Finally! We’ve been waiting for this all summer! But we don’t actually mean the new MINI Countryman. No, we are referring to a piece of advertising just being awesome. Something that is so well made that your rational brain doesn’t have time to wrap itself around it. Your limbic system simply screams: NEED to have. The way that this four wheel driven race monster is sexed up, makes you want to try it as soon as the 60 seconds are done. The only thing we don’t understand is why they’ve added two extra doors. Surely not to be able to squeeze your little baby inside? Way too dangerous! Anyway, the commercial, called ‘flow’, was mostly filmed in Milan and directed by Brian Beletic. It was produced by Smuggler and the visual effects were added by Sway Studio. Check the making of here. Last but definitely not least, the concept was conceived by bsur. The agency won a three-way global pitch last May against 180 and KesselsKramer – all Amsterdam agencies. And when seeing the result, we are pretty confident that it was a fair decision.

Yet another cinematographic Roadster adventure; a cliffhanger on a bridge in Istanbul. Apparently they are on their way to a wedding, cause they’re tossing out a wedding cake. The concept is as wobbly as the car balancing on that edge, but that seems to be the intentional, not so serious style of this whole ‘Another day, Another adventure’ series. And we do get the message; the MINI is a playful car for modern, cosmopolitan (and maybe gay?) dinks – altogether a very balanced brand positioning. The commercial was created by BSUR, directed by Peter Berg (Pony Show), and the matching music, Hayat Kavgasi, written by Orhan Gencebay.

Remember when we used to send digital Christmas cards with a tune inside? Very web 1.0. This is the 3.0 version; a Western Union platform that allows you to perform a virtual duet and produce a personalized music video with Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sunidhi Chauhan or K’naan – at the time of writing not all songs are released yet, for that matter. You upload a photo of yourself, pick an artist, and a song. Then you karaoke it – with the lyrics streamed on the screen – and your personal avatar singing the duet is sent to family and loved ones – together with the money, of course. Simple and sweet. Created by 180.

With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epica awards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…

An interesting piece (10:42) of branded content; a joint web series by MINI and Vice – or Vice and MINI if you like. The series is presented by Elliott Bambrough and a different co-driver is selected through social media every episode. It follows up the introductory set of commercials around the theme ‘All the wrong places’ featuring the MINI Coupé in different exotic places, positioning the car as an adventurous and cosmopolitan wannahave. Or ‘not for ordinary people’ as we judged the work in September. This episode is about ‘Dekotora’ trucks in Japan, basically a tradition to pimp your ride with kitschy colours, graphics and lights. At the end a MINI Coupé is pimped – a little. You could say that giving the Coupé such a prominent role is a little too much – especially since Vice is seen as a more or less independent magazine – but since it’s done at the end and subtle enough, we don’t really mind it. All in all a smart joint promotion by MINI and Vice. Created by BSUR.

Weird, but pleasantly weird. That was our first thought when we saw this commercial for telco provider Ben, created by Kumpany and directed by Hein Mevissen. The story roughly combines the tradition of Sinterklaas (the Dutch St. Nick) with the style of a Spaghetti Western. The protagonist is wearing Ben’s corporate colour and needs to “deliver this sack to Holland”. We don’t know what our blue friend is carrying or when he will be arriving in “Holland”, but that’s o.k. cause according to the press release nobody knows. To make the campaign integrated, you can follow him on Facebook and see what places he is visiting. One thing seems pretty sure, he’ll bring something for everyone – which is probably an interesting telco deal with Ben. It’s quite a bold choice of Ben to change its advertising property so radically. Then again, it is the only wise choice to make Ben stick out again in the overcrowded competitive field. Ben was introduced in 1999 by KesselsKramer with a legendary style that was so distinctive that the brand obtained instant fame. Then T-Mobile bought the brand, killed it in 2003, and made it come back again in 2008. But it was never able to reclaim its fame. This brand new commercial has the potential to do so. Let’s see what happens.