All around the globe Heineken is known for its premium character – even James Bond drinks it.  In the Netherlands however, Heineken is pretty mainstream. Therefore Heineken’s Dutch strategy is to approach men as not very sophisticated creatures that simply like to be entertained. That’s exactly what this commercial communicates. While the girls are waiting to see ‘top models singing on ice’ – a mash-up of all the talent crap TV produces nowadays – the men get very excited by Men with Talent. After the big success of the Heineken walk-in fridge, the beer brand asked TBWA\Neboko to come up with a follow-up with the same kind of humour and the same level of likeability among the target. A difficult task given the uniqueness of the walk-in fridge concept and the amount of awards it won. But we think TBWA did a good job. Just as the walk-in fridge, the over the topness of this new commercial made us laugh out loud – and that doesn’t happen very often. Not very sophisticated, but very entertaining.

To fully appreciate this it helps if you have seen the commercial ‘The Date’ – in which a man takes his date on a spectacular night out. ‘The Serenade’ is a Valentine’s Day inspired follow up. It comes with a Facebook app that allows you to create a Valentine serenade to be performed by the same band that plays the catchy song Jaan Pehechaan Ho in the original commercial – in a personalized way as you can see here. The climax is this Wednesday – on the 9th of Feb. – when Heineken will host ‘Serenade Live’, an 8-hour YouTube event during which you get the chance to ask someone out on a date in an unforgetable way; performed by the ‘Serenade Band’. On top of that the performers will react live to the online audience. Created by Wieden+Kennedy.

A guerrilla make-over to promote Holland’s largest DIY, Gamma’s wallpaper. The pay-off: “Isn’t it beautiful?” Well, if you’re asking our opinion; no this wallpaper is not beautiful. But the idea is though. Created by TBWA\Neboko.

With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epica awards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…

Yacco Vijn leaves digital agency Kong (N=5′s digital sibling) to become Managing Creative Director at TBWA\Neboko alongside Bas Engels. It was a hard decision for Vijn, but the fact that TBWA has been so consistent in its creative success over the past decade and the fact that he leaves Kong in good shape, made him decide to accept this new adventure. By hiring Vijn TBWA wants to incorporate digital in its DNA, which is different from previous attempts to found separate digital agencies; first agency.com and a few years ago Flow – both attempts failed. When we asked Vijn what he thinks of becoming MCD at an agency known for being especially good in making (Dutch) TVC’s, he told us that ‘digital’ is becoming obsolete: “The term is slowly eroding; when I go to a shop to buy a camera, I’ll ask for a camera, not a digital camera. It’s obvious that it will be digital – everything is. I think the time is ripe to stop putting digital labels on agencies and go for integrated by default“. Wise words. Floris Hülsmann, who ironically enough left Flow last year to join Kong, will be taking over Vijn’s role until Kong has found a replacement.

“And it’s a Friday too!”