This ad was made by 180 Amsterdam – and photographed by Carlos Serrao – to advertise Adidas Climacool. There’s not very much to say about it – pretty much on brief, we guess. Except maybe that the press release said the shoot was done with “a slightly retro advertising all-in-camera approach”. We don’t really know what that means, but apparently it made them cut off the guy’s trainer.
Here’s one of several mini films, made by by KesselsKramer (KK) for Protest Boardwear. KK asked different young and upcoming filmmakers to give their own interpretation of Protest’s brand proposition: “Every obstacle to the slopes is an enemy of Protest. Protest exists to help riders overcome these obstacles.” This kind of collaborative creativity, where agencies work together with small creative cells outside their own agency, is becoming a trend. Although the film in this post, called ‘Protest Sightseeing’, is the exception to the rule and made by two KK creatives; Ewoudt Boonstra en Zack McDonald. Other films are called Grocery shopping, Obstacles, Traffic jams and Bad weather. Older films can be found on the Protest website. The reason why we chose to highlight this film, is that the old 8mm footage that was used, makes us think of Erik Kessels’ (co-founder of KK) passion for abandoned photographs. Kessels already made several photo books with photographs that he found at flea markets. We were told however, that this is merely a happy coincidence. Boonstra already made a photo book himself with found photo’s, called Anonymous.
That’s a good question when you see this impressive ad for Electronic Arts, made by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. The combination of poetic copy (“More hugs than a forest full of bears”) and rich art direction make it a treat to look at. The main insight of the campaign is that about 2 million FIFA games per day are played. And that’s a whole bunch of gamers trying to imitate the Rooney’s, Benzema’s and Xavi’s of this world.
Yesterday was the last day of the Amsterdam cross media conference PICNIC. In our opinion the most inspiring event of the year, for giving a mind blowing peek into the future of digital media, communication and interaction. Advertising-wise the main message at the three day conference was: people don’t need advertising anymore (Jessica Greenwood, Contagious Magazine). It is your online (social) network that will tell you what is good and what is not. In other words; one-way communication from a non trusted source will become useless (Gerd Leonhard, Media Futurist). And this means that advertisers cannot buy attention anymore; they have to deserve it. Which will change the role of the advertising agency. Over the next decade, advertising will change into an industry that adds value to brands, by creating entertaining or useful content.
Here’s a commercial, or better, a product shot made by AKQA for Nike ‘Sportswear’ – paradoxically that’s Nike’s fashion label. The shoes are called the Lunar Everyday and the money made on them goes to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. We don’t know who this bloke is, nor why exactly he is running in the rain (does it rain on the moon?), but AKQA did a good job in making these shoes look very sexy.
Since we were getting ‘spammed’ with e-mails from creative professionals from all over the world, telling us that Amsterdam is their church and begging us to recommend them a decent ad agency in Amsterdam to work for, we introduced a new Job section. Twofish, 180 Amsterdam and Achtung! were the first agencies to eagerly accept our very special introduction subscription. So if you’re looking for a job, check out their vacancies! On the job page we also added an expat section with info about Amsterdam news, cultural stuff, blogs, working permits, etc. Any feedback on our new job section is welcome.
This commercial by THEY for Vodafone, is the talk of the (advertising) town at the moment. No wonder, the mutated guinea pigs are kind of odd. But we think it’s very brave of Vodafone to adopt such a distinctive ad property and respect THEY for being able to sell it. And since it is always hard to judge a completely new concept, we can only say we didn’t expect it from Vodafone. It is actually a campaign we would expect from a completely new player in the market – that needs to build up awareness in a short time – or one with a niche target. The brand proposition ‘Power to you’ sounds a bit like marketing talk. On the other hand, it should give a creative agency enough inspiration to come up with an ‘empowering’ campaign. And the phrase ‘life is too short for hasty calls’ seems illogical (we always keep our calls short for the same reason), but makes sense when used in different ways – ‘Life is too short to search for Wifi’ etc. The campaign is accompanied by a set of banners, made by Achtung! And there’s also a ‘Power to you’ website (also made by Achtung!) dubbed ‘Upgrade a stranger’. Complete strangers, filmed with a hidden camera, can win different gadgets (a mini laptop, a mobile phone, etc.) when the visitors of the website vote for them. We wonder why the mutated guinea pigs don’t play a role in this. You want to push your ad property through different channels, right? And didn’t Vodafone choose for the partnership THEY/Achtung! to enrich the market with truly integrated advertising? To be continued…
This poster for PICNIC, the three day (September, 23-25) cross media conference, was made by Los Design (= loose design). PICNIC is described by the organization as “three inspiring days of ideas, fun and sensory stimulation in media, technology, entertainment, art and science”. We describe it as an event where Charles Leadbeater and Clay Shirky discuss the future of collaborative creativity, while Woody Harrelson gives a yoga workshop. The spirit of PICNIC thus resembles the spirit of Amsterdam; the hottest place for cross media innovation, combined with a high level of recreation. Indeed, not your ordinary PICNIC.
Since we don’t gamble online (or offline, for that matter), we had never heart of bwin before. Apparently it is the number one player in online ‘gaming’ (as they euphemistically prefer to call it), offering 30,000 bets daily in more than 90 sports, available in 22 different languages. Amsterdam based ‘hybrid studio’ PostPanic, created this digital rollercoaster ride – directed by Mischa Rozema. The film, a beautiful metaphorical tour through bwin’s website, was enriched by the cinematic sounds of MassiveMusic. Though the concept in itself is not super original, the execution is a piece of art. In fact, a very expensive one. It makes you realize how much money is being earned (and lost!) in online gambling.
Bystanders always judge the advertising scene as being so vein; there’s an award for every fart being aired. Here’s another one; Advertising Age’s ‘Small agency of the year’! We have to admit that AdAge’s goal is noble: “to help uncover some of the great but not enormous agencies that too rarely get recognition, and to celebrate some of their best work, which rarely seems to make it through the big awards-show machinery”. Amsterdam based THEY became ‘international’ (= outside the US) agency of the year. The jury said that THEY “has both the small-shop creative dexterity that can transform unlikely media into ad canvas and the brand-steward chops to win big pieces of global business”. The ‘Small agency campaign of the year’ went to LA/Amsterdam-based 72andSunny for its ‘Next Level’ campaign for Nike – a fast-paced two minute commercial directed by Guy Richie, shot from the athlete’s first-person view. We wonder whether this award show is the answer to the problem at hand. If Charles Leadbeater is right in predicting that boulders will become pebbles over the next decades – meaning that the amount of small agencies will increase strongly at the expense of the big ones – the better solution is to make the international awards shows cheaper and thus more accessible. Then every fart, regardless the size of its agency, has the same chance to get awarded.