This picture was sent to us by one of our avid commenters known as ‘Bernbach’. He wrote to us: “I always wonder what this Amsterdam police sign means. Are they trying to sell us deodorant?”. It made us think of DNAge, a Nivea skin care product that supposedly prevents your skin from getting older. Though this spray doesn’t protect your skin; it says it’s way more effective; it protects the whole neighborhood. From getting older? How? We don’t really know, but in any case it doesn’t smell as good as most deodorants. That guy (or girl?) is clearly not happy with it.

Draftfcb will be the sole lead agency for Beiersdorf – owning personal care brand Nivea – as from January 1st 2011. The agency won a lengthy international pitch with among others TBWA\. For Draftfcb the pitch was led by international Chief Creative Officer Jonathan Harries and Amsterdam based ECD Dagan Cohen. For years both Draftfcb and TBWA\ were working on different Beiersdorf brands/products, which didn’t exactly create a situation of strategic and creative coherence. This should now change.

180 Amsterdam has made a series of new hires. From left to right in the picture: First of all Ben Hartman and Neil Durber from Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe London joined the agency. They will primarily work on 180’s newest account DHL. To further reinforce the creative department, creative David Chalu is also joining the agency as Senior Copywriter – he came from McCann Erickson London. Earlier this year, in September, Galen Graham was appointed as Creative Director – coming from DDB Chicago.

The Nivea Sun app – created by Muse and app builder Ice Mobile – provides the consumer with up to date news about UV radiation. The app combines your GPS location, time of day and skin type, to tell you how long you can stay in the sun with a certain type of SPF. In fact, it will give you a notification when you have to get out of the sun. Though we would expect this kind of brand utility to be created specifically for the Australian market – where 1 out of every 3 persons is diagnosed with skin cancer at some point – it’s a pretty smart way to become the expert in ‘protection’. The only problem might be that it’s a little too innovative for Nivea Sun’s core ‘utility’ target – mother’s with young children? We also have to mention that it made us immediately think of SSSS&Orchestra’s Sun Radar – a brand utility that tells you which ‘Wieckse Witte’-serving terraces are sunny. But advertising is an incestueus industry anyway, so let us praise Nivea for not choosing the obvious road and understanding the added value of a brand utility.