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.

This graphically inviting game called ‘Hitchhike with a like’ was created by Tribal DDB and Facebook. It let’s you hitch rides through Europe to different destinations with different Volkswagen Beetles. Though the copy teaches us that it’s about the journey and not the destination, the game doesn’t really show the journey. It simply tells you how many points you’ve earned after you’ve reached your different destinations. If you travel long enough, you can win a Beetle trip across Europe. Oh, and there’s also a ‘mojo’ meter that slowly runs on empty. Only by sharing your trips on Facebook you can recharge it. And that’s where Volkswagen’s briefing peeks around the corner: “Wir wollen Facebook Likes, und schnell!” As usual we weren’t patient enough to sit out the entire game, but we’re sure that if you do there’s champagne and fireworks – and if you’re lucky a grand prize. The game was produced by B-Reel, the 3D animations built by Prime Focus, and the different tunes accompanying each trip created by Massive Music.

We were invited to Digital Dinner at Rainarai, an Aglerian restaurant in Amsterdam. Though the food was wonderful, the portions were a bit meager. And since there was plenty of alcohol, we’re writing this piece a bit hungover. But the good news is that the evening was packed. Achtung!’s Dick Buschman did the introduction, explaining that Emerce initiated the event to connect with the Dutch creative industry. The organization (Achtung!, Bert Hagendoorn, and Pop The Campaign) then asked Creative Social to select some interesting speakers. Marc Chalmers (Perfect Fools), founder of Creative Social explained how members of Creative Social have to introduce theirselves; they have to show what they are working on and finish their presentation with the words “That’s me that is.” So we had the honor to witness the introduction of the 10 new Creative Social members.

Some of the new members showed a case film, which made things paradoxically a little less personal. That’s probably why the person we remember best didn’t need a voice over to introduce himself; James Cooper, Chief Innovation Officer at JWT New York, presented the first ‘bad ass’ ping pong clothing brand, called Thompson Punke. He loves ping pong, but hated the fact that there are no cool ping pong clothing brands. Not very digital, but very funny. Anders Gustafsson, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, shared his Chevrolet Sonic campaign which was launched during the Super Bowl with the OK Go clip. In the next stage the Sonic is doing stunts, like bungee jumping, and the online community gets initiate the stunts by Liking them. Achtung! shared its Volkswagen Fanwagen case, a virtual VW Minivan turned into a real life ‘wagen’ – here’s the very smooth animated casefilm. Volkwagen’s briefing was; give us 30.000 Likes. Thanks to the Fanwagen VW is now the no.1 Dutch car brand on Facebook. Another new member, Cris Baylis from Tribal DDB, shared what seemed to us the most techy concept; ‘Obsessed by Sound’. A website for Philips that took Tribal a full year to build and allows you to single out any of the 51 members of the Metropole Orchestra. The other new Creative Social members are Sam de Volder, These Days; Tony Högqvist, Perfect Fools; Liz Sivell, Start JudgeGill; Alessandra Lariu, She Says; Rogier Vijverberg, SuperHeroes; Sam Ball, Lean Mean Fighting Machine. Thanks, Digital Dinner, for inviting us, an inspiring night it was!

Last year we were invited to the Digital Podge, an informal get together of digital minds. Now there’s yet another digital dinner in Amsterdam, held on the 21st of March, literally called ‘Digital Dinner’. It is organized by Emerce, Achtung! (that also initiated the Dutch Podge), Bert Hagendoorn, and our colleagues from Pop The Campaign. What is different from the podge is that there will be some great speakers from here and abroad sharing their work and experiences in digital creativity. The evening, moderated by Dick Buschman (Achtung!), will be enlightened by – among others – Anders Gustafsson (CD at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners), James Cooper (Innovation Officer at JWT), Tony Högqvist (Founder of Perfect Fools), and Sam Ball (Creative Partner at Lean Mean Fighting Machine). The complete list of speakers (partly selected by Creative Social, another organizer of digital get togethers) can be found on a very nicely designed website – see also screenshot above. The bad news is that the evening is for the largest part invite only. The good news is that we’ll share what we learn and, more importantly, that as from Monday there is a small amount of tickets publicly available – €250 a piece. We recommend to put up a tent in front of the website.

Chances are we’re going to have an ‘Elfstedentocht’ (Eleven-town-tour) next weekend; a 200 km ice skating tour through the province of Friesland. What’s unique about the tour is that on average it’s only held once every 7 years. The reason is that the ice needs to be at least 15 cm thick along the entire track to be able to hold an impressive amount of 15.000 contestants passing it during the race. The entire country – or rather all lazy media for whom this topic is an easy catch – are in anticipation of the “tour of tours”. And since hot chocolate is the most popular drink sold on the ice for (recreational) ice skaters, Chocomel is working overtime. And naturally its agency Achtung! jumped on the ‘Elfstedenkoorts’ (Eleven-town-fever) with the Elfstedenbarometer app that shows the percentage of chance there will be an Elfstedentocht. The app displays the weather forcesast and, more importantly, the percentage of chance of the tour taking place (this morning 49% – which is not much compared to the amount of press coverage). It’s not the most innovative app ever, but if you’re fed up with all the media religiously and constantly talking about the Elfstedentocht, this is the app for the bare facts. And apparently it’s a winner, cause it’s the fourth most downloaded app in the Netherlands at the moment. Oh, and not to forget, when you tweet about it, you can win a winter supply of Chocomel.

This BMW ad adverises the new 8-Speed automatic transmission – “comes standard with the 1, 3, and 5 series”. It looks amazingly sexy and feels instantly right. What a great insight; BMW brings out the little boy in us. No further explanation required. And that makes it easily Cannes material. By the way, in this ad you see its full size; the Matchbox version times 43! Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.