Some people worship their Nike Air Max as if they are religious objects. The first model, the Air Max 1 (1987), has even reached Dalai-Lamastic status. That’s how Nike and Italian agency Sartoria came up with the idea to ask Amsterdam trendwatcher and blogger Nalden to go on a journey in search of people that still remember how they experienced their first Air Max. On a dedicated Vimeo channel and a Nike Sportswear website, you can watch the ‘IAMI Journey’. We do like the fact that Nike ventures into new forms of advertising and we especially like the tilt-shift, stop-motion videos that make Amsterdam look like a miniature city. However, it’s a pity that the content is somewhat mediocre and doesn’t feel authentic (all Nalden’s friends in the first video wear brand new Air Max). Maybe a serious documentary, based on solid research, about the history of the Air Max 1 would have made better content. But then again, maybe we’re not streetwise enough to fully understand how ‘dope’ this campaign is.
We are very proud to introduce our new visual identity. It is created by Meneer de Zwart. The reason why we wanted to change our previous logo, is that it looked too much like the city marketing logo of Amsterdam: I Amsterdam. We kept the original colours red and black, because these colours represent the Amsterdam coat of arms. The lettering in the logo is inspired by the Amsterdamse School, an architectural style from the 1920’s that is very dominant throughout Amsterdam. Many bridges still display the Amsterdamse School font. With the new identity we’ve also added two new sections to our blog: interviews and jobs. For the interview section we will ask Amsterdam creatives 9 questions about creativity, advertising and Amsterdam. The job section will display vacancies in the Amsterdam creative industry and give tips for expats that (want to) move to Amsterdam. In the next few weeks we’ll start to upload content to these new sections. And there are still some design changes to be made and technical bugs to be fixed, but we hope you appreciate our new design and would love to hear your comments.
Who wouldn’t want to make advertising for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream! A delicious product, a fun corporate identity (using slogans like “if it’s not fun, why do it”) and sexy mission statement that uses terms like ‘sustainability’, ‘prosperity’ and ‘quality of life’. Inspiration enough to come up with a mind blowing campaign, you would say. So Indie is probably very pleased to become Ben & Jerry’s lead agency in the Netherlands, without even having to pitch for it! Indie’s work for Bolletje must have helped the agency win the account, as its advertising for Bolletje breaths a fun attitude from every single pore.
With the BMW test drive – a live, webcam broadcasted, online test drive – we already had a peek in the future of ‘on-offline’ activation. And although Pak de Polo (catch the Polo) seems heavily inspired by the BMW concept, this new Volkswagen campaign by Achtung! brings the idea to a much higher level. During one week the new Volkswagen Polo is driving through the Netherlands and anyone that sees it pass by can simply flag it down and become the next test driver. On the dedicated website you can submit your zip code if you want the car to move into your direction. A computer calculates an itinerary (based on the average of all the submitted zip codes) that is shown in the little GPS screen online. At the same time the co-pilot has little chit chats with the test drivers, making it a real life in-car soap that – we have to admit – is more compelling than we expected. There’s also a car following and filming the Polo, which enables the online viewer to change camera positions (top right corner). TV, Radio 538 and Hyves (= Dutch Facebook) give Pak de Polo extra exposure. Every day the test driver making the most kilometers is the day-winner. And at the end of the week all the day-winners battle each other for the most kilometers. We are really impressed and predict this concept to be the springboard to many more on-offine brand activations.
The Amsterdam Gay Pride is on its way (last weekend of July), so ‘gayvertising’ pops up everywhere. Last week we learned that the Dutch Tourist Board launched a campaign in the US with the slogan ‘Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam’. We hope the Americans will understand the pun, otherwise the amount of visitors might drop dramatically… Today we were sent this very subtle print ad for Suit Supply, made by New Message. “For him. For her”. As you can see, great advertising doesn’t need much words. Gay couples are of course an attractive target group. They usually have the DINK-status and thus much to spend. And since gays invented the metro man – wearing expensive clothes, moisturizers and a little too much after shave – we can imagine why Suit Supply addresses its advertising to this worthy target group. However, just in case, if you are planning to visit the gay pride in Amsterdam, don’t expect a procession of well tailored suits.
As everyone is enjoying their summer holiday, there’s not too much happening in advertising. So we’ll simply share two outdoor campaigns that show some of Amsterdam’s cultural events; a tribute to Alain Delon in the film museum and the international fashion week. For those of you who haven’t heard of Delon, he was the European George Clooney of the 60′s. The poster was created by Van de Jong. We don’t know who made the AIFW poster, but it’s endorsed by I Amsterdam (the city marketing brand of Amsterdam). We assume there wasn’t much budget…
This website for Under Armour reminds us of the K-Swiss website we talked about last April; online video’s of sportsmen talking about their love for the game. No coincidence here, since both websites were built by Perfect Fools. The difference between K-Swiss and Under Armour, though, is that Under Armour is apparently only worn by ‘pro-amateurs’ (a beautiful contradictory euphemism). At least, that’s what this campaign suggests. A tricky strategy for introducing an unknown brand in a strong competitive market where the consumer is spammed with famous football stars showing off their sexy Nike and Adidas football shoes. Another question mark that popped up in our minds, is the fact that (according to the press release) the US brand is specialized in “moisture-wicking synthetic fabrications”. So even if you know the brand a little bit, football shoes don’t seem to be a natural product extension. But we probably just don’t know enough about the brand to properly judge it. In any case, the video’s are quite well made and inviting enough to linger around on the website for a while.
Grey announced yesterday that Hazelle Klønhammer will become the new MD of Grey Amsterdam. Klønhammer follows up Dick Klicks. Klicks moved to Grey EMEA in March and only a few months later he left Grey altogether to work for Tomorrow Design. Though her name sounds Scandinavian, Klønhammer was born in Australia and moved to Amsterdam in 1996 to work for Wieden+Kennedy and has never really left the city. She worked for quite a few international, creative agencies, like TBWA, 180 and Modernista! You would hope Grey Amsterdam’s reorganization is complete now. In May 2008 Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela (once co-founders of the London agency St. Luke’s) were the first hotshots to reinforce the Amsterdam ambitions. They came from Grey London and had been working on the international Fortis pitch with Dick Klicks. After they won the account Klicks asked them to creatively lead the Amsterdam office. They had a bad start when the distinctive clean and graphical campaign (‘life is a curve’) for Fortis was killed after the bank collapsed. Fortis had been at the top of its curve and the sad coincidence was easily and avidly spoofed. Anyway, it’s good that the Amsterdam hub is very important for Grey international and we hope that with Klønhammer on board Grey Amsterdam will find its way to top again.
After having watched this brutal video for Wakker Dier (alert animal) – an organization that puts animal rights on the social agenda – we immediately understood why the agency that created it calls itself Revolver. And although using a sexy stripper together with the pun ‘stripping alive is not o.k.’ might be somewhat farfetched, the message is crystal clear. There’s also a dedicated website where you can also watch ‘real’ stripping (of fish) – not for the faint of heart!
Telfort this week announced N=5 will be its new agency after having pitched the account between Etcetera, Selmore and N=5. The telco worked with Etcetera since 2005, but wanted to change its positioning – at AAB we don’t know what the positioning was, so maybe a wise decision. Taxi Europe will do the ‘below the line’ work. We were surprised to hear this, since we thought Taxi was a full service agency. O’kennedy, former MD Wieden+Kennedy and at the moment non-executive director at Indie and Perfect Fools Stockholm, will become CEO of D&AD. Sounds like O’Kennedy is living the life! Finally some sad news; Cayenne has not been able to overcome the loss of Canon Europe – the Japanese consumer electronic producer left Amsterdam suburb Amstelveen. Unless Japanese agency Dentsu - owning the majority of the stocks – decides Amsterdam is an important hub for Cayenne, the agency will disappear.
