Students putting this Coffee Company slide in their presentation and uploading a photo of the presentation on a dedicated website, receive a coupon for 10 cups of free coffee. Slidevertising! Nice idea by Amsterdam agency THEY. No wonder they have to give away free coffee; for students a latte is way too expensive – especially since they can buy a 50 cents coffee on campus. So we’re curious to learn what the long term effects will be.
There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.
First of all, please tell us a little about yourself
I’ve lived in Amsterdam for a little over 18 months. I work as Strategist for Blast Radius – an international agency for digital marketing. I consider myself undoubtedly a well-connected digital guy, so I was already interacting with Amsterdam agency peeps before my arrival here. This definitely facilitated me to quickly get to know a lot of people and also become part of the scene.
Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations. When I came here, I was simply astonished that no formal or informal frame existed for the planners in town. So I decided to create one, together with two planners, Heather LeFevre, who I knew through Twitter, and Wouter Boon, who I knew through Amsterdam Ad Blog. We managed to assemble the first couple of strategists for a Stammtisch – as we call it in Germany – which is a regular pub meet & greet. Nothing more, nothing less.
[Gerald orders a fresh orange juice and salade Niçoise]
Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations
Why did you find it necessary to establish an APG Netherlands?
Because planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry. Other job profiles are much more standardized; there are countless trainings and guilds for design, but hardly any for strategists. Plus, most of them have very exotic backgrounds; I studied Political Sciences and Literature for instance, and used to work as a copywriter for seven years. That’s not even extreme. Each person in this informal professional group can work better as part of a group of likeminded people. But the actual day job of a planner is very different depending on whether he calls himself a Brand Strategist, a Media Strategist, a Connection Planner or whatsoever. Additionally, differences can be found in a Dutch and Non-Dutch background. So we can learn a lot from each other.
Planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry
The idea behind the APG Netherlands is to create a forum for everyone that considers him or herself Planner. Hopefully it will become something that helps us to network as well as learn from one another. We should appreciate the fact that our job is about learning and about generating insights. Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all!
Who are the founders of APG Netherlands?
We are a group of seven people now that bring all the facets of planning together; media, integrated, and digital. We are also a wide range of nationalities; Dutch, American, English, and German. It was certainly not intentional to create such a balanced mix, but I guess this proves my earlier point about the diversity of backgrounds. So far, we get along very well and every now and then we even make decisions in between our discussions… [Hensel laughs out loud]
Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all
Apart from me there is: Heather LeFevre, former SD at Strawberry Frog and since very recently freelancing; Wouter Boon, also freelancing as Boon Strategy; my colleague Simon Neate-Stidson from Blast Radius; Laurence Parkes from AKQA; Boris Nihom from They; and Laura van den Boom from FHV/BBDO.
What was the theme of the first meeting at Strawberry Frog?
This was about one of the core elements of any Strategist’s job: where, as individuals, do we get our insights from – or at least, where do we pretend to get them from? [Hensel smiles] In other words, what has inspired us to write certain creative briefs.
How did it go?
I think it went extremely well. Thanks again to our friends from Strawberry Frog who provided just the perfect location for such an event. All of us were a bit anxious if there would be enough people interested. But it turned out to be busy with about 80 Strategists attending. We viewed some great presentations. The feedback supported my perception that the first event was a success.
And the key thing for me was; it didn’t feel like a professional club. It felt like hanging out with a lot of smart people with many things to talk about, and that’s great, isn’t it?
When is the next APG event and what will the theme be?
The next APG event is coming soon – it will be on the 2nd of February. The title is: ‘Success by Failure’. It’s about the mistakes we make and what we learn from them. [You can sign up for the event here]
Happy New Year to you all. To stay in the right mood, we present to you this film about Champagne. A nice slow motion of a bottle of Champagne being uncorked – in reverse. Not the most original idea ever, but pleasant to watch with Vivaldi in the background and likely to make the viewer thirsty. What makes less sense is that the film was made for Lidl, known as one of the cheaper supermarket chains – and recently in the news again for treating its personnel like rubbish, for that matter. Promoting a cheap Champagne (with ditto label and price) for a cheap supermarket in a relatively stylish way feels like a contradiction. But that’s the whole idea – recently we also saw Zeeman being promoted on the catwalk. The film is part of a more integrated campaign with a print ad featuring a Dutch chef, Ramon Beuk, promoting the Champagne in Dutch glossy Linda; “The best tasting Champagne for an incredibly low price. Where to get it?!” With a QR code in the Linda readers were directed to a dedicated page showing the film and revealing the source (see case film here). The concept was created by THEY – who launched their own Champagne brand Zarb a few years ago – and the Champagne film was directed by Bill Tanaka (328 Stories).
When it comes to location based – i.e. geo-tagged – shopping there are roughly two kind of benefits (apart from telling people where you are); either you can proudly tell the world you’ve become the virtual mayor somewhere or you get an instant discount – or both. Now there’s a new web app, created by THEY, that tells you through live data where you don’t want to be shopping. The app that sources Foursquare check-ins and tweets is built to avoid the crazy X-mas shopping crowds. Since it only services a few areas in Amsterdam (like ‘Centrum’ and the ’9 Straatjes’) and most people don’t have the luxury to go shopping when nobody else does (unless they shop online), it seems more of a PR builder than an ambituous project that is to conquer the world. But whatever you think of it; it does show that THEY is thinking forward and likes to experiment.
Zarb – French slang for bizarre – is a champagne brand brought to market by Amsterdam agency THEY in 2009. The idea behind the brand is that the bottle is used as an artistic medium. In December last year Zarb opened a pop-up store in Amsterdam to show its collection. This year the brand is a little more ambitious by having its new designs exhibited in gallery Joyce in Palais Royal in Paris. 20 different artists were given complete freedom to create their own Zarb bottle. Amongst them Dutch Fashion Designer Jan Taminiau (in pic), Andrea Crews, PP from Longwy (in pic), Chaotic Bastards, Hedi Ferjani, Emeline Piot, Mini Mercredi, Paul Hamy, Deux d’Amsterdam, Nina Naustdal (in pic), Antoine Bouillot and Hanna Hermans (in pic). We’re glad to see that THEY is keeping up the good work.
Just like the previous Vodafone commercial – also made by THEY – about the €2-abroad-deal (the one in the snow), this ad won’t win any prizes in Cannes – though Wouter Stoter directed a fairly sexy commercial. But speaking of Cannes; some of us used Vodafone’s €2/day-deal there and it was great. Especially when comparing it to T-Mobile; they also charges €2, only then per Mb, which now feels like going back to the Middle Ages. We’re not sure whether there’s any reception at Blue Cove (wherever it is, cause we couldn’t find it on TripAdvisor), but this commercial would definitely make us consider a switch – after all, T-Mobile even in Holland doesn’t have proper reception. So what can we learn from this; you don’t need award winning work to advertise a good product. Which is more or less the opposite of: award winning work will make a bad product fail faster – but we knew that one since Bill Bernbach was still alive.
