Interactive agency of the year Achtung! is throwing a housewarming party to celebrate its 3,5 year anniversary and to show their ‘neue heimat’ (meaning: their new office).

Recently Achtung! created quite an unusual campaign to communicate Vodafone’s fiber internet; in the small town of Roggel (Limburg) a real race track was laid out around the center, where celebrity Jenson Button raced his Formula 1 car against the locals – who were racing in a simulator. The entire town was involved and a documentary was made of the event. The event was to bring Vodafone and its proposition (high speed internet) as close as possible to the user. To learn more about the story behind this campaign we asked Dick Buschman, MD and Head of Strategy of Achtung!, a few questions.

What did the initial Vodafone briefing say?
Village-by-village rollout of fiber internet throughout the Netherlands is mainly dictated by small local players. For a big international brand as Vodafone it is not easy to enter this market. The question was: how do we get close to our new potential clients? As an international brand, Vodafone is used to think big and push the message, but for this product they could not get away with that. So our mission was to get close to the local community, activate them, and win their sympathy.

How was the race set up?
We chose Roggel, because it is one of the smaller towns in the Netherlands with only 4000 inhabitants. To get them involved we gave all of them a chance to race against Button. We made a selection by asking local clubs (football, orchestra, etc.) to organize speed contests. 10 of them did. Out of the 10 winners, 3 eventually went through to the Formula 1 simulator. The simulator, racing against Button’s physical car, showed an exact 3D copy of the streets.

Logistically it sounds like a bit of a nightmare
It proved difficult, yes, but we also had a lot of fun. A smart move was involving the mayor, who organized ‘hearings’ and actively asked the inhabitants’ participation – I think he saw it as a good PR opportunity for his town. But, yes, it did require a huge team to pull it all off. We started with concepting 6 weeks prior to the race. As the idea involved the participation of the local community, a dedicated team of 6 people worked from Roggel. But the total team was much bigger. A team of Vodafone did the overall planning and coordination. 328 Stories lived in Roggel for almost 5 weeks to make the documentary. Then there was DNA Events, who prepared the actual race, with all the logistics. And, finally, a team of RTL was involved. The total crew was over 60 people.

This is the documentary directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories)

O.k., so you got Roggel involved. How about the rest of the Netherlands?
We published small teasing videos of the local preparing activities on the dedicated website (www.grandprixvanroggel.nl) and Facebook page. Apart from that we were able to make a deal with sports channel RTL 7, who broadcasted the race live on national television. Two weeks later the documentary was released online and, again, on TV.

How did the locals react to this brand circus?
The preparations, to select the 3 local heroes, and the physical Grand Prix really connected the town – and I don’t mean that in Vodafone’s language. What I mean is that the entire town was truly involved and excited about the race; we still receive letters and pictures that show true enthusiasm. That’s how Vodafone instantly became a local friend. And that’s not easy in a small a town, especially when you’re a global brand like Vodafone. But it worked. Vodafone has won a serious market position in Roggel.

I can imagine that. How were the results nationally?
Well, as said, we reached the rest of the Netherlands through online and TV. Both the Grand Prix and documentary reached 2.4 million people on national television. The videos and trailers posted on our website and Facebook before, during and after the event spread through weblogs and reached over 250.000 unique viewers. And the footage that was spread clearly communicates Vodafone’s local touch.

Which town is next to be put upside down?
I am not sure whether this will get a sequel. But we just released a new app for Vodafone, called Appstein; it searches for the Einstein of apps. The campaign targets prepaid callers and tests their knowledge about smartphone apps – normally they do not use apps a lot, since most prepaid phones are not exactly ‘smart’.

Brands that beg for Likes – without presenting any Likeable content – don’t really understand how social media work. We usually don’t ‘Like’ these brands, because they just want to spam your Wall. But when every Like begged very smartly represents a condom to support an educational project set up by Stop Aids Now! in Kibagare, Nairobi (Kenia), you can easily earn our sympathy. Even if the content (in Dutch) is not necessarily very likeable; Nicolette Kluijver – who presents a TV program about sex and drugs – asks for your condom (read: Like) in a few different short films. Apparently we’re not the only ones that find this campaign sympathetic, cause the target of 20.000 condoms was met in merely 2 days. The target has now been raised to 40.000. Created by Achtung!

Roggel is a rustic town with only 4100 inhabitants. And this short film, directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories), wonders whether they are ready for Vodafone’s speed. Normally, you would relate this question to the speed of Vodafone’s network, but when you ask Achtung! to come up with something entertaining, you end up measuring the speed of a race car. Why? First of all, because Vodafone sponsors the McLaren team and secondly because the speed of a race car is easier to comprehend for the average consumer than the speed of a mobile network – we’d guess. So they asked Jens Button to battle against the fastest person of Roggel. A race car versus a race simulator. And to find the fastest person of Roggel, Achtung! set up some small competitions with a very local feel to subtly illustrate how Vodafone’s speed can even be experienced in the country. The Grand Prix of Roggel was ‘aired’ yesterday on RTL’s Grand Prix microsite, which today heralds “Jens Button beaten in the Grand Prix of Roggel”. You can say about it what you like, but original it is.

This is good stuff. Brad and Kelly, two personal beer trainers from LA, show how to get into shape with Bavaria 0.0%. Achtung! created three lessons on Facebook that teach you how to ‘roll’, ‘poor’, and ‘swirl’ a Bavaria 0.0% bottle in such an engaging way that you easily sit out the entire training. And when Facebook asks you after the first lesson if Bavaria is allowed to connect to your personal details you say ‘yes’ without giving it a second thought. And though you could say that it’s really easy to sell a brand with a few hard bodies – Axe (or Lynx) is entirely built on those – the success comes down to the perfect execution. That’s what the Swedish director Henrik Kindgren (It’s Showtime) did; he used all the cliches in a subtle enough and credible way – you’d almost believe it. And yes, we know, it has been done before for Amstel Lite – by Hallelujah and MacGyver. That is a pity. The big difference though is that Brad and Kelly actually make Bavaria 0.0% look cool.

Last Friday the digital Podge was held in Amsterdam. The podge (meaning ‘small belly’) was founded in 1994 by Phil Jones (right in picture). What started out as an informal dinner between design professionals has now branched out into sports and digital. The digital podge now travels through Europe. When Achtung! visited the event last year in Stockholm they liked it so much that they decided to invite the event to Amsterdam. Together with Bert Hagendoorn (left in photo) Achtung! invited about 100 CD’s and MD’s from the best digital agencies from the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Germany and Sweden. The day started with a reception at Herengracht 502, the official residence of the mayor of Amsterdam, clearly breathing the wealth of the Dutch 17th century and creating a nice contrast with the modern, mobile addicted, casual scene. The podgers were welcomed by Achtung!’s Dick Buschman (second left in photo) and Caroline Gehrels – responsible within the municipality for selling Amsterdam to the world – together with jenever (Dutch gin), haring (herring), and kroketten (meat croquettes). The creme de la creme of digital was then taken on a ‘rondvaart’ boat to view Amsterdam from the water – though the presence of an abundance of cold Heinies and interesting conversation partners made sightseeing a little difficult. We were then taken for a late lunch to ‘De Goudfazant’, a restaurant on the Northern, industrial, hip and happening shore of the IJ river. After a rich lunch there was time for coffee and ping pong. Through the rain – to remind everyone to be in Holland – the online professionals were finally taken to café Nol, a bar in the Jordaan that used to be visited by true Amsterdammers. Unfortunately Amsterdam Ad Blog didn’t make this, because the intense conversations about the future of digital in combination with a considerate amount of alcohol persuaded us to call it a day – a wonderful day! A visual impression can be found here.