After having introduced our new columnists last week, this week we’re introducing a new item called ‘Inspiration’; Amsterdam creatives sharing their inspiration on a weekly basis. In order of future appearance we found the following posse willing to show us what they like, what fascinates them, or what they admire on a regular basis: Jennette Snape, art director at Dolly Rogers; Jarr Geerligs, art director at Selmore; Joep Beving, creative at Massive Music; Rick de Zwart, designer at Meneer de Zwart (and responsible for AAB’s visual identity); David Snellenberg, copywriter at Dawn; Johan Kramer, director at 328 Stories; Martin Pyper, designer at MeStudio; Reuben Alexander, creative at Buutvrij for Life; and Christian Borstlap, art director at Part of a Bigger Plan. Of course these people do more than just what their often somewhat rigitd title suggests (in art, music, photography, etc.) but you can read about that on their profile page, once they’ve posted their first contribution. Today Jennette Snape kicks off with an art piece she created herself. The title is “Inspiration lies in the eye of the beholder”; a nice kick off for this new genre, since it philosophies on what inspiration really is.
If you live in the Netherlands you probably know ‘Artis de Partis’; it’s an icon of the Amsterdam zoo and a cuddly doll for many Dutch kids. Two years ago Artis conceived an alien brother for Artis de Partis to promote Artis’ planetarium, called ‘Artis de Marsis’. The cyclope was a logical step to further exploit the success of Artis de Partis. When Dutchman André Kuipers – a big fan of the Artis planetarium – recently went into space with the ISS international space program, he decided to take Artis de Marsis with him, which led to this wonderful picture of Artis de Marsis in space. On top of this Dawn – Artis’ agency – created a goodbye film, a dedicated webpage where one can follow Artis de Marsis, and a special program in the Planetarium. The fans of Artis de Marsis will soon even be able to make an inflight call with Kuipers live from the planetarium. Engaging advertising in its truest form.
Wow, what a great print ad (click pic = full ad) to explain that you sell “extra strong garlic sauce”. It instantly shows how Heinz’ new sauce scares away all the personal ads in the newspaper: no date guaranteed! Though when you think about it; is the repllent quality of garlic an attribute you’d want to blow up? Mmm. Probably not. Then again, if we’re talking about single mindedly conveying a message loud and clear, this ad is a winner! Created by N=5.
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.
Not really groundbreaking, this banner created by Kong, but way more interesting than your average banner and therefore more effective we’d guess. The banner educates us about using our mobiles as a weapon to identify offenders; “Catch the thief Use your mobile”. We wouldn’t recommend the shopkeeper to use his mobile, cause he’s being robbed with a gun – clearly a stronger weapon. It’s for the bystanders. The banner allows you to move your pointer over the scrambled thieve to make him visible. And with a click of the mouse you can capture him. You could call it practice. We can imagine it’ll help the police, but if feels a little dangerous nevertheless. What if this adrenaline pumped figure stops to direct his fear and aggression towards the person behind the mobile phone? Maybe the government should use this banner in combination with a disclaimer; ‘taking photo’s of criminals might get you killed’.
Last week the Esprix awards were divided between the Dutch campaigns that were most persuasive in changing the consumer’s behaviour. Originally the Esprix was a direct marketing and sales promotion award, but since these terms sounds old school nowadays, the institute changed its proposition – already a few times in the past years. In any case, there were 31 winners. Etcetera and Red Urban (sister agencies, both owned by the DDB network), performed best. They won 5 awards each! Jointly Etcetera and Red Urban won gold for Bol.com – recently awarded advertiser of the year. The Dutch Amazon advertised its study books in outdoor (see picture). Subsequently, a fictional student hijacked the campaign by slapping his own, personal print ads on top of them (“50% cheaper!”), selling his second hand study books on Bol.com. A smart idea, with impact; Bol.com saw its study book sales increase with 15%, and its second hand study book sales with 29%. The other golden award went to N=5 – recently awarded agency of the year – and Kong (N=5’s online sister) for the Ministry of Justice. The message; be careful in sharing your personal details online. Very smartly the agencies created two pieces of content; one ‘traditional’ TV commercial for the parents and one personalized online video, called Stanislav – going viral through social network site Hyves – for the digital generation. Though it seems hard to measure the success of this campaign on behavioral parameters, it surely must have had impact in terms of awareness. Our favourite (read: most original) campaign was ‘Alex, who follows?’ (silver) created by Dawn. Alex is an online broker that facilitates ‘do it yourself’ trading. To persuade potential customers to try it out, it asked its existing customers to share their experiences online – both positive and negative – through a webcam. Talking about transparency of financial services! Here you can find all the winners.
