Holland won 18 Epica awards – four times gold – last week in Belgrade. It ended fifth after Germany, France, Sweden and the UK.  Our favourite gold went to Kit Kat Jesus. Kit Kat pretended as if Jesus had been spotted in a Kit Kat bar and this news spread as quick as only internet can spread news. We didn’t just like it because we are atheists (or at least agnostic), but more so because we love simple (but great) ideas that generate tons of free publicity. We found it a little odd that this was in the category ‘technique’, but apparently their was no better category available – the category ‘big idea’ would have been more to the point. It was done by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. Heineken’s Walk-in fridge also won gold in ‘film’ – it was submitted by TBWA’s production company CZAR. 180 won gold for Adidas with ‘Every team needs the spark’. And Grey won gold in print for Pink Ribbon.

Source: Adformatie

This BMW ad adverises the new 8-Speed automatic transmission – “comes standard with the 1, 3, and 5 series”. It looks amazingly sexy and feels instantly right. What a great insight; BMW brings out the little boy in us. No further explanation required. And that makes it easily Cannes material. By the way, in this ad you see its full size; the Matchbox version times 43! Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.

A guerrilla make-over to promote Holland’s largest DIY, Gamma’s wallpaper. The pay-off: “Isn’t it beautiful?” Well, if you’re asking our opinion; no this wallpaper is not beautiful. But the idea is though. Created by TBWA\Neboko.

Remember when we used to send digital Christmas cards with a tune inside? Very web 1.0. This is the 3.0 version; a Western Union platform that allows you to perform a virtual duet and produce a personalized music video with Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sunidhi Chauhan or K’naan – at the time of writing not all songs are released yet, for that matter. You upload a photo of yourself, pick an artist, and a song. Then you karaoke it – with the lyrics streamed on the screen – and your personal avatar singing the duet is sent to family and loved ones – together with the money, of course. Simple and sweet. Created by 180.

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…

Yacco Vijn leaves digital agency Kong (N=5′s digital sibling) to become Managing Creative Director at TBWA\Neboko alongside Bas Engels. It was a hard decision for Vijn, but the fact that TBWA has been so consistent in its creative success over the past decade and the fact that he leaves Kong in good shape, made him decide to accept this new adventure. By hiring Vijn TBWA wants to incorporate digital in its DNA, which is different from previous attempts to found separate digital agencies; first agency.com and a few years ago Flow – both attempts failed. When we asked Vijn what he thinks of becoming MCD at an agency known for being especially good in making (Dutch) TVC’s, he told us that ‘digital’ is becoming obsolete: “The term is slowly eroding; when I go to a shop to buy a camera, I’ll ask for a camera, not a digital camera. It’s obvious that it will be digital – everything is. I think the time is ripe to stop putting digital labels on agencies and go for integrated by default“. Wise words. Floris Hülsmann, who ironically enough left Flow last year to join Kong, will be taking over Vijn’s role until Kong has found a replacement.