We don’t like brands telling complicated stories – complicated is usually born out of a bad idea. The exception to the rule, though, is complicated as a concept in itself. When for example complicated is an excuse to create something that should go viral, it might just work. Take this nicely executed online film “No Facebook without the Dutch” for the Dutch Maritime (‘Scheepvaart’) Museum that links the rich Dutch maritime history with Mark Zuckerberg to announce the new museum’s Facebook fan page. Clearly not watertight, but easily enjoyable enough to forward online. Created by One Big Agency, CCCP, and Super Heroes.

One Big Agency created this handy ‘Live with it!’ app. But as you quickly find out, it’s not made in collaboration with Shell, but with Friends of the Earth (or: Milieudefensie). In fact, it’s not even an app; the URL at the end leads you to ‘Worse than bad.’ The locals of the Niger Delta can use the fictional app to earn Shell points (that can be exchanged for “helpful survival gear”) by being the first to spot oil spills. The same goes for reporting contaminated water. The app also indicates where the locals can find alternative water sources and it maps gas flares and pipelines. It will be interesting to see what Shell will do against this spoof. Will they act against it – “David Ruse is not our Chief Facade Officer – we have someone else for that!” Or will they sit still until the storm is over? Probably (and wisely) the latter. In any case, the spoof made us think of Chevron’s ‘We Agree’ campaign that was hijacked in 2010; immediately after the release ‘The Yes Men’ launched their own ‘We Agree’ campaign. Their spoof used phrases like “Oil companies should clean up their messes,” instead of Chevron’s copy saying “The world needs more than oil.” One Big Agency’s app also reminded us of this column on Amsterdam Ad Blog (“Shell and clean don’t match in advertising”). It’s good to see that oil companies cannot get away anymore with trying to come across as environmentally constructive – let alone friendly.

This film reminded us of the animation quite recently created by CCCP for the Scheepvaart museum. Both are similar styled, both promote a museum, and both use the same voice-over. Apart from that the film is of course making the museum look quite attractive. And we didn’t know that Naturalis owns one of the world largest collections of organisms; 37 million items! The animation also gives us a peak in the future; who needs to visit a physical museum, when you can make edcuational films like this – which is kind of ironic. Created by Plus One Amsterdam.

Beginning of this month we wrote about a viral – if we may – for the Amsterdam Maritime (‘Scheepvaart’) museum; “No Facebook without the Dutch” it was dubbed. Apparently – and wisely – all of the museum’s budget goes towards online, cause last week we encountered yet another great piece of digital advertising; a site take-over – again a collaboration between One Big Agency, CCCP, and SuperHeroes. When you pull the plug to let the water run away, the Netherlands all of a sudden has become part of Spain and the Dutch news site ‘Nu’ changes into ‘Ahora’. History changes and the news accordingly; queen Beatrix is merely a sculptor now, Dutch brand Philips is called Philips II (after the ruler of Spain in the 16th century), a separatist organization claims to stick to Dutch (a cameo for CCCP’s copywriter and art director); Wesley Sneijder (“Esnaider”) scores for Spain, and Jan Smit (“Juan Smit”) with mustache releases a new album. This time the message is: “Without shipping no Orange” (the royal colour) and again the Scheepvaart museum teaches us how important the maritime history has been for the Netherlands. Usually we ignore banners or – when they obscure a site – search for the ‘delete’ button straight away, but not with this banner that entertained us for almost 10 minutes. It could be a lesson for those advertisers who think that buying banner positions is the same as making an impact – it is not.

This animated trailer promotes a beautifully made interactive new website, created by SuperHeroes, tells the story of Yakult. If we wouldn’t be skeptical about probiotics, we’d start loving Yakult right away – according to evidenced based science probiotics do more or less the same as normal yoghurt, which is probably why the word Yakult is derived from the Japanese word for yoghurt. Never mind though, it’s always good to see an agency being able to show off its skills. What makes things especially crafty is the fact that SuperHeroes used a scaled model that represents the Kyoto area to create the film – here’s the making of. The only pity about that – and we really hate to mention it – is the fact that Amsterdam Worldwide did more or less the same for Onitsuka Tiger (also a Japanese brand) in 2009. Fortunately the consumer couldn’t care less. SuperHeroes worked together with One Big Agency, CCCP, C-41 (Live action production), Magic Bullet (Interactive production), and Lullatone (for the happy sound).

Finally, Amsterdam wins its first golden Lion – in cyber. Nike’s ‘Write the future’, created by Wieden+Kennedy has already won a truckload of prizes, but winning in Cannes, is the cherry on top, of course. The campaign won in cyber, because it used social media very effectively; the film received 40 million online views. And since the film is so impressive, we expect it to win (at least) a golden film Lion this Saturday. Two virals were rewarded with a bronze Cyber lion. The first one: TomTom’s special edition StarWars voices – created by Pool Worldwide and directed by Willem Gerritsen (CZAR). This film will surely also win another Lion at the end of the week. The other viral, was Liquid Mountaineering for Hi-Tec by CCCP – a brilliantly executed mockumentary. Interesting detail; this second viral was also directed by Willem Gerritsen. In design two silver Lions were won. One by Amsterdam agency BrandBase for its pallet project, a unique working environment, built entirely from pallets by Most Design. The other silver design Lion went to Heineken’s STR bottle, a bottle that lights up in the dark thanks to its UV-sensitive ink – created by dBOD and Iris.