Gertjan De Smet

At the end of 2010, an everly restless mind and love for the aesthetic led a 21 year old ex-cyclist from Lede, East-Flanders (Belgium) through the doors of the renowned advertising agency Duval Guillaume, to become an advertising professional. Under the wings of Creative Directors Peter Ampe and Katrien Bottez, Gertjan was hired as an intern and started working on clients De Morgen, De Lijn, Brussels Airlines and Douwe Egberts. His succesfull start at Duval was quickly followed by a job offer as Art Director for DDB, where he got his first taste of working for a global network.

In the years that followed, Gertjan took up roles as concept provider and art director for various communication agencies in Belgium among which Wunderman Thompson, Happiness, and BBDO. During that same period, he was deployed for international pitches in Dubai, Amsterdam and London. In 2018, together with creative teammate Frederik Clarysse, Gertjan got voted ‘Belgian Creative of the year’ by Media Marketing.

His work can be defined by a combination of digitally inspired thinking and design-focussed execution, and includes campaigns for Lidl, Ray-Ban, Decathlon, Mazda, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Telenet, Proximus, Bingoal, Pairi Daiza, Kinepolis, Accent Jobs, Filou, Napoleon Sports & Casino, Pedigree, Media Markt, Frites Atelier, Douwe Egberts, RSC Anderlecht, Club Brugge, Cercle Brugge, KV Oostende, Pro League and the Belgian Red Devils.

Some projects were awarded on national advertising festivals such as the Creative Belgium Awards and Best Of activation Awards, others were internationally acclaimed by Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, The International Webby Awards, Eurobest, Epica, The One Show, Caples, Cresta Awards, IMC, Europe Mixx Awards, SIGI and IAC.

In 2019, together with production company Geronimo, he co-founded ‘Talk of the town’, a brand production studio focussed on creating and producing content for brands, organizations and personalities.