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.

There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.

First of all, please tell us a little about yourself

I’ve lived in Amsterdam for a little over 18 months. I work as Strategist for Blast Radius – an international agency for digital marketing. I consider myself undoubtedly a well-connected digital guy, so I was already interacting with Amsterdam agency peeps before my arrival here. This definitely facilitated me to quickly get to know a lot of people and also become part of the scene.

Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations. When I came here, I was simply astonished that no formal or informal frame existed for the planners in town. So I decided to create one, together with two planners, Heather LeFevre, who I knew through Twitter, and Wouter Boon, who I knew through Amsterdam Ad Blog. We managed to assemble the first couple of strategists for a Stammtisch – as we call it in Germany – which is a regular pub meet & greet. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Gerald orders a fresh orange juice and salade Niçoise]

Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations

Why did you find it necessary to establish an APG Netherlands?
Because planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry. Other job profiles are much more standardized; there are countless trainings and guilds for design, but hardly any for strategists. Plus, most of them have very exotic backgrounds; I studied Political Sciences and Literature for instance, and used to work as a copywriter for seven years. That’s not even extreme. Each person in this informal professional group can work better as part of a group of likeminded people. But the actual day job of a planner is very different depending on whether he calls himself a Brand Strategist, a Media Strategist, a Connection Planner or whatsoever. Additionally, differences can be found in a Dutch and Non-Dutch background. So we can learn a lot from each other.

Planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry

The idea behind the APG Netherlands is to create a forum for everyone that considers him or herself Planner. Hopefully it will become something that helps us to network as well as learn from one another. We should appreciate the fact that our job is about learning and about generating insights. Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all!

Who are the founders of APG Netherlands?

We are a group of seven people now that bring all the facets of planning together; media, integrated, and digital. We are also a wide range of nationalities; Dutch, American, English, and German. It was certainly not intentional to create such a balanced mix, but I guess this proves my earlier point about the diversity of backgrounds. So far, we get along very well and every now and then we even make decisions in between our discussions… [Hensel laughs out loud]

Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all

Apart from me there is: Heather LeFevre, former SD at Strawberry Frog and since very recently freelancing; Wouter Boon, also freelancing as Boon Strategy; my colleague Simon Neate-Stidson from Blast Radius; Laurence Parkes from AKQA; Boris Nihom from They; and Laura van den Boom from FHV/BBDO.

What was the theme of the first meeting at Strawberry Frog?

This was about one of the core elements of any Strategist’s job: where, as individuals, do we get our insights from – or at least, where do we pretend to get them from? [Hensel smiles] In other words, what has inspired us to write certain creative briefs.

How did it go?

I think it went extremely well. Thanks again to our friends from Strawberry Frog who provided just the perfect location for such an event. All of us were a bit anxious if there would be enough people interested. But it turned out to be busy with about 80 Strategists attending. We viewed some great presentations. The feedback supported my perception that the first event was a success.

And the key thing for me was; it didn’t feel like a professional club. It felt like hanging out with a lot of smart people with many things to talk about, and that’s great, isn’t it?

When is the next APG event and what will the theme be?

The next APG event is coming soon – it will be on the 2nd of February. The title is: ‘Success by Failure’. It’s about the mistakes we make and what we learn from them. [You can sign up for the event here]

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 Epica awards 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…

Paul Lavoie, Taxi, talking about the power of doubt at the Tomorrow Awards

Yesterday we were at the Tomorrow Awards, the award show that is to inspire the industry to innovate faster, as Ignacio Oreamuno explained in his welcome speech. It proved quite a long afternoon – at some point turning into a night – if you take into account that only 5 awards were given away. It helped that the event, held at Pakhuis de Zwijger along IJ river, was sponsored by Absolut and some other hard liquor brands and was hosted by the hyper active Haley Mancini of Boom Chicago. There was also some improvisational, interactive theater by some actors who perform occasionally at Boom Chicago to keep the crowd going, but only at the end of the evening this seemed to pick up – when the bottles on the tables started to empty. The most interesting part of the show were the four speakers leading some of the best agencies in the world; Paul Lavoie (Taxi), talking about doubt as an essential ingredient for great work and showing an 8 minute film he just made about the last two days of Vincent van Gogh’s life; Nick Bailey (AKQA) talking intelligently about AKQA’s many ‘human platforms’; Carl Johnson (Anomaly), announcing his new office in Amsterdam and wisely stating that the digital era needs more collaboration and less ego; and finally Jean-François Bouchard who very entertaingly and convincingly showed how at Sid Lee underwear is the preferred dress and crazyness key. There was one thing that all the speakers seemed to agree on; we live in exciting times. You’d almost forget that there were also some awards to give away. The winners were: Skype in the Classroom, Made by Many (UK); Halo Reach, AKQA (USA); What Do You Love, Big Spaceship and Google Creative Lab (USA); HypoSurface, Mark Goulthorpe (inventor) USA; Les Paul, Google Doodle Team & Google Creative Lab (USA). All cases were, as Oreamuno promised at the beginning of the show, digitally advanced. It was a pity though that there were only Anglo-saxon winners. But since this is only the second year of the Tomorrow Awards, it probably just needs some more time to get discovered by the rest of the world. In any case, we definitely agree with Oreamuno; less awards is more.

Wherever you are in the city, you’re favourite sport should always be with you is Nike’s thought behind this dressed up ad ‘peperbus’ (pepper mill) that can be used as a sports attribute – click on image to see the entire picture. Here and here two more. There’s a URL on each peperbus that refers to a short film in which a successful athlete talks about his/her sport (in Dutch) and demonstrates how to use the outdoor furniture. Another great example of a medium turning into the message. Created by Undog, Goedbezig! Producties, and Centercom.

The first commercial ever in which Nike and Adidas live peacefully in co-existence, we thought. Nope, not true. It is Greenpeace that wants to educate us about these love brands. It’s a good thing that Marco Della Coletta and Zoe D’Amaroclearly (Godmother) can show off their skills while helping Greenpeace in its fight for a better world. But we don’t really get it. That is, we do get that Nike and Adidas are playing with toxic polluters. But why create a brand film – with breakdancers, a Snoop Dog look alike, and a logo that communicates water in Chinese – that makes Nike and Adidas look über cool, if you want to make these same brands look uncool? The e-mail accompanying this “cross media campaign” explained it wasn’t made with the help of any big agency. Well, it’s good to see that the good old advertising agencies can still have added value in getting an apt message across.