For those of you who don’t know Doom & Dickson, it’s good to know they are fictional characters. That is, except for their photos, of course – we don’t know who these sophisticated (mad)men were in real life. Anyway, since D&D’s building is being painted, the agency thought, why not create a big outdoor ad. And the message from ‘Jack Doom’ (the one with the glasses we presume) pretty much speaks for itself.
We always thought that Doom & Dickson were two gimmicky fictional characters made up by Amsterdam agency Doom & Dickson. But to our surprise we received a hard covered Christmas story that is not just Doom & Dickson’s client-christmas-card, but also reveals that Jack Doom & Bill Dickson actually started as MadMen in New York. What’s more, the story “How Christmas Came To Be” explains that Christmas originates from the agency’s sketch book. We know, it sounds a little pretentious – especially when you say Coca Cola’s Christmas story is “crap” – but if you read the story – in rhyme – the matter of the fact is that a forester from Maine, called Paul, knocked on D&D’s door – when they just started in New York – and asked them to help him sell his Nordmann trees. Paul could already picture himself a rich man, but he just didn’t know how to persuade the consumer to buy his trees. After a lengthy brainstorm the creative team came up with an ‘Event’, which for that time was revolutionary. “An event with a man in some sort of big suit, He must be an example for men to do good”. So for those of you who thought Christmas had something to do with Jesus Christ; you are all wrong. Christmas is an event conceived by Doom & Dickson to sell Nordmann trees. We agree, a little far fetched (or creative, if you will), but the beautiful illustrations made by Bart Bus and Adri van Geldere make you want to believe it’s true.
This viral for X-Travel made by YoungWorks, won a bronze Esprix award yesterday. A viral that truly deserves its name; it has generated 2.7 million hits until now. The Esprix awards are about smart and effective advertising that activates the consumer. 23 cases were awarded; 8 won silver and 15 bronze – no gold. Just like at the ADCN awards, TBWA\Neboko walked away with the most prizes; 2 silver and 1 bronze award. Followed by Doom&Dickson (1s.,1b.) and Lemz (the interactive agency of the year won 3 times bronze). In our humble opinion, the best concept was created by Selmore for van Gils. The Amsterdam agency created a new icon for Van Gils, a white window dummy that physically proved its tagline; ‘it’s all about the suit’. The dummy showed up with hot celebs at many international paparazzi events and thus naturally generated tons of free publicity. Talking about smart advertising!
