Normally we wouldn’t have noticed this ad, but since Vodafone has surprised us many times in the past half year by introducing so many different styles of advertising, we wanted to share this one with you. Agency THEY introduced yet another visual identity for Vodafone’s communication. We like the looks of it; it is clean, designy and distinctive. If they are able to stick to it for a while, we would say it’s a keeper. However, we don’t understand it. It says: “325.205 Dutchmen have sent intimate text messages to the wrong person”. Interesting market insight, but what’s in it for us? Is Vodafone going to intercept dirty text messages to our grandmas or something? The bodycopy reads: “However you use your telephone, we have a contract that fits your behaviour. The call+text contract for example. With two times as much text messages. Handy if you need to make up with someone”. So let us get this straight. If you send your grandma a text message saying “Look forward to tonight…I’m horny as hell”, then this contract allows you to send a second text message saying: “I am so sorry grandma, that was meant for someone else”. Is that what Vodafone is trying to tell us? We’re confused. Can anyone explain?
Archive for February, 2010
Vodafone: Dirty text message to your grandma?
Friday, February 26th, 2010Guerrilla fail for Sony’s ‘Heavy Rain’
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Everybody that lives in Amsterdam recognizes the human sized letters that spell ‘I Amsterdam’. So when the A and the M disappeared this week, people noticed that something was missing. Amsterdam Partners (AP) – the agency that exploits the city slogan – reported the letters as stolen. AP even stated they encountered the missing letters on Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay). But it was all a hoax. The letters were replaced by a (big) piece of origami. With this guerrilla action Sony tried to get attention for their new game ‘Heavy Rain’ – on sale as from yesterday. In this game there’s a character called the Origami Killer – hence the origami. The person selling the letters on Marktplaats was called Erik Gilliroam, an anagram for Origami Killer. Do they really expect gamers to buy this game after having seen such an incredibly far fetched example of bad guerrilla advertising?!
Creative Lounge: the big idea in digital
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
We were invited by the VEA (Association of Ad Agencies) to attend the second edition of Creative Lounge on Monday in Pakhuis de Zwijger. The night was hosted by Jelani Isaacs (Brenninkmeijer and Isaacs) and Claire Finn (U-Turn). Guests of the evening were Matthew Atkatz (Riot, digital arm 180), Romke Oortwijn (N=5), Raphael Mazoyer (Asics) and – Skyping in from London – Florian Schmitt (Hi-Res). And this night’s topic was the controversy between digital agencies and non-digital agencies; is digital part of the idea or is digital the idea itself? A promising question, though it did take a while before the discussion stopped to bounce all over the place. We do understand why it did though; there’s no unambiguous answer to the question what the exact role of digital is in advertising. Some big ideas can only exist thanks to the technology behind it, while some ideas merely use existing digital tools to execute it. (more…)
Asics: Technology that frees your mind
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010“Wow….[silence]”. That is what this commercial for Asics, made by Amsterdam Worldwide, did with us. It is directed by Mischa Rozema (PostPanic), a Dutch director specialized in high quality productions that create a magical world. With this ad Asics clearly positions itself as the technical running shoe – away from the other sports brands that mainly talk about the person inside the shoe. And on top of that it reconfirms the meaning of the brand; a sound mind, in a sound body. Other than that is doesn’t need much explanation. And to us that is always a good sign…
Dutch carnival hit is viral for Bavaria
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
This is a screenshot from a carnival hit conceived by Kumpany for Bavaria. Maybe not many people know this, but carnival is quite big in the Netherlands. That is, if you live ‘below the rivers’ (read: in the south). Every year in January/February some odd carnival hits seep through to the North. This year there was this hit called ‘Zachte G, Harde L’. Translated ‘Soft G’ – referring to the accent in the south – and ‘Hard L’ – referring to the male reproduction organ. The hit already has 1.5 million hits on YouTube, which – for Dutch standards – is quite impressive. What’s more, the song was played intensively on 538. And Jos van Oss, the singer, performed the song throughout the Netherlands in local bars and clubs. Only after the song became a hit, Jos van Oss revealed (on SBS Show News) it was a viral for Bavaria. In the YouTube video Jos only subtly holds a can of Bavaria in his hand. In hindsight it’s clear that the video is advertising for Bavaria – Jos for instance pees against the Heineken brewery. For some it will only generate big question marks, but if you understand Dutch culture, it is a hit – both literally and figuratively.
The iPhone. For Everybody.
Friday, February 19th, 2010How Apple closed the technology gap between older en younger generations by making user friendly software
Recently I came across this ancient ad for Remington typewriters. How old fashioned, I thought; “For young. For Old. For everybody”. When it comes down to today’s digital ‘typewriters’ the gap between grey bearded men and their grand children has never been bigger. My dad for example can only use – let’s say – 5% of all the functions that I use on my computer. This problem did not exist in the time of the mechanical typewriter. (more…)
Love note promotes new label Scotch & Soda
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Dutch hip fashion brand Scotch & Soda opened a new flagship store in the center of Amsterdam. And to promote its new women’s label it came up with quite an original guerrilla idea. They attached little handwritten notes with a red ribbon to random (female) bicycles throughout Amsterdam. If you called the secret admirer’s mobile number or sent a text message, you received a message back saying “Just come to Huidenstraat 3-5 and ask for M”. If you followed up the tempting request you received a Scotch & Soda goodie bag. Though a few frustrated singles (including a journalist from Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool) couldn’t appreciate the joke, an overwhelming amount of reactions were very positive. Hats off for Scotch & Soda.
‘Talent translator’ translates talents into jobs
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
This distinctive print ad was created by THEY (and photographed by Ilja Meefout) for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. It says “I can” and then sums up some random talents: “fishing, carpeting, conducting [an orchestra] and calculating”. A strange combination it seems. But as we all know Asian people are really good with fish, calculators and crowds – only carpentry should have been replaced by ping pong or something. Anyway, the message this ad tries to convey, is that the online ‘talent translator’ translates your talents into a job. A great idea. Although we wonder whether people are really too dumb to translate their own talent into a job. What would have been really awesome, if this online tool combined your talents and offered you a job as a doorman at a strip club, if you told it that you’re verbally strong, like naked women and enjoy the outdoors.
Shoptalk: UbachsWisbrun/JWT is back
Friday, February 12th, 2010
A great week for UbachsWisbrun/JWT. The agency won two major clients; both Nationale Nederlanden (insurer, owned by the ING group) and ING bank – the latter after an exciting pitch with three combatants pulling out. The trouble started when UbachsWisbrun, one of the most succesful indpendent Dutch agencies at the time, merged with PPGH/JWT in 2007. With this acquisition JWT wanted to buy fresh, creative blood and put itself back on the creative map. But of course merging two different cultures into one agency always needs some time. And then the credit crunch hit the advertising market. UW/JWT went through a very deep dip. Last year it lost two important clients, Vodafone and Rabobank and shrank to 50 employees – coming down from 188 employees just after the merger. The way back up was the win of the Belastingdienst (National Tax Collector) account in September. And after this week UW/JWT can seriously start hiring again. Whether the agency will also finally make its creative comeback, is still to be answered.
