New Message came up with this idea – hidden letters, visibale on an airport scanner in a briefcase – to help Shield Security find new security employees at Schiphol; “Wanted: experienced security personnel”. Quite an expensive way of advertising it seems; every single message will cost Shield Security a flight ticket. But since the conversion rate will be a lot higher than when you shoot with hail through mass media, it might turn out cheaper in the end. Trojan-horsevertising is not new. We guess the first agency to use it, was TBWA\Neboko with its ‘Quit&Join’ campaign in 2006. It hired professional window cleaners to clean the windows of the biggest agencies in town, while wearing t-shirts showing the different vacancies. In 2008 agency 2010 found a new DTP colleague by delivering a free Abode CS4 (misspelled on purpose) software package – with the vacancy hidden inside – at the doorstep of the best Amsterdam agencies. Another agency – of which we don’t know the name – paid agencies €1 and communicated in the transfer subject that it was looking for a financial colleague with ‘eye for detail’. So Trojan-horsevertising is not completely new, but it is always impactful, effective and a good way to generate PR.

We’ve always found it difficult to understand alien humor. Especially the kind that comes from the planet Comedy Central. Making holes in the earth; that’s ridiculous! Here’s another one talking about trying to get Schwarzenegger back on earth (?). And it doesn’t help that these creatures look like a scruffy version of ET, drink beer all the time and burp in their speech. The campaign consists of five commercials, of which one is a short film that will be shown tonight on Comedy Central. In this skillfully made long form film one of the bad mannered aliens borrows the body of ‘John from Burlington’ for a year, changes his job, stocks his fridge with cans of Budweiser and gets his white trashy neighbor pregnant. That is pretty funny – even for our Earthy standards. It could easily be a pilot for a new TV series. The campaign is created by John Doe and directed by Hein Mevissen. Through its long lasting relationship with MTV John Doe has specialized itself in making absurd channel bumpers. And since Comedy Central is a MTV Networks brand, that’s probably how they ended up replacing Comedy Central’s bankrupt agency Modernista! Great campaign that has lots of mileage and will easily build Comedy Central as a loveable brand.

In the 90’s FHV/BBDO was Amsterdam’s flagship advertising agency – only working for the biggest brands around. Today any kind of client will do, even if it is a sex cinema in the dodgy Red Light District, called Venus. And since retro is still the trend, Venus decided to buy some 8mm vintage porn. FHV came up with this poster to advertise it. For those who long for the ‘good old times’ when porn actresses (or all women, for that matter) were still wearing genital hairdo’s – instead of today’s hairdon’ts. The triangle shaped bush was built up from – et voila – 8mm film. Nice one – the concept, that is, not the hairdo.

First we thought about not showing this website. We think it’s corny and it embarrasses us a little. Even if you ask a cool character with smoky voice and countless tattoos to sing ‘Happy 2010′, it’s not cool. But then we realized it advertises Amsterdam – or at least, that must have been the objective. And if your blog is called Amsterdam Ad Blog, it’s not something you can ignore. It was made by Amsterdam agency Beyen Meyer. We preferred their Queen’s Day poster.