This guerilla ad by Indie at Amsterdam airport Schiphol is created for the Belastingdienst (national tax collector). Rare species (or parts of them), like an elephants tusk, Ocelot fur, a Ridley turtle and Barrier Reef coral, are being displayed on the baggage belt as if they are souvenirs imported by tourists. All the packages carry the message ‘Something to declare’? It makes you wonder how many innocent tourists actually bring in these kind of goods. If this number is substantial, it will certainly raise the declaration awareness – if not, at least WFF will love them for it! Indie already did this for the Belastingdienst a few years ago. Back then fake lizard and crocodile tales were protruding from suitcases. Unfortunately this will be the very last ad Indie has made for the Belastindienst, since UbachWisbrun/JWT won this client in a pitch last year. Whatever the reason for changing agency, Indie did a great job in transforming the Belastingdienst in a unapproachable fortress to a sympathetic, human organization. And that is a big accomplishment!

It always feels a bit awkward when a government is trying to speak youthful – or worse, with a ‘rappy’ tone of voice – to teenagers. Especially when communicating that you shouldn’t use a knife in personal conflicts, but your voice; ‘spreekwapens’ (speaking weapons) instead of ‘steekwapens’ (pointed weapons) – making a good pun in Dutch. A bit of a Catch22 from a communication perspective; if the target is willing to engage, it’s probably not the target. And those who are the target are probably not willing to engage – they just see it as a rap video, at best. The reason why we posted it anyway, is that we like the technique that is being used for the 360° video; you can actually turn your viewpoint around with your pointer and see Sticks and Rico (from Opgezwolle and Fakkelbrigade) rap into the camera and skateboarders and BMX’ers perform tricks in a skate park – a form of navigation that we all know from gaming, but is not yet very often used in advertising. On the YouTube site the target can upload a self-made ‘spreekwapen’ (read: video). Created by JWT Amsterdam and produced by Electric Zoo.

Photo: Maurice Mikkers
The biggest winner last night at the ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) awards was Lemz. All the ‘bulbs’ – of which one was a Grand Prix (the very best integrated work) – went to their Fireworks campaign. Our very favourite campaign of the year Domino’s Pizza Pepperoni by Indie won one Golden and two Silver bulbs (TV, internet and activation) – in our opinion it was at least as good as Lemz’ work. Wieden also won one Gold and two Silver for Heineken’s ‘The making of The Date’ (internet, TV, and activation). Selmore won Gold for Bavaria and Hugh Heffner – so we can be sure that Charlie Sheen will also win Gold next year. We were a bit surprised that N=5 won Gold for Telfort – not really our taste. Y&R won one Gold and two Silver for LG’s ‘smart thief‘ (internet, TV, and viral). A bit strange that alle these films are winning different prizes for the different channels through which they are broadcasted – does the channel matter? Another one of our favourites was Hema’s with a push-up bra in print, promoted by a male model, going viral big time – by Doom & Dickson. It won Gold and Silver. Note: Hema is one of the most down to earth department stores in the Netherlands. TBWA won Gold with its print campaign for DIY chain Gamma; free Lego – “Just like dad.” In Interactive Tribal DDB won Gold and Silver for ‘Obsessed with Sound’ for Philips. One of the most impactful commercials of the year by Publicis for ALS won Silver – “I have died by now.” Special bulbs went to Mischa Rozema (for directing OFFF), Christian Borstlap (art direction and illustration, for LV and Mr Porter), and Simon Warner (photgraphy, for Octopus).

Dutch insurer Nationale Nederlanden introduces the damage manager. He (or she) makes the handling of your damage cases so personal that you’ll easily build up a special relationship – “Hey, Joost, it’s Merel. This time it’s my car.” In fact, Nationale Nederlanden could start a dating platform on the side – “What am I doing tonight?” he asks her. Attractive, well directed, and strategically apt we’d like to label it. Created by JWT and directed by Werner Damen.

Wow, what a nice idea; an electric (Domino’s delivery) scooter that doesn’t say ‘Vroooooom’, but “Mmmmm, lekker” (‘tasty’). According to Domino’s Pizza it is a ‘safe sound scooter,’ but to us it sounds like guerrilla advertising – or should we call it soundvertising? Anyway, conceived by Indie Amsterdam.

We were invited to Digital Dinner at Rainarai, an Aglerian restaurant in Amsterdam. Though the food was wonderful, the portions were a bit meager. And since there was plenty of alcohol, we’re writing this piece a bit hungover. But the good news is that the evening was packed. Achtung!’s Dick Buschman did the introduction, explaining that Emerce initiated the event to connect with the Dutch creative industry. The organization (Achtung!, Bert Hagendoorn, and Pop The Campaign) then asked Creative Social to select some interesting speakers. Marc Chalmers (Perfect Fools), founder of Creative Social explained how members of Creative Social have to introduce theirselves; they have to show what they are working on and finish their presentation with the words “That’s me that is.” So we had the honor to witness the introduction of the 10 new Creative Social members.

Some of the new members showed a case film, which made things paradoxically a little less personal. That’s probably why the person we remember best didn’t need a voice over to introduce himself; James Cooper, Chief Innovation Officer at JWT New York, presented the first ‘bad ass’ ping pong clothing brand, called Thompson Punke. He loves ping pong, but hated the fact that there are no cool ping pong clothing brands. Not very digital, but very funny. Anders Gustafsson, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, shared his Chevrolet Sonic campaign which was launched during the Super Bowl with the OK Go clip. In the next stage the Sonic is doing stunts, like bungee jumping, and the online community gets initiate the stunts by Liking them. Achtung! shared its Volkswagen Fanwagen case, a virtual VW Minivan turned into a real life ‘wagen’ – here’s the very smooth animated casefilm. Volkwagen’s briefing was; give us 30.000 Likes. Thanks to the Fanwagen VW is now the no.1 Dutch car brand on Facebook. Another new member, Cris Baylis from Tribal DDB, shared what seemed to us the most techy concept; ‘Obsessed by Sound’. A website for Philips that took Tribal a full year to build and allows you to single out any of the 51 members of the Metropole Orchestra. The other new Creative Social members are Sam de Volder, These Days; Tony Högqvist, Perfect Fools; Liz Sivell, Start JudgeGill; Alessandra Lariu, She Says; Rogier Vijverberg, SuperHeroes; Sam Ball, Lean Mean Fighting Machine. Thanks, Digital Dinner, for inviting us, an inspiring night it was!