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Archive for August, 2009

The proof of the pudding…

Monday, August 31st, 2009

If you think this great ad for Activia was made unauthorized by an amateur creative, trying to build up a portfolio; you are very right! The ad was made by Anna Komarek – or rather, advertising agency Pink and Poodle, that conceived Anna. The ADCN (the Dutch art director’s club) asked Pink and Poodle to promote the new ADCN website, on which the ADCN members can from now on integrate their portfolio and social media pages. Anna – sexy and ambitious at the same time – infiltrated the ad creatives’ social networks in search of a job. She promoted herself on Facebook and Twitter, using YouTube video’s and a very ‘promising’ Flickr portfolio. And although most of Anna’s followers knew she was a hoax (”too staged”, as someone commented), her job hunt made pretty interesting content. And this of course immediately proofed the value of the improved ADCN site. Wonderful strategy, brilliant execution. Pretty lamp (= ADCN award) worthy!

Domino’s delivers (to) front door

Friday, August 28th, 2009

This guerilla ad for Domino’s, doesn’t need much explanation, except maybe that ad agency Indie wanted to explain to the consumer that you don’t need to be at home to order Domino’s; your front door (complete with door bell) can be wherever you want it to be. Another great translation of the pay-off: ‘Man – Hungry – DingDong – Pizza’.

Nike gets mixed up with Foot Locker

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Footlocker Nike Air Max

A few weeks ago we wrote about Nalden that went on an Air Max 1 journey for Nike. Here’s yet another campaign with Nike playing the leading role. The dedicated website is initiated by Foot Locker and made by AKQA Amsterdam/London. Just as in the Air Max 1 journey, you see quasi-nonchalant video’s with hipsters wearing brand new Nike Air Max and being really cool. We’re getting the impression that Air Max is getting a little overexposed here. And it wouldn’t surprise us if that will shorten its ‘hipness-lifecycle’. Anyway, the consumer can download the different video’s and mix them, just as one of the ‘freaks’ (as Foot Locker calls them) is doing with his Nike’s. Actually, we really like that guy customizing his Nike’s! Why not make a complete campaign out of that?! Design your own Nike’s and if you win, your design will get taken into production! How’s that for user generated content!

Update: October 6th, 2009: Today we were told that it was 72andSunny who worked with Nike and Foot Locker on the campaign strategy and produced the films – “Revolution of You”. AKQA’s role was to bring it to life online with the “mash it up” competition.

Frank pisses in a pot for STD test

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

A year ago we wrote about Vanabbetotvessem’s commercial for SoaAids about Frank(enstein) & Sally needing an STD test. Apart from the wonderful execution, we really liked the metaphor of Frank being built up out of different body parts: “But this could be anyone’s…penis”. Always use a condom, until you’ve done an STD test was the message. This commercial is very similar, though it uses a different insight. Apparently guys are afraid to do the STD test, because of horror stories about devices that have to enter your…well, you know. But nowadays ‘pissing in a pot’ is often sufficient – to Frank’s great relieve.

MVA organizes house crawl

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

The Makelaarsvereniging Amsterdam, MVA (professional body of real estate agents), is organizing a house crawl – obviously inspired by the pub crawl. Especially for young urban professionals a busy job is hard to combine with the hunt for a new house. Thanks to this house crawl, invented by New Message, it is possible to see several houses in a single evening. And you even get a drink and a bite at every house you visit. How’s that for insightful efficiency! And we very much like the design of the sign that will be attached to the houses that join the MVA house crawl. No more explanation required; simply brilliant.

‘Cool’ brand activations at Lowlands 2009

Monday, August 24th, 2009

With the Amsterdam Ad Blog team we went to Lowlands this weekend for inspiration (the festival is infested with sponsors) and fun. Main sponsors Grolsch and Coca Cola did a good job in activating their brands. Especially Grolsch with its ‘Koelservice’ came in handy. The camping crowd could exchange cans of lukewarm (or at Lowlands: warm) beer for cold ones. On the first day of the festival 11.000 cans were traded in – in total the three day festival counted 55.000 visitors. The service is created by DDB Amsterdam and offered at some of the big summer festivals this year. Interesting is that the Koelservice also allows you to trade in your other A-brand cans – though not at Lowlands. We were wondering if in the long term it wouldn’t be smarter to only take in Grolsch. At some point the consumer might anticipate on this by buying Grolsch in the supermarket. Anyway, the activation was preceded by a TV commercial in June and some other activational stuff. It’s striking how much money Grolsch all of a sudden is pumping in the cold beer proposition. As if the brand woke up from a lengthy hibernation and all of a sudden realized, cold beer tastes better, we have to claim this position! Heineken might get a little nervous; the brand has been claiming the cool beer proposition already for years now, with Heineken fridges in Albert Heijn supermarkets, ‘Heineken Extra Cold’ (served at 0° Celsius) in bars and recently by hyping the walk-in fridge.

The other dominant sponsor at Lowlands was Coca Cola, offering Emergency Refreshment (E.R.) with water pistols and massages by sexy nurses (male and female). The nurses also gave away (fake) tattoos with the activation logo (the code of arms with bottle and snake), which to our surprise was a big succes. It resulted in thousands of visitors promoting coca cola on their bare bodies. All in all, Grolsch and Coca Cola can be satisfied. Though they owe the weather gods big time!

Interview: Andy Fackrell

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Fackrell voor blog Andy Fackrell has worked for 180 Amsterdam since 2003. He also worked in Wellington, Singapore and Portland, but his love for the Dutch ‘krentenbollen’ keeps him here. We could call him a specialist in sports advertising, since he worked most of his career for Nike and Adidas. Funny is not his thing; he likes the element of art in advertising. Andy is clearly fond of talking about advertising and, as a true creative, his mind jumps quickly and associatively from subject to subject. Enthusiastically he shares his love for Napoleonic battle scenes, Anthony Gormley’s plinth in Trafalgar Square, Aha’s ‘Take on Me’, Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘The Sirens Of Titan’, Bill Murray in Groundhog Day and that ‘little one lane bridge at Ouderkerk’ – among many other things. To get the full picture, you can enjoy the entire interview here.

Cyber mafia into social networking

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Hyves Stanislav - August 2009

Kong Amsterdam, the digital agency of N=5, built a very smart feature with Hyves (= Dutch Facebook) for the Dutch Ministry of Justice, called Stanislav. A video, with strong James Bond-like execution (the Eastern Europeans play the bad guys), warns in quite a convincing way to be prudent about sharing your personal information online. When you watch the video through your Hyves profile, it uses your accessible data, like name, age, city and photos in the story. The subtle thing about it, is that you don’t realize it is using your profile content, until you all of a sudden see your friends’ and your own photo appear. Interesting detail: Hyves also gave the advertising agency access to the data of hidden profiles, which they weren’t allowed to do according their own terms & conditions – would that be a cyber crime? Anyway, a minor detail when you realize how useful and effective this message can be. And compliments to the government. Usually they make unconvincing, waste-of-money advertising.

Update: (August, 21st) Adformatie reports that the campaign was terminated this week, because of its overwhelming effect. Three million Hyvers watched the personalized video (out of 16,5 million Dutchmen), while the link was forwarded more than 7 million times. Impressive.

KFC inspired by Burger King and McDonald’s

Monday, August 17th, 2009

KFC - What will he choose?

This website was made by EuroRSCG Amsterdam. Through a security camera, you can follow the indecisiveness of a KFC customer ‘live’ – but not really. As if to say, at KFC it all looks so good, it’s too hard to make a choice. If you guess what he will eventually choose, you can win ‘fantastic prizes’. In itself a nice idea. But it immediately made us think of the subservient chicken, made by Crispin Porter + Bogusky for Burger King in 2004. It went very viral and was one of the first great examples of the interactive potential of online advertising. Although the KFC guy is not dressed up like a chicken (he only wears a fake beard) and does not do funny moves on request, it is the poor quality of the footage, the fake perception of live action and the funny ‘highlights’ that it has in common with the Burger King ad. And of course the CP+B campaign was (ironically) also promoting chicken. If you think the link to the Burger King campaign is too farfetched; the website even more reminds us of a commercial from the other big fast food chain; McDonald’s. In 2007 TBWA\Neboko made a commercial with kids not being able to choose at the counter. The pay-off: lots of variation in our happy meals, makes it a tough choice.

Adidas’ Super 7; sports heroes with human traits

Thursday, August 13th, 2009

This web commercial, with Veronica Campell-Brown, was made by RIOT – the digital arm of 180 Amsterdam. The campaign is called Super 7 – after the invincible cartoon heroes – and made for Adidas Running. It features 7 different track and field athletes and their individual ‘super human’ qualities and personalities. The athletes are Tyson Gay, Jeremy Wariner, Blaka Vlasic, Haile Gebrelassie, Christien Ohuruogu, Allyson Felix, Veronica Campell-Brown. Here’s a film with the complete group. The films are typical for Adidas; showing athletes that look very serious and not so serious at the same time. Adidas wants to tell us that although these 7 athletes have the super hero status, they are human after all. It thus smartly combines aspiration with accessibility. Interesting about this campaign is that it looks very much like a TV commercial (because of the production value), while it’s made for internet only. A few years ago, it would have been considered a waste of (production) money not showing it on TV and thus not gaining maximum exposure. But today advertisers realize that you actually save (literally!) tons of money by excluding TV as a medium. And for some people that must be a worrying thought.