Since so many World Championship football commercials in the Netherlands are pathetically anti German – the Mannschaft apparently is still an Angstgegner – we decided to post this commercial that asks the Germans to watch the ‘WM’ on ARD and ZDF. The concept, conceived by Ogilvy Frankfurt, is (understandably) a little corny, but the stop-motion film was skillfully and laboriously shot (on HD video) by Amsterdam based André Maat and Henk Loorbach.
A very nice stop-motion film for Fair Trade created by KesselsKramer and directed by André Maat (hazazaH). The copy basically comes down to the fact that when you buy Fair Trade you are “fairbezig” (literally ‘fair busy’). It is clear that the commercial tries to persuade us to buy Fair Trade, but to know why buying Fair Trade is good for you (or your karma) you need to go to the fairbezig website. And there we see a big picture of a monkey choosing Robert Smit’s banana (no pun), which makes Robert win a golden fair trade banana. And that’s where we lost interest. Why not make a website about how Fair Trade works?
Amsterdam directors Andre Maat & Henk Loorbach created this film together with Berlin agency Heimat for the Red Cross to ask people to “give life [and] donate blood”. We have the feeling that we’ve seen this concept before, but since it’s an attractive (and hopefully effective) film anyway, we don’t really mind. Andre Maat told us that the animations were made on a silicon re-production of the model’s head before the actual shoot. Then the entire film was projected on the model’s face and recorded in almost one shot.
Yesterday was a good day. Not just because it was our first day in Cannes and we enjoyed soaking up all its extremes – Le Palais, the sun, the beach, ‘le canard au miel’, and lots of drinks – check out our photo’s here. It was also a good day for Amsterdam, because it won 5 Lions! Two silver lions went to outdoor; Interbest ‘mail stripper’ and the Go Fast water-bike, both to Y&R Not Just Film. At the time, we weren’t too positive about the unattractive stripper, because we doubted its effectiveness. You could say the silver lion has proved us wrong. Two bronze lions went to the radio commercial ‘sexual harassment’ (Publicis) and an Allsecur outdoor ad (Ogilvy). In Media Muse and Starcom won Silver for their 3D Samsung projection. Earlier, on Monday Amsterdam won two meager bronze lions; the Dutch dress for Bavaria in promo – which definitely deserves more in our opinion – and bronze for Boondoggle’s KLM Suprise in PR – in Holland this won a golden Spin (read: cyber) award. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate some gold later this week.
Marketing Tribune just published its yearly Dutch ad agency survey, conducted by Intormart GFK. And because 180 Amsterdam scored so well, co-founder Chris Mendola (right) and Andy Fackrell were asked a few questions about the success of their agency. The results of the survey came from 865 advertisers, who answered questions about the awareness, preference and image of the Dutch agencies.
We were happy to learn that the respondents judged ‘coming up with original ideas’ as the most important feature of an ad agency. This basically means that if creativity is not leading in your agency, you have to change your proposition or your job. On this characteristic 180 Amsterdam scored best with 52% – which proofs that having 32 nationalities on board does induce creativity. The agency strongly climbed on the image ladder; last year it scored only 14% on this characteristic. On ‘enthusiasm’ (would that be hugging the client before selling your ideas?) 180 also scored best. Wieden+Kennedy, another very cosmopolitan agency, is the most trustworthy agency – The People’s Valley and McCann were second and third.
Advertisers with a one-million-plus budget, put DDB, N=5 and TBWA, respectively, on their shortlist for an above the line campaign. Not a preferable position when you realize that the interactive agencies (LBi Lost Boys, Clockwork, Achtung! and The People’s Valley) are gaining territory fast – this of course was already announced by the strongly shifting media budgets. And ironically Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy have a very strong brain position – amazingly still profiting from the brand position they built up in the 90’s.
To us the most striking conclusion of the survey is the image leap made by 180 and Wieden+Kennedy among Dutch advertisers. Hopefully it means they will finally become an integrated part of the Amsterdam ad community. We know from the interview that 180 is working hard on it; the agency is looking for a Dutch new business director, who can build its local business.
With this fantastic idea about global warming for MTV Switch, Ogilvy won a golden Outdoor award at the New York Festivals. Last week we were slightly disappointed with the meagre Amsterdam-score in Cannes (except of course for the wonderful Grand Prix by Tribal DDB); we only won a few silver and two handfuls of bronze – no gold! Fortunately we scored better at the New York Festivals. Although we have to say that their website is so crappy that we doubt the quality of the awards. Anyway, EuroRSCG 4D won four awards – two gold, one silver and one bronze. Gold (2x) was for Volvo – we’re not sure what exactly they made (couldn’t find it on the NYF website), but the awards were won in the categories ‘Art & Technique’ and ‘Interactive’. This doesn’t surprise us, since 4D has won a truckload of prizes in the past years for Volvo already. 4D’s online partnership with Volvo is surely one of the more successful ones in the business. Creatiefteam.nl won gold for DHL and New Message silver for promoting a program called The Phone. The program is an Augmented Reality Game (inspired by the great movie The Game) with hidden phones, assignments and the chance to win a big sum of money. New Message hid some ringing phones in TV and Radio programs, which of course generated instant word of mouth. Simple & Smart. It also won bronze in Cannes last week.
