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.
A guerrilla make-over to promote Holland’s largest DIY, Gamma’s wallpaper. The pay-off: “Isn’t it beautiful?” Well, if you’re asking our opinion; no this wallpaper is not beautiful. But the idea is though. Created by TBWA\Neboko.
Remember when we used to send digital Christmas cards with a tune inside? Very web 1.0. This is the 3.0 version; a Western Union platform that allows you to perform a virtual duet and produce a personalized music video with Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sunidhi Chauhan or K’naan – at the time of writing not all songs are released yet, for that matter. You upload a photo of yourself, pick an artist, and a song. Then you karaoke it – with the lyrics streamed on the screen – and your personal avatar singing the duet is sent to family and loved ones – together with the money, of course. Simple and sweet. Created by 180.
With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epicaawards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…
Yacco Vijn leaves digital agency Kong (N=5′s digital sibling) to become Managing Creative Director at TBWA\Neboko alongside Bas Engels. It was a hard decision for Vijn, but the fact that TBWA has been so consistent in its creative success over the past decade and the fact that he leaves Kong in good shape, made him decide to accept this new adventure. By hiring Vijn TBWA wants to incorporate digital in its DNA, which is different from previous attempts to found separate digital agencies; first agency.com and a few years ago Flow – both attempts failed. When we asked Vijn what he thinks of becoming MCD at an agency known for being especially good in making (Dutch) TVC’s, he told us that ‘digital’ is becoming obsolete: “The term is slowly eroding; when I go to a shop to buy a camera, I’ll ask for a camera, not a digital camera. It’s obvious that it will be digital – everything is. I think the time is ripe to stop putting digital labels on agencies and go for integrated by default“. Wise words. Floris Hülsmann, who ironically enough left Flow last year to join Kong, will be taking over Vijn’s role until Kong has found a replacement.
Fltr: Carl Johnson, Hazelle Klønhammer, Marika Zijp, Colin Lamberton, and Seyoan Vela.
New York and London based agency Anomaly – in 2010 ‘Agency of the Year’ according to Adweek – has just opened a third office in Amsterdam. Carl Johnson, who also spoke at the Tomorrow Awards last week, says the agency opens a second European office so close to London, because “London is not as instinctively continental as Amsterdam.” Hazelle Klønhammer will be managing the Amsterdam office. Before, Klønhammer was group account director at W+K Amsterdam and most recently MD at Grey. At Grey she worked with ECD’s Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela. Lamberton and Vela recently left to Team Volvo and JWT Dubai, respectively. They are followed up by Marika Zijp, who previously worked at MRM and McCann Amsterdam, among other agencies. Zijp will work at Grey along strategy director Paul Sijtsma, digital director Peter Hoekstra, and managing director Patrick Joore.
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.
