
Photo: Maurice Mikkers
The biggest winner last night at the ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) awards was Lemz. All the ‘bulbs’ – of which one was a Grand Prix (the very best integrated work) – went to their Fireworks campaign. Our very favourite campaign of the year Domino’s Pizza Pepperoni by Indie won one Golden and two Silver bulbs (TV, internet and activation) – in our opinion it was at least as good as Lemz’ work. Wieden also won one Gold and two Silver for Heineken’s ‘The making of The Date’ (internet, TV, and activation). Selmore won Gold for Bavaria and Hugh Heffner – so we can be sure that Charlie Sheen will also win Gold next year. We were a bit surprised that N=5 won Gold for Telfort – not really our taste. Y&R won one Gold and two Silver for LG’s ‘smart thief‘ (internet, TV, and viral). A bit strange that alle these films are winning different prizes for the different channels through which they are broadcasted – does the channel matter? Another one of our favourites was Hema’s with a push-up bra in print, promoted by a male model, going viral big time – by Doom & Dickson. It won Gold and Silver. Note: Hema is one of the most down to earth department stores in the Netherlands. TBWA won Gold with its print campaign for DIY chain Gamma; free Lego – “Just like dad.” In Interactive Tribal DDB won Gold and Silver for ‘Obsessed with Sound’ for Philips. One of the most impactful commercials of the year by Publicis for ALS won Silver – “I have died by now.” Special bulbs went to Mischa Rozema (for directing OFFF), Christian Borstlap (art direction and illustration, for LV and Mr Porter), and Simon Warner (photgraphy, for Octopus).

We weren’t physically there when last night no less than 30 ‘Spins’ (rings, either gold or silver) were awarded to the best digital work of the Benelux at the SpinAwards. Instead, we were mingling with the lesser gods at the NewWork Pre-Party. After ten, though, when the SpinAwards opened their doors for the after party, we were able to congratulate all the winners in person. First of all, Tribal DDB. The big winner with three golden awards; two for Obsessed with sound and one for KLM Tile & Inspire. On top of that Tribal won the agency of the year award. Lemz also won big with five Spins. Three Silver Spins went to Taskforce Tracing Bomb makers, targeted at teenagers making their own bombs around New Years and showing the impact proudly on YouTube. The Taskforce downloaded the videos and re-uploaded them with a warning to the bomb makers. Lemz also won two silver spins with KLM Live Reply. And – not much of a surprise – KLM became advertiser of the year. Buutvrij For Life won two awards with their ‘Pass it on day’ – they asked all their Facbook friends to form a line through Amsterdam to pass on their office interior when they were moving offices. Unofficially they also won a third award together with Cote d’Azur for ‘Everything smells like chocolate.’ Boondoggle won two awards with ‘Cordeals’ for Cordaid and with Medi-Plaza.nl for the government. The latter case is slightly similar to the Taskforce concept; consumers who were buying medicines online were led to Medi-Plaza, when about to make the transaction they were confronted with the message that buying medicines online is a dangerous affair. Red Urban won two awards with the Russian Roulette app for Duyves and their ‘Like’ campaign for KPN. Click on picture to see the entire list of winners.
This graphically inviting game called ‘Hitchhike with a like’ was created by Tribal DDB and Facebook. It let’s you hitch rides through Europe to different destinations with different Volkswagen Beetles. Though the copy teaches us that it’s about the journey and not the destination, the game doesn’t really show the journey. It simply tells you how many points you’ve earned after you’ve reached your different destinations. If you travel long enough, you can win a Beetle trip across Europe. Oh, and there’s also a ‘mojo’ meter that slowly runs on empty. Only by sharing your trips on Facebook you can recharge it. And that’s where Volkswagen’s briefing peeks around the corner: “Wir wollen Facebook Likes, und schnell!” As usual we weren’t patient enough to sit out the entire game, but we’re sure that if you do there’s champagne and fireworks – and if you’re lucky a grand prize. The game was produced by B-Reel, the 3D animations built by Prime Focus, and the different tunes accompanying each trip created by Massive Music.

We were invited to Digital Dinner at Rainarai, an Aglerian restaurant in Amsterdam. Though the food was wonderful, the portions were a bit meager. And since there was plenty of alcohol, we’re writing this piece a bit hungover. But the good news is that the evening was packed. Achtung!’s Dick Buschman did the introduction, explaining that Emerce initiated the event to connect with the Dutch creative industry. The organization (Achtung!, Bert Hagendoorn, and Pop The Campaign) then asked Creative Social to select some interesting speakers. Marc Chalmers (Perfect Fools), founder of Creative Social explained how members of Creative Social have to introduce theirselves; they have to show what they are working on and finish their presentation with the words “That’s me that is.” So we had the honor to witness the introduction of the 10 new Creative Social members.
Some of the new members showed a case film, which made things paradoxically a little less personal. That’s probably why the person we remember best didn’t need a voice over to introduce himself; James Cooper, Chief Innovation Officer at JWT New York, presented the first ‘bad ass’ ping pong clothing brand, called Thompson Punke. He loves ping pong, but hated the fact that there are no cool ping pong clothing brands. Not very digital, but very funny. Anders Gustafsson, from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, shared his Chevrolet Sonic campaign which was launched during the Super Bowl with the OK Go clip. In the next stage the Sonic is doing stunts, like bungee jumping, and the online community gets initiate the stunts by Liking them. Achtung! shared its Volkswagen Fanwagen case, a virtual VW Minivan turned into a real life ‘wagen’ – here’s the very smooth animated casefilm. Volkwagen’s briefing was; give us 30.000 Likes. Thanks to the Fanwagen VW is now the no.1 Dutch car brand on Facebook. Another new member, Cris Baylis from Tribal DDB, shared what seemed to us the most techy concept; ‘Obsessed by Sound’. A website for Philips that took Tribal a full year to build and allows you to single out any of the 51 members of the Metropole Orchestra. The other new Creative Social members are Sam de Volder, These Days; Tony Högqvist, Perfect Fools; Liz Sivell, Start JudgeGill; Alessandra Lariu, She Says; Rogier Vijverberg, SuperHeroes; Sam Ball, Lean Mean Fighting Machine. Thanks, Digital Dinner, for inviting us, an inspiring night it was!
Yet another cool online activational piece of advertising by KLM, created by Ice Mobile; the KLM Passport app, an app that turns traveller’s journeys into movies. This film, developed by Muse, shows more or less how it works: you choose a theme (adventure, around the world, island hopping, in the snow, etc.), select the best pictures and videos on your iPhone taken during your trip, and the app creates a need little movie. It all looks very smooth. The only downside of the concept is that most people still use a camera instead of their phone to collect travel memories, so the question is how many people will actually use it seriously. Nevertheless it shows once again that KLM understands that travelling is more than just buying a plane ticket.
beautiful….. very nice site.