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).
Wow, that’s impressive; getting Charlie Sheen to act sober in a commercial. And how relevant for Bavaria 0% – if Sheen can stay sober on this, it must be a hell of beer. Bavaria has a tradition of using celebs in its advertising. But not just any celeb, always a celeb with an edge. Even Hugh Hefner drank Bavaria in his mansion as if it were his favourite drink. And to promote Bavaria’s 0% beer, the brand has already used known alcoholics. A very long time ago Don Johnson. And more recently Mickey Rourke. So today Charlie Sheen is added to the list. Well timed. Just when he’s getting back on track. Created by Selmore and directed by Jonathan Herman (Bonkers).
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!
Last year we were invited to the Digital Podge, an informal get together of digital minds. Now there’s yet another digital dinner in Amsterdam, held on the 21st of March, literally called ‘Digital Dinner’. It is organized by Emerce, Achtung! (that also initiated the Dutch Podge), Bert Hagendoorn, and our colleagues from Pop The Campaign. What is different from the podge is that there will be some great speakers from here and abroad sharing their work and experiences in digital creativity. The evening, moderated by Dick Buschman (Achtung!), will be enlightened by – among others – Anders Gustafsson (CD at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners), James Cooper (Innovation Officer at JWT), Tony Högqvist (Founder of Perfect Fools), and Sam Ball (Creative Partner at Lean Mean Fighting Machine). The complete list of speakers (partly selected by Creative Social, another organizer of digital get togethers) can be found on a very nicely designed website – see also screenshot above. The bad news is that the evening is for the largest part invite only. The good news is that we’ll share what we learn and, more importantly, that as from Monday there is a small amount of tickets publicly available – €250 a piece. We recommend to put up a tent in front of the website.
Chances are we’re going to have an ‘Elfstedentocht’ (Eleven-town-tour) next weekend; a 200 km ice skating tour through the province of Friesland. What’s unique about the tour is that on average it’s only held once every 7 years. The reason is that the ice needs to be at least 15 cm thick along the entire track to be able to hold an impressive amount of 15.000 contestants passing it during the race. The entire country – or rather all lazy media for whom this topic is an easy catch – are in anticipation of the “tour of tours”. And since hot chocolate is the most popular drink sold on the ice for (recreational) ice skaters, Chocomel is working overtime. And naturally its agency Achtung! jumped on the ‘Elfstedenkoorts’ (Eleven-town-fever) with the Elfstedenbarometer app that shows the percentage of chance there will be an Elfstedentocht. The app displays the weather forcesast and, more importantly, the percentage of chance of the tour taking place (this morning 49% – which is not much compared to the amount of press coverage). It’s not the most innovative app ever, but if you’re fed up with all the media religiously and constantly talking about the Elfstedentocht, this is the app for the bare facts. And apparently it’s a winner, cause it’s the fourth most downloaded app in the Netherlands at the moment. Oh, and not to forget, when you tweet about it, you can win a winter supply of Chocomel.
