In Amsterdam, with just a hint of good weather, people frantically go outside to do stuff. Like bbq-ing. When I was searching online for a hammock I came across this little fellow. A campstove by BioLite. It reduces your carbon footprint, because it produces less carbon monoxide, less smoke, and uses less wood. And it even charges your gadgets while you grill something tasty on it. You might think this doesn’t add much to the equation, but BioLite also produces HomeStoves to bring cleaner energy to the developing world. The campstove can be bougth at Bever Amsterdam – it excludes the BBQ-weather, for that matter.

Mercedes Benz together with FHV/BBDO (idea), Pixplicity (technical), and Momkai (design) developed an app for your phone that centrally manages your energy usage, thus extending your battery life. Quite a nice brand utility, spreading the intelligence of Mercedes’ Blue Efficiency. On the other hand, to us it feels a little superfluous. We know how to extend the battery life of our phones – e.g. by turning off the data exchange. And 20% doesn’t make a world of difference. If you’re the kind of person that is often low on battery, you’d be better off buying an extra battery. Anyway, the app is only available for Android – probably because Apple doesn’t allow apps to mess with their settings.

Last year we wrote about a competition held by Swedish production company Hobby Film. Quite recently the Swedes opened an office on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. Their international roster of directors is now also available to the Dutch market. Amongst them are The Vikings, Oskar Bård, Vesa Manninen, Jens Jonsson and Magnus Renfors. Tom Rickard, head of the new Amsterdam office: “Sweden has had a strong history of pillaging in mid-Europe, but I promise we will not do any of that this time. Instead, we will try to focus on making creative and world-class commercials this time around.” Hobby Film Amsterdam just finished their first local production together with Achtung! Välkommen till Amsterdam!

With the phrase “Beer, even on the go,” Bavaria is the first beer brand in 15 years to sell beer at gas stations along the highway. Of course not their regular label, but their 0.0%. To celebrate this milestone, they’ve partly turned a gas station into a bar and dubbed it “Café A4 West.” Not the most attractive place to hang out with your mates, but a piece of ambient advertising with stopping power most definitely. Created by Selmore.

Danes are convinced that they live in the happiest country in the world. According to Forbes they’re pretty darn close, having made it to the 2nd place for four consecutive years. No wonder that the creatives at McCann Copenhagen spotted a Danish flag in the logo of Coca-Cola – the company that says “We’re in the business of opening happiness.” Little “Dan-cola” flags were made available from a Coca Cola vending machine at the airport, so that people could welcome their friends back home. Only 2,400 flags were handed out to welcome 25,000 arrivals, but as this case-film will probably be submitted to 10 different award festivals and ad sites, it’ll get more exposure online than on site – as is the case with most ambient advertising nowadays.

Who hasn’t jumped around on Kris Kross’s world hit “Jump” that profusely dominated the Billboard Hot 100 in 1992? This American rap duo comprised “Mac Daddy” Kelly and Chris “Daddy Mac” Smith. Though sadly, Mac Daddy died of an overdose recently, Kris Kross can teach us something. I am not talking about the duo’s musical qualities. We’ll leave that up to music sites; Amsterdam Ad Blog is about advertising. From a marketing point of view the phenomenon Kriss Kross is brilliant as well. What can the corporate world learn from them? More…

Last week PSV and AZ played the final of the Amstel cup (the Dutch equivalent of the English FA cup) and Havas created this topical newspaper ad for PSV’s sponsor Freo, to get the fans all psyched up. The Amsterdam agency created a victory tattoo from real newspaper ink. With a bit of water and 2 minutes of patience it could fairly easily be transferred to your arm. Unfortunately it didn’t help PSV, but at least the ad in Eindhoven’s Dagblad was a winner.

According to PEFC we’ve lost already half of the tropical forest in the world in little over a century. PEFC, a label that ensures wood to be sourced through sustainable management, asked JWT to draw some attention to this. Not just for Brazil, but also for other countries – that maybe once chose to represent their abundance of green in their flags – like Mexico, Cameroon, Congo, and Gabon. Striking.

Christian Borstlap proudly presents 5 (out of 7) bulbs to the press – photo by Matthijs Immink. 

Unfortunately it took us half a week to recover from the ADCN (Art Director Club Netherlands) awards (read: the party afterwards). Which is why only now we’re able to do a write up. Anyway, unlike last year the venue (Gashouder, instead of Concertgebouw) and James Bond-inspired opening show were quite impressive; sexy girls, wearing tight latex suits (apparently a special desire of Etcetera’s Peter van Leeuwen), entered a box-ring stage accompanied by pumping music and a light show. It even made us feel a little proud about our industry: “Yeah, we work in advertising, baby!” The English-speaking presenter, Juan Señor, who also does the awards in Cannes, made the chitchat-interviews on stage with the different Jury presidents – just like last year – feel somewhat bipolar. Though we very well understand that the ADCN wants to include the international agencies, most Dutchies were either hard to follow, because of their not so fluent English, or simply doing their speeches in Dutch. But enough about form, let’s talk about the awards. Then again, form won Big last Wednesday. More…

There are several great jeans brands. And new ones keep popping up. Yesterday I came across this label while cycling in Amsterdam. Hema. Hema is seamlessly part of Dutch culture and category-wise comparable to Target. And though Hema is a lovebrand it’s not the first brand you think of when thinking of jeans. That’s why the big logo is quite boldly chosen. It reminds me of the Zeeman (a store that has invented cheapness) t-shirt hype. But who knows. Maybe these jeans too become a hype this season. And yes, it was a bit awkward cycling behind this girl and taking a picture of her butt. It made me feel like a dirty old man. But it’s all for the good cause of hopefully inspiring you a little.