In memory of Wellington creative Mike Boekholt – a wonderful man with a beautiful outlook on life

Many in the New Zealand and Asia advertising industries will be saddened to hear that Wellington-based creative Mike Boekholt has died, aged 46. He passed away in Hong Kong on 27th December from what was apparently a bad case of flu which turned into pneumonia.

Based in Wellington where he had set up his own businesses Fluent.co.nz (since 2001) and Memento Productions (since 2009), Boekholt was visiting his wife’s family in Hong Kong over the Christmas period when he fell ill.

Boekholt was well known to many of the Asiaindustry’s most senior creatives and management from his decade (1989 – 1998) working as a senior art director at Bates Advertising.

Friend Mike Langton from ADZ described Boekholt as “a wonderful man with a beautiful outlook on life, an extraordinary creative mind, and a huge love of life, his family and friends. He was very fit from training hard and apparently people that fit are sometimes more vulnerable to these things.”

Langton is also coordinating an appeal to help Boekholt’s wife Adelina and daughter Shan financially.

“Mike didn’t plan to die at 46. Shan’s school fees are key. Mike’s emergency hospital care, repatriation and funeral expenses will be high. For bank a/c details to send funds to Adelina please email me at: mike.langton@gmail.com or Sally May Tan at: sallymaytan@gmail.com. If you prefer to contact a direct family member, Mike’s brother Kevin Boekholt is at Kevin.Heliskiing@xtra.co.nz. “

A few of Boekholt’s friends have emailed tributes and a Facebook page has been set up.

Rohan Chanen

Mike Boekholt was a gift.

He didn’t walk around wrapped with a big bow, but he surely was a gift. Kind, gentle, understanding, he always saw the good in most everything. And when he didn’t, he still managed to laugh it off.

When we first started working together as a creative team at Bates Hong Kong, we were briefed on a cigarette campaign. I said to him: “I think I’m having a moral dilemma working on cigarettes.” He replied: “I think I’m having a moral dilemma working in advertising”. I knew I’d

found a lifelong friend.

Sharing his world gave all those who knew him such a wonderful perspective on life. You can see it reflected in the work he produced over the years. He loved advertising and he was great at it. But he was also smart enough to pursue a few loftier ambitions. His art was exquisite, his eye for the unusual keen, his empathy for people always so palpable. He was quiet and deep and he cared passionately. Clients loved him, colleagues adored him and friends were always so grateful to spend time with him.

Even the most difficult situations never fazed him. Everything in life just seemed to flow like water off his back. The way he lived, professionally and personally, was a lesson to us all.

You just don’t get many people like that in advertising. Or in life.

Graham Kelly

Mike was one of the warmest, most down-to-earth people I’ve met. He had talent to spare, balanced by humility.  Above all, Mike was a devoted husband and father. It’s a very sad loss.

Steve Elrick

I think the shock, horror and tragedy people will express is not the loss of an ‘ad guy’ – but a rather special, admirable human being.

When I told my wife Tracy the terrible news about Mike, she reminded me of something that I had forgotten. I cited Mike as one of the few people I have met that have made me want to be a better person.

Mike had a simple integrity to him that was admirable. He also, though a lot of us might profess it – had a genuine and very healthy perception of how important this business is. He put things into a proper perspective against the family he had around him.

There’s that famous truism: No-one’s last words were ever “I wish I had spent more time at work”. And Mike, though his time was tragically, unfairly, infuriatingly short – at least he seemed to understand this quicker than any of us. And actually acted on it.

Though it’s a throwaway compliment, a banality even; Mike was a ‘Good Guy” doesn’t seem to do him justice and yet at the same time describes him exactly.

He knew who he was – and made no apologies about it (not that he ever needed to) and was a man very confident in his own skin. And that’s actually a pretty rare thing.

Ted Royer

ECD Droga 5 New York

Mike was a great guy, funny, patient, thoughtful and loyal. I took more than a few trips with him around Asia (Tibet being a real highlight). He was a true gentleman and a great traveling buddy. My heart goes out to his wife and whole family for their terrible loss.

Danesh Daryanani

Former Head of Marketing at Nokia

I met Mike in the early 1990s. In the world of advertising he is a true light. He is gentle, genuine, sincere, deep, thoughtful and most of all, he is real. I was a client. A pretty big one at that but we got on very well. It’s because Mike saw me, and everyone else as individuals. Status and position meant nothing to him.

Mike was present. When I was with him, he made me feel that the moment was all that mattered. He gave the moment his full attention. He observed deeply, spoke carefully, and thought, well, thoughtfully. When I was with him, I felt I was the only one in the world. I stayed with him and his family a number of years ago in NZ. We did simple things. He took me to a fish market, bought a fresh piece of salmon; he prepared dinner for me at home and then proceeded to show me his art that was kept under a bed. He encouraged and inspired me to create. Not for the sake of show but for the love of creating.

Thank you Mike for teaching me how to love, create, to be present, to be human, and most of all, how to live. Till we meet again.

(Picture from left: Mike, his wife Adelina, Matthew Godfrey and myself at my home, early 1990s).

Matthew Godfrey

President – Asia & Chairman – Singapore at Y&R

One day in early 1998 Mike came back to work wearing kermit green pants and a azure blue shirt. He wanted to start the year off on a bright note and had gone out and purchased a completely new wardrobe of all primary colored clothes.. no black, no grey. He did light up the office that day
and gave us all a fresh start for the year. But he seemed to do that most days anyway. He could be calm when there was chaos, he gave clarity when there was confusion, he was funny when the moment was right and he was caring, always. Perhaps his biggest creative impact while we worked together was the development of the Nokia Human Technology Campaign. I still remember going to his office on a Sunday afternoon and seeing his crisp thoughts pinned to the wall and his excitement in his eyes describing the campaign idea about observing humanity. He was brilliantly insightful. It came naturally to him. This Campaign went on to win for Nokia “Campaign of The Year” in the Media Magazine, Agency Of The Year Awards 1998.

It’s very hard to put in a few words the impact Mike has had on my life. He generated great campaigns and in the process saved my butt on more occasions than I can count. He was so very kind and generous to me when I arrived in Vietnam in 1994 and then again when I moved to Singapore in 1996. Indeed, together with his wife Adelina, he introduced me to my wife at his 30th Birthday Party. Thank you Mike for both the partnership and the friendship. You’ll be greatly missed by your family and friends.

David Mayo

President, Ogilvy & Mather ASEAN

Whenever Mike drank Latte he relished the smell, the texture of the foam, the taste…..the whole thing-in-a-cup. He used to wrap his hands around the cup and get lost in the whole experience. He used to close his eyes and drift into another dimension. He was the same with everything he came into contact with. It were as though he had a 6th sense of stimulus that we mere mortals couldn’t fully appreciate. I will always remember him in that state of suspended bliss…..

My best times with Mike were at Bates in the mid-1990’s in Singapore. He was a young ECD and we were going for the DHL business across the region – it was the biggest pitch of the year and we were going to win it. And with Mike’s work we did! He was the youngest ECD in Asia in one of the best agencies in the region and this was by far the biggest pitch anyone had seen for years prior to that. Mike won us that pitch. Single-mindedly, calmly and in a focussed way, he walked us over the line with a wry smile and that mischievous twinkle in his eye.

He drove an old 7-series BMW that smelt of coffee and humidity in that way that old cars do. He had long hair and a long nose – in a kind of Nordic way. He was a real looker – no doubt about that! He didn’t believe that anyone could ever get a taxi when they wanted to. He giggled when he drank more thank about 2 glasses of any alcohol. He worked late. He didn’t take any shit. You had to earn his friendship and his respect – that didn’t come easily but when it did, it came in waves and torrents. It was more like love than anything else.

When I got married, he sent me a cabinet with a massive red bow tied around it….I could barely get the thing through my front door, let alone up the stairs. I still have it now. It contains – fittingly – all the things for enhancing a creative mind; games, toys, art materials and books. I walk past the cabinet every day and think of Mike.

Mike was one of those people that you meet and instantly wish you were like. He had it all. And so it is with disbelief and grief that he leaves us in this most unfair of ways. Why would the world want to lose someone like Mike? He was in his prime. He gave, he played, he contributed, he loved and he built things. He was a catalyst for good. We are lighter and less whole without Mike Boekholt. I guess at the end of it all, I can say that I was lucky I knew him but I know that wouldn’t be enough for him. Thoughts be with his close family and loved ones.

Andy Flemming

Creative Director, M&C Saatchi Sydney

I worked opposite Mike in Singapore for a number of years. We were partners, we were friends. The tributes pouring in say much about what a remarkable man he was. It shouldn’t have been his time. Not for Mike. Not for one of the truly gentle souls that we assume must be out there. Not for someone seemingly without a temper, someone so grounded that every decision he made was made for human reasons. Fame, fortune, ego, all those traits simply weren’t as important as family, friends and just doing the right thing. I hadn’t seen Mike for many years, but his sudden absence is as painful as if I’d seen him yesterday. And that speaks volumes about Mike B.