Here’s another example of Vodafone’s ‘Life Insights’ campaign  – made by THEY. A campaign that revolves around insights on mobile phone usage. With these insights Vodafone creates products that match its different consumers. Last time we showed an ad that talked about accidentally sending text messages to the wrong person (read: sending dirty text messages to your grandma). This time we see a lady that angrily throws a glass of wine in your face. Why? Because 107.440 Dutch men (only men!) check sports results on their phone during a date. How rude! Although emptying a glass of wine because of that certainly isn’t normal behaviour either. In fact, if that happens, you know straight away that a relationship with this person is probably not such a good idea. So thanks to Vodafone’s thorough research, we can now get a mobile contract that allows us to find the right partner. We still like the design of these ads, for that matter.

There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.

First of all, please tell us a little about yourself

I’ve lived in Amsterdam for a little over 18 months. I work as Strategist for Blast Radius – an international agency for digital marketing. I consider myself undoubtedly a well-connected digital guy, so I was already interacting with Amsterdam agency peeps before my arrival here. This definitely facilitated me to quickly get to know a lot of people and also become part of the scene.

Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations. When I came here, I was simply astonished that no formal or informal frame existed for the planners in town. So I decided to create one, together with two planners, Heather LeFevre, who I knew through Twitter, and Wouter Boon, who I knew through Amsterdam Ad Blog. We managed to assemble the first couple of strategists for a Stammtisch – as we call it in Germany – which is a regular pub meet & greet. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Gerald orders a fresh orange juice and salade Niçoise]

Though I try not to be stereotypical German myself – if such a thing exists – there is one thing Germans like; clubs and associations

Why did you find it necessary to establish an APG Netherlands?
Because planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry. Other job profiles are much more standardized; there are countless trainings and guilds for design, but hardly any for strategists. Plus, most of them have very exotic backgrounds; I studied Political Sciences and Literature for instance, and used to work as a copywriter for seven years. That’s not even extreme. Each person in this informal professional group can work better as part of a group of likeminded people. But the actual day job of a planner is very different depending on whether he calls himself a Brand Strategist, a Media Strategist, a Connection Planner or whatsoever. Additionally, differences can be found in a Dutch and Non-Dutch background. So we can learn a lot from each other.

Planners are an endangered, diverse species, yet they are more important than ever as they carry the lion’s share of the change in our industry

The idea behind the APG Netherlands is to create a forum for everyone that considers him or herself Planner. Hopefully it will become something that helps us to network as well as learn from one another. We should appreciate the fact that our job is about learning and about generating insights. Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all!

Who are the founders of APG Netherlands?

We are a group of seven people now that bring all the facets of planning together; media, integrated, and digital. We are also a wide range of nationalities; Dutch, American, English, and German. It was certainly not intentional to create such a balanced mix, but I guess this proves my earlier point about the diversity of backgrounds. So far, we get along very well and every now and then we even make decisions in between our discussions… [Hensel laughs out loud]

Since strategists are a curious bunch by nature, I cannot imagine any strategist that wouldn’t be interested. In fact, a strategist that is not eager to learn something is not a strategist at all

Apart from me there is: Heather LeFevre, former SD at Strawberry Frog and since very recently freelancing; Wouter Boon, also freelancing as Boon Strategy; my colleague Simon Neate-Stidson from Blast Radius; Laurence Parkes from AKQA; Boris Nihom from They; and Laura van den Boom from FHV/BBDO.

What was the theme of the first meeting at Strawberry Frog?

This was about one of the core elements of any Strategist’s job: where, as individuals, do we get our insights from – or at least, where do we pretend to get them from? [Hensel smiles] In other words, what has inspired us to write certain creative briefs.

How did it go?

I think it went extremely well. Thanks again to our friends from Strawberry Frog who provided just the perfect location for such an event. All of us were a bit anxious if there would be enough people interested. But it turned out to be busy with about 80 Strategists attending. We viewed some great presentations. The feedback supported my perception that the first event was a success.

And the key thing for me was; it didn’t feel like a professional club. It felt like hanging out with a lot of smart people with many things to talk about, and that’s great, isn’t it?

When is the next APG event and what will the theme be?

The next APG event is coming soon – it will be on the 2nd of February. The title is: ‘Success by Failure’. It’s about the mistakes we make and what we learn from them. [You can sign up for the event here]

Happy New Year to you all. To stay in the right mood, we present to you this film about Champagne. A nice slow motion of a bottle of Champagne being uncorked – in reverse. Not the most original idea ever, but pleasant to watch with Vivaldi in the background and likely to make the viewer thirsty. What makes less sense is that the film was made for Lidl, known as one of the cheaper supermarket chains – and recently in the news again for treating its personnel like rubbish, for that matter. Promoting a cheap Champagne (with ditto label and price) for a cheap supermarket in a relatively stylish way feels like a contradiction. But that’s the whole idea – recently we also saw Zeeman being promoted on the catwalk. The film is part of a more integrated campaign with a print ad featuring a Dutch chef, Ramon Beuk, promoting the Champagne in Dutch glossy Linda; “The best tasting Champagne for an incredibly low price. Where to get it?!” With a QR code in the Linda readers were directed to a dedicated page showing the film and revealing the source (see case film here). The concept was created by THEY – who launched their own Champagne brand Zarb a few years ago – and the Champagne film was directed by Bill Tanaka (328 Stories).

When it comes to location based – i.e. geo-tagged – shopping there are roughly two kind of benefits (apart from telling people where you are); either you can proudly tell the world you’ve become the virtual mayor somewhere or you get an instant discount – or both. Now there’s a new web app, created by THEY, that tells you through live data where you don’t want to be shopping. The app that sources Foursquare check-ins and tweets is built to avoid the crazy X-mas shopping crowds. Since it only services a few areas in Amsterdam (like ‘Centrum’ and the ’9 Straatjes’) and most people don’t have the luxury to go shopping when nobody else does (unless they shop online), it seems more of a PR builder than an ambituous project that is to conquer the world. But whatever you think of it; it does show that THEY is thinking forward and likes to experiment.

Recently Achtung! created quite an unusual campaign to communicate Vodafone’s fiber internet; in the small town of Roggel (Limburg) a real race track was laid out around the center, where celebrity Jenson Button raced his Formula 1 car against the locals – who were racing in a simulator. The entire town was involved and a documentary was made of the event. The event was to bring Vodafone and its proposition (high speed internet) as close as possible to the user. To learn more about the story behind this campaign we asked Dick Buschman, MD and Head of Strategy of Achtung!, a few questions.

What did the initial Vodafone briefing say?
Village-by-village rollout of fiber internet throughout the Netherlands is mainly dictated by small local players. For a big international brand as Vodafone it is not easy to enter this market. The question was: how do we get close to our new potential clients? As an international brand, Vodafone is used to think big and push the message, but for this product they could not get away with that. So our mission was to get close to the local community, activate them, and win their sympathy.

How was the race set up?
We chose Roggel, because it is one of the smaller towns in the Netherlands with only 4000 inhabitants. To get them involved we gave all of them a chance to race against Button. We made a selection by asking local clubs (football, orchestra, etc.) to organize speed contests. 10 of them did. Out of the 10 winners, 3 eventually went through to the Formula 1 simulator. The simulator, racing against Button’s physical car, showed an exact 3D copy of the streets.

Logistically it sounds like a bit of a nightmare
It proved difficult, yes, but we also had a lot of fun. A smart move was involving the mayor, who organized ‘hearings’ and actively asked the inhabitants’ participation – I think he saw it as a good PR opportunity for his town. But, yes, it did require a huge team to pull it all off. We started with concepting 6 weeks prior to the race. As the idea involved the participation of the local community, a dedicated team of 6 people worked from Roggel. But the total team was much bigger. A team of Vodafone did the overall planning and coordination. 328 Stories lived in Roggel for almost 5 weeks to make the documentary. Then there was DNA Events, who prepared the actual race, with all the logistics. And, finally, a team of RTL was involved. The total crew was over 60 people.

This is the documentary directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories)

O.k., so you got Roggel involved. How about the rest of the Netherlands?
We published small teasing videos of the local preparing activities on the dedicated website (www.grandprixvanroggel.nl) and Facebook page. Apart from that we were able to make a deal with sports channel RTL 7, who broadcasted the race live on national television. Two weeks later the documentary was released online and, again, on TV.

How did the locals react to this brand circus?
The preparations, to select the 3 local heroes, and the physical Grand Prix really connected the town – and I don’t mean that in Vodafone’s language. What I mean is that the entire town was truly involved and excited about the race; we still receive letters and pictures that show true enthusiasm. That’s how Vodafone instantly became a local friend. And that’s not easy in a small a town, especially when you’re a global brand like Vodafone. But it worked. Vodafone has won a serious market position in Roggel.

I can imagine that. How were the results nationally?
Well, as said, we reached the rest of the Netherlands through online and TV. Both the Grand Prix and documentary reached 2.4 million people on national television. The videos and trailers posted on our website and Facebook before, during and after the event spread through weblogs and reached over 250.000 unique viewers. And the footage that was spread clearly communicates Vodafone’s local touch.

Which town is next to be put upside down?
I am not sure whether this will get a sequel. But we just released a new app for Vodafone, called Appstein; it searches for the Einstein of apps. The campaign targets prepaid callers and tests their knowledge about smartphone apps – normally they do not use apps a lot, since most prepaid phones are not exactly ‘smart’.

Zarb – French slang for bizarre – is a champagne brand brought to market by Amsterdam agency THEY in 2009. The idea behind the brand is that the bottle is used as an artistic medium. In December last year Zarb opened a pop-up store in Amsterdam to show its collection. This year the brand is a little more ambitious by having its new designs exhibited in gallery Joyce in Palais Royal in Paris. 20 different artists were given complete freedom to create their own Zarb bottle. Amongst them Dutch Fashion Designer Jan Taminiau (in pic), Andrea Crews, PP from Longwy (in pic), Chaotic Bastards, Hedi Ferjani, Emeline Piot, Mini Mercredi, Paul Hamy, Deux d’Amsterdam, Nina Naustdal (in pic), Antoine Bouillot and Hanna Hermans (in pic). We’re glad to see that THEY is keeping up the good work.