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.

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.

Last month we wrote about the ‘Find your adventure’ campaign introducing the MINI Coupé below the line. Fel Concepts dropped miniature Coupé’s in bottles in the ocean. If you’d find one on the beach, you could test drive it. Last week Fel Concepts created a follow up on the beach of Zandvoort; a real Coupé in a – not very well designed – bottle. Some lazy media picked it up as ‘car washed on beach’ – they obviously didn’t see the real thing before writing about it.

Beginning of this month we wrote about the weird, but attractive MINI Coupé films made by BSUR. The theme of the films was ‘Find your adventure’. This was translated into an activation by Fel Concepts into the good old message in a bottle. The bottles are dropped in Thorpe Bay, Essex and to be found on the other side of the Channel on the beach of ‘Dutchy’ land. If you find one, you get to test drive the Coupé. Um, we don’t mind this concept, but when you compare this Coupé in a bottle with the BSUR commercials, you all of a sudden remember why they always used to talk about ‘above’ and ‘below the line’; the two have nothing to do with each other – except for the phrase ‘find your adventure’. Come on, MINI, if you spend so much money on the introduction of a new car, you really should go for an integrated campaign.

We don’t really understand why this Icelandic hitchhiker with mustache is pregnant, nor why he has a criminal doppelganger, but we like the randomness of this commercial for the new MINI Coupé – it feels like a trailer for a new Coen Brothers movie. The other two commercials – ‘Sunday in Rio’ and ‘Love is in the air’ (in Hong Kong) – are less subtle, but all in all the ‘Another day, Another adventure’ campaign clearly shows that the Coupé is not for ordinary people. Especially when you compare it to last year’s commercial for the Countryman that was a lot more accessible – and won two Lions in Cannes, for that matter. Created as usual by BSUR, directed by Kevin Thomas (Thomas & Thomas Films), and shot by César Charlone – who you might know from ‘The city of god’.

Picture: ECD’s W+K Amsterdam Mark Bernath (left) and Eric Quennoy (middle), mainly responsible for Wieden+Kennedy’s huge success in Cannes and Enrico Balleri from Nike, just after the award ceremony last Saturday. What a great closing night for the Amsterdam agency it was. Nike Write the future scored seven more Lions – earlier in the week it already won gold in Cyber. At the most important award night the Amsterdam agency first of all won the prestigious Grand Prix in film. It was a very close finish with Puma’s ‘After hours athlete’ as jury chair Tony Granger (CCO Y&R) explained at the press conference. After a lengthy discussion he asked the jury to put all the rational arguments aside and vote from the heart. This gave Nike the final push. Nike also won five Lions in Film craft: two Gold (Editing and Script), two Silver (Production and Sound), and one bronze (CG). And the seventh Lion, Gold in Integrated, proved that the campaign didn’t just have a pretty face. And then Heineken; for this other power brand W+K won five Lions in Film and Film craft. Four for The Entrance: Film: Gold and Bronze (interactive). Film craft: Gold and Silver (Direction and Sound Design). One Lion went to The Date – more or less the sequel of The Entrance. It won bronze in Film. This brought the grand total for Wieden+Kennedy to 13 (!) Lions. Together with all the Lions that Portland won for Old Spice, W+K must easily be the most awarded independent network in the world. Two more Amsterdam Lions went to MINI ‘Flow‘ (Silver in Film craft) by BSUR and one to Volkswagen’s ‘Old Lady’ (Bronze in Film) by DDB. All in all Amsterdam (officially) won 25 Lions, 8 (!) more than last year.