The MINI account, located in München, was recently won by BSUR and is worth an estimated 70 million Pound Sterling. A thorough pitch – managed by The Observatory from London – preceded this pick. According to Adformatie, Mini also shopped in London, Paris and Hamburg, but in the end there were three Amsterdam agencies left; BSUR, KesselsKramer and 180.
Taxi – only a few months in town – has grown big time instantly by buying 22-person digital agency Ottonico last week. Taxi chairman Paul Lavoie; “We chose Amsterdam because it is a creative and multi-cultural hub, and we chose Ottonico because they embody the future of integrated communications.” Ottonico was founded in 2008 by Eric Verhage and Maarten van Huijstee. At Amsterdam Ad Blog we’ve never heard of the agency, but we trust Taxi to have chosen its prey wisely.
The ideal TV night for Leo Beenhakker – a Dutch football (US: soccer) coach – consists of a classic war movie, a great tennis match and Animal Planet. The result is a Monty Pythonesque mash-up, featuring the Cadbury Gorilla as a referee! The commercial, made by DDB Amsterdam, celebrates the possibilities of “interactive” TV (or maybe ‘digital TV’?) of cable provider Ziggo in a surreal, but pleasant way. And although we don’t really understand why they chose Leo Beenhakker (a coach on his return) as a role model, it makes Ziggo stand out as sympathetic. What’s more, like the previous commercial, it explains the benefits of digital TV in a crystal clear way. And, finally, it makes you forget the introduction campaign from a year ago that depicted Ziggo as the geriatric brother of Rainman…
Strong ideas don’t need much explanation. Take for example this (special edition) sleeve around free newspaper De Pers, created by G2. It was made for ROC, an institute for education, asking attention for a conference about illiterateness.
This viral for X-Travel made by YoungWorks, won a bronze Esprix award yesterday. A viral that truly deserves its name; it has generated 2.7 million hits until now. The Esprix awards are about smart and effective advertising that activates the consumer. 23 cases were awarded; 8 won silver and 15 bronze – no gold. Just like at the ADCN awards, TBWA\Neboko walked away with the most prizes; 2 silver and 1 bronze award. Followed by Doom&Dickson (1s.,1b.) and Lemz (the interactive agency of the year won 3 times bronze). In our humble opinion, the best concept was created by Selmore for van Gils. The Amsterdam agency created a new icon for Van Gils, a white window dummy that physically proved its tagline; ‘it’s all about the suit’. The dummy showed up with hot celebs at many international paparazzi events and thus naturally generated tons of free publicity. Talking about smart advertising!
Yesterday we were invited to attend the world premiere of the documentary Inside The Black Jersey in the Amsterdam Film Museum. The film - initiated by 180 Amsterdam and produced by U-Turn (the 180 production arm) - is a close and intimate portrait of the national rugby team of New Zealand; the All Blacks. Since the team is sponsored by Adidas and virtually all the equipment (trainers, suits, sweaters, underwear, etc.) worn by the proud Kiwis, shows the Adidas logo, it has turned out as an amazingly smart film. While you’re intently following a fascinating group of ultimate sportsmen, fully in love with their sport and their black jersey, the Adidas brand constantly pops up – quasi subtly. It’s like subliminal advertising; you watch an hour long commercial, without noticing it’s a commercial! The documentary is going to be cut up in 10 minute episodes to be seeded online and used as content for Adidas’ new media platform, adidas.tv. Well done, 180 and Adidas. The future of branded content is here!
Auping introduces ventilating pillows and duvets. The commercial for Auping, made by Selmore, very clearly communicates this message. We especially like the music that adds so much to the cinematograpic quality of it. Interesting is that the commercial is distributed through internet only. A relative cheap way of course to buy media attention. That is, if it has enough viral power. In other words, is it funny enough? One of the comments on the Amstel Pulse commercial that we posted earlier, puts it quite well; “viral-funny should have pretty high standards and this is merely TV-funny”. On the long term it might get a satisfying amount of views, but we doubt if it will burst. Then again, maybe it doesn’t have to…
Update: The ‘viral’ is also broadcasted on TV, we were kindly told by Selmore Lynx (the digital sister of Selmore). In that case, all the online attention is simply a nice little extra. Although, bear in mind that seeding also costs money.
Achtung! won both the jury’s and the people’s Webby with its banners for Volkswagen. The banners are interactive lay-overs that promote different Volkswagen innovations. One of the banners shows a guy parking his car in between two news items. After first bumping into them, the park assist helps him to park properly. The lay-over – most often utterly annoying – could of course be clicked away, but was so tempting that the click-through-ratio was quite impressive. Check the microsite here.
Black Magic Marker won a jury Webby in the Consumer Electronics category. The agency built an online manual, called TomTomSecrets that helps you to learn more about the Tom Tom functionalities that are often not being used. A very smart and at the same time fun concept that could very well be used for any electronic device with a user interaface! In fact, even intuitive manuals can be left out, if producers of consumer electronics start to realize that with intuitive navigation we don’t have swear at our gadgets anymore. And that’s no rocket science when you realize how profoundly most Apple users love their products – and the brand…
Update: We forgot to mention – shame on us – that BMM also won a Honoree for an online museum about the first five days of World War II in the Netherlands. In this museum one can listen to the old radio broadcastings, read the newspapers, listen to eyewitness stories and even see planes fly over in a 3D environment.
Two Amsterdam agencies won a design award at the annual ADC Awards in New York. Mainstudio won a golden ADC Cube for restyling Mark Magazine (click on picture to see more pages), a magazine on contemporary architecture. And Wieden+Kennedy won a bronze Cube for the beautifully illustrated Nike Women book: ‘Here I am Stories’ – and also for Nike a bronze cube in the category print. A (small) compliment for our design scene, but a disgraceful score for the ‘capital of advertising’. How come? One of the reasons is that only a few Amsterdam agencies submitted their creative work to the New York festival of art directors. And when you realize how expensive it is to compete in all the international award shows, you can imagine why.
