It's very hard to explain; in a developing market you will find good people, but you can't predict where you'll find them."

Tullet's latest discovery is Wolfberg, a directing collective with Stillking Films made up of core members Jan Kalvoda and Premek Ponahly. After seeing the duo's eight contributions to Kaspen's Centrum campaign (including the main spot), he started writing ideas catering to their style and is hoping an upcoming job for the local subsidiary of a major rum supplier will show other Czech clients that cross-platform campaigns and artistically-minded advertising can succeed commercially.

"[Creatives] will say they're looking for new ideas, but they wait for stuff to filter in from foreign markets," says Kalvoda, himself an ex-creative. "The basic idea behind Wolfberg is to mix live action with evident post-production and all kinds of unusual techniques. We are here mainly for clients that are looking for an original look or approach - we're not trying to create a style or anything. What's considered a good ad in this country is a funny ad. We're not really funny people so we don't want to do just funny ads."

Since forming earlier this year, Wolfberg has made a short for a short film festival in Los Angeles, but what's most encouraging, according to Kalvoda, are the boards coming in from abroad. He's hoping his forward-thinking strategy will attract clients contemplating the jump to web films and make Wolfberg more competitive in a market where foreign directors frequently win out over homegrown talent for jobs.

"There are animation communities but agencies haven't really experimented," says Pavla Burgetova, Stillking's general manager in Prague. "We decided to see if we could influence spots in the Czech Republic by trying to sell this creative attitude - it was a slightly hard sell."

In a small, developing market like the Czech Republic, local offices of major agency networks rely on the kind of big local clients who can afford pricey media buys but can't afford to take chances in order to make those smaller, edgier jobs financially viable. This situation also results in a lot of decent, successful work that isn't particularly new or original, says Jan Binar, CEO of McCann Erickson's Prague office.

"As an ad agency, if you do everything right, you will end up growing," he says. "So unlike the more stable markets where the advertising really has to be exceptional to deliver results, you can get away with work that is good but doesn't have to be outstanding."

One client Binar cites as a more traditional creative success story is the Czech-made herb-and-squash-based soft drink Kofola (invented during Communist times). Four years ago, the company launched a new campaign full of nostalgic jokes rooted in Czech culture and has since become a serious player alongside Coke and Pepsi. "The creative is extremely local and so it is never going to win internationally," he says. "But locally, it is the most loved campaign."

Binar says McCann's best creative work last year came from his smaller clients, including an online game for the Lidice Memorial, a museum built in a village 20km west of Prague. In 1942, the Nazis killed 340 of Lidice's inhabitants in what is considered one of the Second World War's worst Nazi-perpetrated massacres. Despite the atrocity's notoriety, the state-run museum wanted to boost awareness and visitors, especially among young Czechs, and turned to McCann. The agency created Total Burn-Out, an online game in which players take on the role of Nazis and hunt down villagers. The game, intended to shock apathetic teens into exploring their history, attracted around 12,000 visitors and won an Epica award.

Total Burn-Out also attracted the ire of horrified Lidice survivors and their families. The agency apologized and yanked the game, sparking a debate in Prague around whether government-run institutions should get on board with risk-taking creative.

"It was extremely effective," says Binar, who adds he's since received a lot of calls from small clients with no marketing budgets interested in the interactive route. "Clients are extremely interested in interactive. A lot of the campaigns we do have interactive components but it is still only around 2% of the advertising budget."

PRAGUE'S BIG PLAYERS
For production companies, the consolidation of major mobile phone carriers has given local directors a chance to bid on boards coming out of London. In 2005, Vodafone scooped up Czech mobile carrier Oskar along with Romania's Connex in a deal purportedly worth 2.3 billion euros. The same year, O2 took over Spain's Telefonica, giving it a toe-hold in the Czech and German markets. The country's leading mobile operator is global giant T-Mobile.

"It's a good thing," says Burgetova. "It helps raise quality." Her company recently shot a slick, CGI-heavy job for O2's broadband service, which featured futuristic cars speeding through a crystalline desert.

For agencies, foreign takeovers of their biggest, most important clients has meant more adaptation work, says Philip Wilson, a US-native and former ECD at McCann Erickson, Prague, in charge of the Oskar account. At the time, McCann was the third-largest agency in Prague, but shrank when Oskar went to Kaspen.

"In most Eastern European countries, the single biggest advertiser is the mobile phone company," he says. "You cannot live without mobiles. When the Wall fell, people didn't have home phones.

"[Telecom creative] has become a little more formulaic in the last couple of years because of the mobile phone consolidations," he adds. "Oskar's advertising has become somewhat codified because they're part of the Vodafone network." Last year, Czech Business Weekly reported Kaspen execs abruptly ended their contract with Vodafone, citing 'cultural differences'.

Other important clients include beer brands Pilsner Urquell and Budweiser, and car company Skoda. Although creatives and producers lament a drift toward conservatism in major clients, black comedy is still prevalent with smaller ones. Wince-inducing ads playing off racial caricatures also frequently pop up. In one of the Centrum ads, Bobík the pug is eaten like sushi, while a spot for a local theater company shows an Asian chef berating a marionette, followed by the line, "Save a puppet from a real job by coming to our theatre."

Wilson calls Prague the most creatively liberal environment he's ever worked in. "Off-putting jokes are acceptable, nudity is acceptable," he says. "I've shot ads with dog shit or with people kissing at a urinal and you could hear the urine. The environment is a thousand times more sophisticated than in America. If someone is offended by something, they just say they don't like it - they don't campaign against it."

Wilson and MarkBBDO, Prague CD Martin Charvát boil public tolerance down to the market's youth, open-minded attitudes and years of institutionalized atheism (40% of Czechs consider themselves atheist, according to government stats), which allow for sex, erotica and humor targeting religion to appear in spots. "We can make fun of religion, Christianity or faith and almost nobody has problems with this," says Charvát. "And if the church officially protests, it is even better - PR for free."

YOUNG BLOOD
Agencies are also full of young people. Advertising started in 1991 in the former Czechoslovakia. The industry's forefathers are in their 50s. At 44, Charvát considers himself one of the oldest at MarkBBDO. "Experienced people who started 10 years ago at 20 are 30 now," he says. "And they lead agencies."

Young directors, like 31-year-old Jan Kalvoda, are finding it harder to take the lead. Burgetova estimates 50% to 60% of local jobs go to foreign directors, partially because young film school grads often bypass commercials and head straight for features. And marquee directors aside, most foreign directors' rates are on par with the top local talent's fees.

Agencies will often have a small pool of directors in mind for a job and it's not unusual for a creative to work with a director on finalizing a script. Stillking has had a lot of success building young directors, but adds there's a risk that they'll leave once they get big. Ivan Zacharias and Martin Krejci, two Czech ex-pats working primarily out of London-based Stink (headed by former Stillking EP Daniel Bergmann) are frequently named-checked by Czech creatives as among the country's best directors, but both men rarely shoot for the Czech market.

Still, there are strong directors who stay. Kalvoda and Jakub Kohak, both with Stillking, are alumni of the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase in Cannes and work in Prague. Other companies with strong local directors are Boogie Films, Bistro Films, Punk Film, Starlite Productions and Krejci's home prodco, Dawson.

Building a young director takes at least a year and is a constant struggle, says Martin Hulovec, executive producer at Prague's Punk Film, which opened shop three years ago. He says foreign directors aren't a big worry for a new director - investing in music videos or spec spots are bigger concerns. Once a director becomes an A-list local name, however, then the prodco must fight against creative attitudes that favor foreign talent.

"Sometimes the client chooses a foreign director even though it is obvious that the Czech one would be better and cheaper," says Hulovec, adding the average day rate for a good Czech director is 5,000 to 6,000 euros. "It simply sounds interesting to have a director from abroad for some clients."

Binar denies that agencies favor foreign directors. The issue is the quality of a treatment and not nationality, he says. "It doesn't make a difference, it's the skill that's required and most of our clients see it in the same way."

Jan Kallista, production chair at Adwood, a small hybrid prodco/agency founded in 2000, disagrees, arguing that agencies can convince clients to up the budget if a foreign director gets on board. Adwood worked for Oskar before it merged with Vodafone and has since switched to the production side, but maintains a small creative department.

"Foreign directors undermining local ones is something we've felt for a long time, but really, we're not afraid of it," he says. "It is going to get better when the TV market develops and brings more work to young and new talents."At 28, Kallista was 10 years old when the Velvet Revolution swept Czechoslovakia. He's watched the Czech Repbulic's leading ad execs grow up through a golden period in the '90s and settle into middle age. Now, the generation of Czechs who grew up free to travel abroad and unafraid of foreign ideas is taking over.

"When the client trusts you, there is always a chance to convince him to invest in a new way," says Kallista. "Sometimes you try to build on convincing examples from other countries but you never know whether it will work locally. That is the magic of creativity, to start again and again. Sometimes the hardest part is convincing yourself to take the step forward."

Adwood http://www.adwood.cz
MarkBBDO http://www.bbdo.cz
McCann Erickson http://www.mccann.cz
Kaspen http://www.kaspen.com
Punk Film http://www.punkfilm.cz
Stillking Films http://www.stillking.com