This beautiful animation was created by Y&R Not Just Film (‘not just film’? Duh! Maybe time for a name change…) and Shosho and the appropriate music by the very sensitive band Novastar. The super reads: ‘36 million people are on the run’. And the pay-off: ‘A refugee is nowhere without your help’. Give-us-your-money advertising by NGO’s almost never makes us (the editors of AAB) open our purses, but this one really triggers our altruistic feelings. Very well done, no critical note this time… Except maybe that 30 seconds is too short! We usually get bored when having to watch the director’s cut, but in this case we would love to see it! For that matter; Serious Request is an annual fund raising event by 3FM Radio and the Red Cross. The event is as simple as effective: three 3FM DJ’s broadcast for a full week, non-stop, without eating in an almost transparent cabin on a big square in the Netherlands – in Breda this year. People can call into the live show to request a song, in exchange for a donation. Every year the event has a different theme. Last year it was ‘drinking water’ this year the money goes to refugees.

When you’re introducing a new, important, public phone number, you have to make sure people remember what to dial. This is often done with annoying tunes that are glued into your skull. Not in this commercial though, wanting us to report neglected or abused animals. It plays with some striking images, thus tapping into your visual memory instead. So, no catchy “144” song, but some sad animals turned into numbers – you could call that animal abuse in itself, but we were assured that no animals were harmed in the making of the commercial. Finally, to make sure our auditive memory is not left out, the pay-off “Bel 144 en red een dier” (meaning: call 144 and save an animal) modestly rhymes. Created by Y&R and executed by Hectic Electric.

The new LG TV is so thin that you can easily smuggle it outside a store. The film made us immediately wonder why you want to be looking into a security camera when stealing a TV. But when you know that this viral scored 2.4 million hits on YouTube within 2 weeks, receiving the message that LG has the world’s slimmest TV, you can only call it a job well done. Created by Y&R.

Yesterday was a good day. Not just because it was our first day in Cannes and we enjoyed soaking up all its extremes – Le Palais, the sun, the beach, ‘le canard au miel’, and lots of drinks – check out our photo’s here. It was also a good day for Amsterdam, because it won 5 Lions! Two silver lions went to outdoor; Interbest ‘mail stripper’ and the Go Fast water-bike, both to Y&R Not Just Film. At the time, we weren’t too positive about the unattractive stripper, because we doubted its effectiveness. You could say the silver lion has proved us wrong. Two bronze lions went to the radio commercial ‘sexual harassment’ (Publicis) and an Allsecur outdoor ad (Ogilvy). In Media Muse and Starcom won Silver for their 3D Samsung projection. Earlier, on Monday Amsterdam won two meager bronze lions; the Dutch dress for Bavaria in promo – which definitely deserves more in our opinion – and bronze for Boondoggle’s KLM Suprise in PR – in Holland this won a golden Spin (read: cyber) award. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate some gold later this week.