Design agency VBAT has won a golden Graphis Award with its retail design for the Dutch SNS Bank. We’re not too familiar with the Graphis award, but the website looks pretty distinguished. And if we judge the design, it does look…uhm…very, very colourful. So we definitely believe that this new retail environment will do a great job in separating the bank from its competitors. It might even be able to make SNS the sexiest bank in the Netherlands – though personally we’d rather go for reliability these days. One thing we would like to advise SNS though; please do create some matching advertising, cause if you ask us what the SNS brand is all about, we wouldn’t have a clue. In our mind, the brand is fairly insignificant.

Insurer FBTO has changed its logo. VBAT, the agency responsible for the new design, explains in its press release that the logo was inspired by a “community of independent and optimistic people that want both a reliable and easy to manage insurance”. The blue in the logo represents the solid base of FBTO and the dynamically coloured ‘O’ the personalized insurance options. The colours are translated on the website by giving the different insurances (health, travel, etc.) a different colour. What do you think?

We are a bit late with this post, but only last Friday did we receive a copy of the ADCN (Art Directors Club Netherlands) book 2010. The annual, featuring the best (as in, most creative) work conceived in Dutch advertising, was accompanied by a little note saying “We look forward to receiving your review in our inbox”. In other words: “Quid pro quo, Dr. Lecter”. A bit cheeky, but fair enough. After all, we were quite happy to receive our personalized (“No. 790”) Limited Edition ADCN book. So to post about it, is the least we can do. The book that celebrates the ADCN awards – including the prestigious ‘lamps’ – is created by a different agency every year. This year the honour went to …, Staat, an ad agency that specializes in design. Though years ago VBAT created a mandatory grid for the book, …, Staat took the liberty to change the fonts into Helvetica and Times. The reason was that the fonts had to fit the concept, which is putting classic bookbinding on a pedestal. And that is why the book breathes craftsmanship; it has a distinguished gray textile cover, is gilt-edged, and has a traditional ribbon-marker. The concept was further translated into a sub-cover underneath each chapter, with a pressman’s jargon equivalent of the chapter itself and a matching photo. So for example the chapter “Print and Outdoor”, is subtitled “Landscape”, with a short explanation. All in all, …, Staat’s concept fits the holy bible of advertising like a glove; craftsmanship meets craftsmanship. Cause when you leaf through the work and see things like Philips Cinema 21:9 , Kit Kat Jesus, and Stanislav, you realise that apart from all the mumbo-jumbo, advertising still thrives best through craftsmanship.

World Cup: Bavaria’s Dutch Dress babes arrested in South Africa
It almost sounds like a hoax, but through the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, we learned that a group of girls showing off their Bavaria Dutch Dress (created by Selmore) were arrested from their hotel in Johannesburg last night. Since Budweiser is the exclusive WC sponsor, no other beer brands are allowed in the stadium. The girls (getting paid by Bavaria) were disguised as Danish supporters when entering the stadium to see Holland-Denmark play. Once they were in, they revealed their sexy dresses and started to draw attention from the crowd. Ambush marketing in its purest form! And ironically, thanks to the arrest this news will travel the world!

New: design agency Ground Floor opens doors
Ground Floor, a sister agency of VBAT – one of the better design agencies in the Netherlands – recently opened its doors. The new agency, managed by Herman Verhoeff, will be specialized in design implementation. And with a unique proposition it wants to cater a market that needs quicker and cheaper design solutions. Their mantra is “faster, better and cheaper”. We’ve always learned that 99% of the service agencies can only do two out of three; quality and cheap (but not fast), quality and fast (but not cheap) or cheap and fast (but no quality). In any case, the message is clear.

Cannes: Massive Music celebrates 10th aniversary in Cannes
Massive Music is throwing its 10th anniversary party in Cannes this year. In this relatively short period Massive has grown impressively. In 2005 it opened offices in NYC, in 2008 in LA, and last year in Shanghai. And the cherry on top of its birthday, as Hans Brouwer put it, is that the agency got elected to create the music for the epic Nike campaign ‘Write the future’ last month.

New York Festivals: UbachsWisbrun/JWT takes home 6 awards
UbachsWisbrun/JWT won 6 awards at the NY Festivals last week; 4 for ‘MINI Christmas Box’ and 2 for ‘Kit Kat Jesus’. EuroRSCG4D (what a name!) and Kong won 2 each for Volvo and Stanislav respectively. Achtung! and FHV/BBDO won 1 each for Public Polo and 8mm Bush, respectively. We really like the MINI Christmas Box, but we’ve seen it used before as a Heineken walk-in fridge box. We’re not sure who was first though. Anyone? Check the entire list of Dutch winners here.

This year Amsterdam is hosting the Eurobest festival, so as Amsterdam Ad Blog we thought it would be appropriate to pay a little more than average attention to it. As you you’ve been able to see in the banner on our website – that has probably become a little annoying by now – the festival will be held on the 25th until the 27th of November. Yesterday the jury was announced. The following Amsterdam Creative Directors have the privilege to judge the best of Europe’s advertising: Chris Baylis, Tribal DDB (traditional); Sicco Beerda, Euro RSCG (jury president interactive); Coen Weesjes, Downtown (direct & sales promotion); Eugene Bay, VBAT (design); Andy Fackrell, 180 Amsterdam (jury president integrated) and Magnus Olsson, Saatchi & Saatchi (integrated).

We came across this 180 viral for Amstel Pulse – the new hip longneck from Amstel. The bottle was designed by VBAT and won a golden lion in Cannes last year. The beer is now slowly and subtly introduced in the Netherlands – hence the viral approach. We had the honour to taste the beer earlier at Boards Creative Workshop and X-Pollination. Although unfortunately the beer didn’t give us any choreographed saliva fountains, it convincingly quenched our thirst. One thing that could be improved though is the bottle top; it makes the beer spill easily and has the tendency to get stuck around your finger.