We’ll forgive you, if you didn’t recognize this as advertising. It is supposed to go viral and made by Pool Worldwide to promote a website (U-Tune) specially built for Dutch radio channel 538. On this website you can record your own song with Auto-Tune, a tool that adds digital sound to your voice. The technique disguises off-key inaccuracies and mistakes and thus allows singers to perform perfectly tuned vocal tracks. Though this film with the famous Dutch clown Bassie doesn’t really proof that point. Anyway, after recording your own song on the dedicated website – ‘Karaoke’ or ‘Freestyle’ – you can forward it to your friends through social media like Facebook and Twitter. The best and most original entries are also broadcassed on 538. What a smart way to engage the consumer and create content at the same time.

After TomTom recorded the voices of Darth Vader and Yoda – among others – this time TomTom has teamed up with Sesame Street to promote its navigation system. It’s literally the same ad concept as the previous virals made with Star Wars, but a very smart ad (and business!) property and easily more enjoyable to watch than John Cleese breaking free. Created by Pool Worldwide.

This is a bit of a complicated one – especially when you don’t speak Dutch. Pool Worldwide made a series of 5 short commercials for ‘De Telefoongids’ (the white and yellow pages) to communicate the header in this picture “You can all find it with the free Search & Find app”. The short commercials – pretended to be made by the retailers to sell their businesses – watched in the right sequence (from left to right) create a story about a robbery. The first one shows a tailor (that sells suits), the second one a party store (that sells masks to disguise yourself), the third one a bag store (that sells Claudio Ferrici bags to carry the loot), the fourth one a van rental (so you can drive through a facade), and the fifth one the security at jewelry shop (to rob). The films are purposely made badly to illustrate that De Telefoongids is mainly used by small businesses. What we do like is that the different films form a sort of puzzle – we can even imagine that the pieces are creatively seeded on the web through banners or something. What we don’t like is that the itchy films make us a bit nervous. And though we understand that the commercials address the user of the app, rather than the retailer, this campaign shows how De Telefoongids looks at its customers – quite condescendingly. And then back to us, the target; do we use De Telefoongids to find a bunch of amateurs? Mmm…

Finally, Amsterdam wins its first golden Lion – in cyber. Nike’s ‘Write the future’, created by Wieden+Kennedy has already won a truckload of prizes, but winning in Cannes, is the cherry on top, of course. The campaign won in cyber, because it used social media very effectively; the film received 40 million online views. And since the film is so impressive, we expect it to win (at least) a golden film Lion this Saturday. Two virals were rewarded with a bronze Cyber lion. The first one: TomTom’s special edition StarWars voices – created by Pool Worldwide and directed by Willem Gerritsen (CZAR). This film will surely also win another Lion at the end of the week. The other viral, was Liquid Mountaineering for Hi-Tec by CCCP – a brilliantly executed mockumentary. Interesting detail; this second viral was also directed by Willem Gerritsen. In design two silver Lions were won. One by Amsterdam agency BrandBase for its pallet project, a unique working environment, built entirely from pallets by Most Design. The other silver design Lion went to Heineken’s STR bottle, a bottle that lights up in the dark thanks to its UV-sensitive ink – created by dBOD and Iris.

We, as a blog, always want to feature impactful advertising. This commercial for TomTom, created by Pool Worldwide, is indeed impactful. Not because it teaches us something about TomTom – if anything, we’ve learned that TomTom is a brand for being stuck in traffic. Not because it is sexy. And not because it’s brilliantly executed. It is impactful, because it teaches us that John Cleese doesn’t know when it’s time to enjoy his retirement (does he need the money?) – it is sad to see that a once great actor let’s himself be commercially prostituted like this. There are some more films with other (less famous) people who also sing Queen’s ‘I want to break free’ in a theatrical way when their stuck in traffic. There’s also a Facebook page, where TomTom begs you to ‘Like’ them and thus to become a ‘fan’. Finally, the campaign also has a crowd sourcing element built in by asking the consumer to send in some other ‘break free’ moments. Let’s prepare for more knuckle biting.

Amsterdam won two Grand Prix in Film and Design at Eurobest in Hamburg, last Wednesday. Wieden+Kennedy was awarded the prestigious award for its epic Nike ‘Write the future’ commercial – alledgedly the most expensive commercial ever made. And for the same film it won bronze in Film Craft. Amsterdam Worldwide earned a Grand Prix in the category Design for the Onitsuka Tiger ‘Tansu sneaker’. Other than that Amsterdam did not do extremely well, we have to admit. In interactive Pool Worldwide won silver for its brilliant StarWars branded TomTom viral. In the same category 180 Amsterdam won bronze for Adidas’ Match Tracker and NRG3 won bronze for an interactive banner for the EA game Need for Speed Shift. N=5 was awarded silver in the category Media with a ‘Live interactive billboad’ – an aggression awareness campaign. BSUR got bronze in Film for MINI’s Flow, Publics won bronze in Print for KIKA, and JWT bronze in Promo and Outdoor with the MINI Christmas box.