This t-shirt says “Haha, I am flying for 51 Euro to Barcelona”. And on the back: “And back again”. As you might know by now, we love uncomplicated advertising that communicates a clear message. And that is exactly what this guerilla campaign by New Message does. Budget Air simply distributed these t-shirts among its customers and they did the rest when wearing it on their flight. The brand thus uses its brand ambassadors to spread the word (offline!). Very smart. We do wonder however, how many tourists will actually wear a t-shirt like this. It is not something that makes your fellow passengers smile at you – especially the ones that start with: “you fools!”. But, then again, the kind of folk that loves to go for the cheap kill, just might be happy to gloat over it in public. New Message lives up to its name again; not your standard advertising.
Archive for December, 2009
Nothing is for sure…
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
While new year’s is getting closer and we can already hear the fireworks building up to a climax tomorrow night, this print ad is being spread by health insurer Delta Lloyd. Two weeks ago, we wrote about the ‘official’ fireworks campaign. It tells the story of a guy who’s face is partly replaced by his bum, after getting injured by fireworks. We were wondering then how much useful impact this will have among the target. This is an example of a campaign that actually makes a point. It is created by Lowe/Draftfcb. It reads ‘Nothing is’, followed by braille. If you know the Delta Lloyd campaigns – and we estimate that 90% of the Dutch do – you can easily complete the phrase: Nothing is for sure… (tagline: …for sure Delta Lloyd). And at the bottom left: “Be careful when lighting fireworks”. This will definitely make people aware of the dangers of fireworks. We’re not sure if it’ll sell much Delta Lloyd insurances, but image-wise it’ll do good and we love it especially for communicating so much, while saying very little.
Happy holidays!
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
This is Amsterdam Ad Blog’s second X-mas since it was founded in the summer of 2008. 2009 was great year for us and we certainly hope for you too. We grew in terms of content as well as traffic – this of course often goes hand in hand – and we are planing to do the same in 2010. This year we had a redesign and introduced the interview, column and job section. We have some exciting introductions planned for 2010 that should again raise our platform to a higher level, so we’re counting on you to stay tuned in. In any case, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading the blog this year as much as we did writing it. If you have any tips, creative work, comments or anything you want to share with us, keep sending us your mails, so we can enrich and improve Amsterdam Ad Blog constantly. Thanks for reading us and happy holidays to you all! PS Since a part of the Amsterdam Ad Blog team is leaving Amsterdam for the holidays to visit family and recharge the battery, we will be posting less until next year.
Lead Lion won by Hi (KPN), Axe and Vodafone
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Yesterday we were talking about the Golden Loeki. Today we are talking about the opposite prize, the raspberry for advertising; the Lead Lion. It is awarded once a year straight after the Golden Loeki, by Dutch consumer awareness program Radar. The first prize was won by KPN’s mobile phone brand Hi. It’s about a girl that looses her ‘pokkie’ (the Surinam word for mobile phone) and goes nuts – luckily though she saved all her numbers on her Hi-account. In the commercial she screams so loud that it irritated the crap out of the consumer. According to Hi, the commercial did well among the target: 18 to 24 year olds. We believe that, but still concur with the award. An adapted Axe (Lynx) commercial, with a guy that can role his eyes to look at his own sweaty armpits, ended second. This surprised us, it is a pretty mellow ad. Maybe it was the annoying voice-over that didn’t fit with the commercial very well. The Vodafone commercial by THEY that we discussed earlier ended third. Mutated guinea pigs try to imitate normal people and talk a language that no one understands. Interesting detail; in the most recent commercial, Vodafone kept the characters, but changed the voices. So what can we learn from the Lead Lion? Don’t use loud, annoying or unintelligible voices or strange, unattractive characters in your advertising.
Heineken’s walk-in fridge wins Golden Loeki
Monday, December 21st, 2009
In the Netherlands every year the public is asked to choose the best commercial of the year. Not a bad idea, when you realize that eventually advertising is made for them. The award is called the Golden Loeki. Until 2004 ‘Loeki de Leeuw‘ (Loeki the lion) was the bumper icon of the STER, the organization selling the advertising clusters on the public channels; Netherlands 1, 2 and 3. Though officially the prize is awarded to the most ‘likeable’ commercials, it almost always goes to ads that use humour to get the message across – which says something about the average consumer, for that matter. This year the award goes to Heineken’s walk-in fridge, made by TBWA\Neboko. Indeed, a funny commercial. It was very successful this year. It already won a golden ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) award. And internationally it also did well. A few weeks ago it was awarded a Silver Eurobest award and this summer a Silver Lion in Cannes. And that’s interesting. Usually there’s a big gap between what international ad pundits appreciate and what the consumer likes. Not only do the experts prefer smart, esthetical or sophisticated advertising (instead of simple jokes), Dutch humour is often culturally challenged – i.e. nobody outside the Netherlands understands it. So TBWA\Neboko made a very effective ad, it sells beer to the consumer and the agency abroad.
Blindfolded keepie uppie challenge
Friday, December 18th, 2009We already knew that Ronaldinho was kind of alien, but now we know for sure he is from another planet! Even blindfolded he can see the ball and keepie the ball uppie 44 times! Or did the hole in the blindfold – that you see at the end – help him a little bit? The video is made by Wieden+Kennedy for the EA Sports game FIFA 10. It challenges football fans and gamers to beat Ronaldinho and upload the result on the dedicated YouTube channel.
Heineken’s walk-in box for the walk-in fridge
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
What a great idea. 20 of these IKEA style boxes – with a picture of the contents on it – were spread through Amsterdam by TBWA\Neboko. As if someone bought a complete walk-in-fridge. A smart way to refresh the attention for Heineken’s ad property, the walk-in fridge.
Shoptalk: THEY opens office in India
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
THEY is not having too much trouble with the recession. In fact, it just announced to open a second office in New Delhi, India. As far as we know this will be the second Amsterdam agency opening an office in New Delhi – Wieden+Kennedy already has one, especially to service its client Nokia. THEY Consult (THEY’s strategic arm) partner Tjaco Walvis will be leading the new agency. THEY got a foot in the door in India through its client Indira Ghandi International Airport – opening a brand new terminal next year. Roland van der Vorst – head of strategy – told Adformatie it started with a workshop THEY organized for the management of the airport. One led to the other. Van der Vorst sees lots potential in India. Though you don’t need to be visionary to see that, we congratulate the agency for taking the big plunge!
Source: Adformatie
Tits-and-bums humor to make a joke
Monday, December 14th, 2009
‘Shit happens’ is the title of this website. What are they selling? Toilet paper that can also be used to clean your face? Nope, not even close. This ad, made by Doom & Dickson for ‘Consumer & Safety’, tries to explain the danger of playing with fireworks; before you know, it explodes in your face, the doctor replaces your mouth with your own (tiny) ass, and then – of course – your speech sounds like farting. To make the campaign viral, the site has a tool to upload your friends’ photos and give them the same ‘make-over’. It made us laugh. The campaign will easily win the craziest ad of the year, but we strongly doubt the effectiveness. Of course this kind of humor suits the purpose of creating a viral effect and will thus generate a fair amount of exposure. We fear though that the tits-and-bums humor suffocates the message that fireworks are dangerous. In previous campaigns, for example, real victoms were used with mutulated arms, missing fingers, etc, which clearly showed the gravity of the subject. The only lesson to be learned by the target (male adolescents) here, is that it’s fun to make your friend’s face look like an arse. William Bernbach – founder of DDB – already taught us very wisely that in advertising “humor should never be used to make a joke, only to make a point”.
Update: The website was built by Superheroes.
The hunt for Average Joe
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
“In his whole life, Average Joe waits two weeks for a traffic light” is what this commercial is creatively trying to tell us with a guy in his car eating from a can, pissing in a bottle and washing himself in the rain. It’s nicely done by KesselsKramer and should direct people to a website called jachtopjanmodaal.nl (hunt for Average Joe). On this website you can upload a picture. From all the pictures a portrait of Average Joe will be created at the end of the campaign. You can also fill out a list of questions to see how normal you are. And if you’re asking yourself, why the f*** should I do this? Then the answer is: it should make you curious to visit the exhibition Niet Normaal (Not Normal) in the Beurs van Berlage (the same venue where Eurobest Amsterdam took place two weeks ago). This exhibition answers the question ‘what is normal’ from an artistic perspective. Here’s an example of one the striking pieces, called übermensch created by Jake and Dinos Chapman.
