What an inspiring day, yesterday at the second Boards Summit Europe in Amsterdam, at the Beurs van Berlage. The day started with Jeff Kling’s (W+K) opening notes. With his eloquence and smart sense of humour he once more proved how he’s one of the best copywriters on the planet. Then Ed Ulbrich of Digital Domain talked about the remake of Tron, a very interesting example of building transmedia content prototypes. Cindy Gallop energetically took us on a rollercoaster ride through her vision on the future of advertising – entertaining and insightful at the same time. Charming Tali Krakowsky from the brand new agency Apologue presented a bunch of innovative and arty forms of communication. Scott Prindle from Crispin Porter + Bogusky talked a little on how the agency technologist (basically the geek that has embraced agency life) positively influences the continuity of digital platforms. Examples: CP+B’s Old Navy’s online and interactive coupon leaflet and Twelpforce, a merger of America’s Best Buy, Twitter and the best CRM imaginable. Then Richard Gorodecky (Amsterdam Worldwide) and Seyoan Vela (Grey) gave us some food for thought with an insightful story on ignorance as a Boon and a provocative story on positivity sucking, respectively. Philips and DDB subsequently presented the new Philips commercial that convincingly says ‘There are millions of ways to tell a story. There’s only one way to watch one’. Gary Raucher (Head of Marcom at Philips) explained that last year’s multi-prize-winning Carousel completely changed Philips’ attitude towards advertising. And the day ended with a very snappy series of Pecha Kucha styled presentations by an impressive panel of international agency leaders. A more elaborate story on the most important insights we took home, will be published later. Here are some impressions of the summit.

There are days that Amsterdam strongly feels like the international capital of advertising. Today, for example, with Boards Summit Europe being held in Amsterdam and bringing the crème de la crème of advertising together in the Beurs van Berlage. Then we’re also very happy to hear that Adformatie last week announced a few new international agencies that chose Amsterdam for opening new offices. First of all Strawberry Frog. The agency split up two years ago, and separated itself in Scott Goodson’s Strawberry Frog New York – that already existed – and Amsterdam Worldwide, lead by Brian Elliot. Maybe it was because Amsterdam WW is doing so incredibly well in Amsterdam that Strawberry Frog decided to re-open offices in Amsterdam. Hans Howarth founder of Media Catalyst was asked to lead the Amsterdam office. Then there is Iris International, an independent agency network that was founded in London in 1999, also feeling the Amsterdam attraction. Another aspiring title in the market, LBi International, will move its head office from Stockholm to Amsterdam soon – a consequence of the recent merger with Bigmouthmedia. And, as Adformatie put it vaguely, it is said that yet another big cross media agency will open its doors soon in the Dam. If this is the sign that the recession is over for Amsterdam advertising, then we’ll definitely hoist some Heinies at Boards Summit Europe tonight!

This trailer promotes the March issue of Boards Magazine dedicated to Innovation. The Canadian magazine on international commercial production asked Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille of Nexus Productions to develop an interactive cover to articulate this month’s theme. The result is Rise and Fall; an augmented reality (AR) webcam experience. By holding the magazine cover up and down in front of your webcam, a story unfolds that rises with the birds or falls down into the ocean with the fishes respectively, accompanied by little cryptic text cues. Amsterdam based MOST was responsible for the sound effects – that clearly contribute to the arty interactive experience. The technique of using the webcam for AR advertising is becoming more and more popular. Recently we saw an impressive AR Adidas Originals sneaker ad, made by Sid Lee Montreal/Amsterdam – here’s the teaser. For those of you that don’t have this month’s Boards issue, here’s a demonstration by Theo Watson himself. And if you want to see a live demonstration, and a peak behind the scenes, you should visit the upcoming Boards Summit Europe in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam on March 24.