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#fansofcannes: The Next Rembrandt

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As the door opens, you’re welcomed into an elegant space where one single painting is beautifully displayed to grab the eye, and innovative lighting design techniques have been employed to carefully balance its illumination. You may think you’ve entered a regular art gallery, yet there are big screens on the walls running algorithms, and an intricate game of binary coding recreating details of the painting in the centre of the room.

This is ‘The Next Rembrandt’. The latest painting created in the famous style of Rembrandt. In the absence of the master of light and shadow himself, the painter was instead a software system. Thoroughly analysing the geometry, composition, painting materials and Rembrandt’s technique, it turned the learned principles into an algorithm to replicate the style and generate new facial features. A 3D printer then recreated the painting technique by adding depth and texture through multiple layers of paint.

How is this relevant to the ING banking group? Well firstly, it’s no new news that banks and art are closely linked; over time, the latter has become a cultural investment, not just a financial one. ING has been proudly displaying and rotating its art collection across its global offices, inspiring employees and customers alike. And as a Dutch born brand, has invested immensely in preserving national art heritage.

Secondly, we all remember how discouraging circumstances led to a fall in trust and an image knockout for the global banking system. So the only way out was to detach from the crowd and drive change with change. This is how ING turned to innovation as a way forward, data and technology as a means to progress.

This creative exercise has been a masterpiece in leveraging value for the ING brand:

Live your mantra
As a brand that believes in sustainable progress, imagination and determination, and takes pride in its know-how, ING gave its approach meaning beyond just the banking sector. Thus portraying itself as a brand with vision and potential to achieve it.

Invest in innovative bravery
Known as a role model for financial technology, the brand unveiled where innovation could take us. No other brand, let alone a bank, has walked this path before, daring to paint with data and use technology as a brush with such grandeur.

Perpetuate social responsibility
An initiative with social impact should not be a temporary chase for fame. It should reinforce the brand purpose and embed it ever stronger into people’s lives. The technology developed for The Next Rembrandt is now used for the restoration of damaged and partially lost masterpieces, ensuring art doesn’t fade away and the algorithm is constantly improved.

It’s brands like this that make us tick and give us energy to dream big. When you see innovation go beyond imagination, it makes you want to join the movement.

By Alina Pîrvu, Brand Strategist, jkr London

The Next Rembrandt, ING, J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam (Cannes Lions Winner 2016)

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