Thursday night the Golden and Silver Spin Awards were divided between the best Dutch digital and cross media agencies. For the first time the winners weren’t kept in suspense until the official award night in the Gashouder, because Adformatie (the Dutch ad magazine) by mistake distributed its magazine with the results too early. Of course, the winners couldn’t care less. Lemz was the big winner this year, with two golden awards and the title ‘interactive agency of the year’. The other two golden Spins went to Achtung! (last year elected agency of the year) for Sultana and Red Urban & FHV/BBDO for Hi. Check entire list here.

The concept that impressed us the most was Upload Cinema by Draftfcb (Silver; cross media). Not because it’s hyper interactive, not becasue it’s so innovative, but just because it is as simple as brilliant ideas often are. Upload Cinema brings together the best of YouTube within a monthly changing theme in art house cinema De Uitkijk. What we especially like about it is that it facilitates something that internet needs, an editor seperating the heaps of crap that soil the long tail from the little gems that are not always being noticed.

Mobile telco provider Hi embraced Facebook over the past years and especially the ‘Like’ icon. And since in Hi’s most recent commercial the brand shows how we sometimes neglect our moms, it introduced this Mother’s Day tattoo, created by Morrison Schiffmacher (the daughter of the famous tattooist Henk Schiffmacher) to make ‘mama’ feel special. It is an app that allows you to create a virtual tattoo through your webcam. You can scale it, turn it, blur it, etc. to make sure it looks like a real tattoo. And then, of course, you can make it your profile picture or – better even – send it to your mom to freak her out and make her love you at the same time. What a great idea. On top of this, you can even win the tattoo in real ink, if you give Hi a good reason for wanting it – and not have much taste, for that matter. Created by FHV/BBDO.

Photo: Maurice Mikkers
The biggest winner last night at the ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) awards was Lemz. All the ‘bulbs’ – of which one was a Grand Prix (the very best integrated work) – went to their Fireworks campaign. Our very favourite campaign of the year Domino’s Pizza Pepperoni by Indie won one Golden and two Silver bulbs (TV, internet and activation) – in our opinion it was at least as good as Lemz’ work. Wieden also won one Gold and two Silver for Heineken’s ‘The making of The Date’ (internet, TV, and activation). Selmore won Gold for Bavaria and Hugh Heffner – so we can be sure that Charlie Sheen will also win Gold next year. We were a bit surprised that N=5 won Gold for Telfort – not really our taste. Y&R won one Gold and two Silver for LG’s ‘smart thief‘ (internet, TV, and viral). A bit strange that alle these films are winning different prizes for the different channels through which they are broadcasted – does the channel matter? Another one of our favourites was Hema’s with a push-up bra in print, promoted by a male model, going viral big time – by Doom & Dickson. It won Gold and Silver. Note: Hema is one of the most down to earth department stores in the Netherlands. TBWA won Gold with its print campaign for DIY chain Gamma; free Lego – “Just like dad.” In Interactive Tribal DDB won Gold and Silver for ‘Obsessed with Sound’ for Philips. One of the most impactful commercials of the year by Publicis for ALS won Silver – “I have died by now.” Special bulbs went to Mischa Rozema (for directing OFFF), Christian Borstlap (art direction and illustration, for LV and Mr Porter), and Simon Warner (photgraphy, for Octopus).

What do you do as a digital agency when you are asked to translate the shittiest commercial ever into a digital ‘thingy.’ Well, you create this awesome online (Facebook) ‘Remix Machine’ with which you can remix DJ Calvin Harris’ track – made especially for the commercial. We were a little too busy to give it a serious go, but what we find really smart about it is that it works quite similar – though of course simpler – to your professional mix software. So the consumer can use all the different elements of the original track and remix it into a better one. The crowd will judge the work and the best entries can win a ‘Dance Music Production Workshop’ at the SAE Institute or – the main prize – a 6-day trip for two to Ibiza with – tada! – a VIP meet & greet with Calvin Harris. We congratulate Red Urban for turning bullshit into relevant digital activation.

We weren’t physically there when last night no less than 30 ‘Spins’ (rings, either gold or silver) were awarded to the best digital work of the Benelux at the SpinAwards. Instead, we were mingling with the lesser gods at the NewWork Pre-Party. After ten, though, when the SpinAwards opened their doors for the after party, we were able to congratulate all the winners in person. First of all, Tribal DDB. The big winner with three golden awards; two for Obsessed with sound and one for KLM Tile & Inspire. On top of that Tribal won the agency of the year award. Lemz also won big with five Spins. Three Silver Spins went to Taskforce Tracing Bomb makers, targeted at teenagers making their own bombs around New Years and showing the impact proudly on YouTube. The Taskforce downloaded the videos and re-uploaded them with a warning to the bomb makers. Lemz also won two silver spins with KLM Live Reply. And – not much of a surprise – KLM became advertiser of the year. Buutvrij For Life won two awards with their ‘Pass it on day’ – they asked all their Facbook friends to form a line through Amsterdam to pass on their office interior when they were moving offices. Unofficially they also won a third award together with Cote d’Azur for ‘Everything smells like chocolate.’ Boondoggle won two awards with ‘Cordeals’ for Cordaid and with Medi-Plaza.nl for the government. The latter case is slightly similar to the Taskforce concept; consumers who were buying medicines online were led to Medi-Plaza, when about to make the transaction they were confronted with the message that buying medicines online is a dangerous affair. Red Urban won two awards with the Russian Roulette app for Duyves and their ‘Like’ campaign for KPN. Click on picture to see the entire list of winners.

We like this one. Mom is waiting for her son to call. But as you know there’s a whole new generation that hardly uses its mobile to make phone calls. Hence the song (that spoofs a well known Dutch song, by Stef Bos) more or less saying “I use Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, all my crap needs to go on the web.” But only when it’s really necessary these guys make a phone call. When it rains for example and there’s no transport. But mom is not buying it; “saka saka boy” (asshole in Sranan) is what she answers him. In the previous commercial we were still surprised that Hi was promoting WhatsApp. Shortly after that we heard the CEO of KPN (Hi’s mother company) say that he didn’t see the decline of mobile phone calls coming – not displaying an incredible amount of vision. As the more versatile and younger brand, Hi has now fully and explicitly embraced the trend of using free online services with the apt pay off “Who needs phone calls these days.” Dynamic times in the telco business. Created by FHV/BBDO, directed by Jeroen Annokkee (CZAR).