It has probably been done before, but that doesn’t matter, because this online ad agency (‘Papercut’) simulator is very well executed by real life agency Qi. It was initiated by the VEA (Association of Advertisers) to give secondary school students a peek into the world of advertising. The site takes them by the hand in learning the ins and outs of the advertising process; there’s a difficult client – lingerie brand Guilty – a briefing, a timeline and a team of typical ad people. There are phone conversations, difficult questions, brainstorms, strategic positioning diagrams, sketches, traffic problems, deadlines and client presentations. Thoroughly done and very educational. It must have been a time consuming project! So either Qi got heavily underpaid or the VEA is very rich. In any case, a good way to persuade teenagers towards advertising at a relatively young age.

Last week we wrote about the new FBTO logo, today we share the insurer’s new advertising, created by Only and Qi. Ilse’s voice over tells us how she enjoyed her vacation in Spain with her 4 best friends; they met cool people, went out every night, did some dangerous stuff, and checked out the scenery. A bummer though: mom and dad were there too [end of paraphrase]. The new logo, the kaleidoscopic animation – created by PostPanic – and the catchy score – created by Audentity – give the brand a very refreshing look and tone. And using the distinctive circle from the logo as a brand element in the commercial is also smartly done. The only thing that gave us a small ‘syntax error’ is the radical plot change at the end. The male voice-over: “If you’re world, just like Ilse’s dad, doesn’t revolve around insurances, you should go to FBTO”. As if the record player jumped a few grooves. And we wonder: are there any dads with teenage daughters that have made a hobby out of insurances?

Last Tuesday the VEA (Dutch Association of Advertising Agencies) and VCP (Dutch Association of Commercial Producers) organized ‘Creative Lounge’ – an initiative that brings the creative advertising scene together. The theme was ‘Two worlds of advertising’, referring to the clear distinction in Amsterdam between the typical Dutch agencies that make typical Dutch advertising and the international expat scene mainly working for international clients. One important difference between the Dutch professionals and the expats, as talent recruiter Keith White of Wieden+Kennedy explained, is the fact that the Dutch are used to work from 9 till 6, while the Wieden+Kennedy’s of this world live in a parallel world and often start their day when the Dutch go to bed. There’s  a different work ethic. It helps of course that for expats social life is for the biggest part happening within their working environment. When the question was raised why the international agencies never work with Dutch production agencies, Clair Finn of U-Turn (180) said it was partly due to the lacking service level of the Dutch. White added to this that it’s not just within the agencies, but in general; Dutch restaurants, shops, the service is overall quite poor. Paul Lovoie (Taxi) suggested that you should do your advertising in Amsterdam, while outsourcing the service to the French. We’re not sure whether that’s a wise idea, but without a doubt learned that Amsterdam has to raise its service level.

Source: Adformatie

Two weeks ago, we shared the wonderful walk-in fridge commercial for Heineken. And yesterday we found out that Qi created a virtual walk-in fridge to translate the commercial online. On the dedicated site you can open different Heineken bottles/cans with the pointer of your mouse. Skilfully made and also making us very thirsty. The only pity is that the site doesn’t really match with the TV commercial. So our suggestion to Heineken; next time try to bring the agencies together in an earlier stage of conceptualization.