This BMW ad adverises the new 8-Speed automatic transmission – “comes standard with the 1, 3, and 5 series”. It looks amazingly sexy and feels instantly right. What a great insight; BMW brings out the little boy in us. No further explanation required. And that makes it easily Cannes material. By the way, in this ad you see its full size; the Matchbox version times 43! Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.

In advertising beer brands are the most desirable accounts to obtain. So we can imagine Alfred has been popping some… um… Grolsch ‘beugeltjes’ when they found out they won one of the more sophisticated beer brands in the Netherlands. Grolsch, the past 7 years handled by DDB, is a beer for someone who prefers quality and good taste, rather than getting brainlessly drunk with friends. At least, that’s what it was always about. The best pay-off to illustrate that was: “One day you’ll stop drinking beer and start drinking Grolsch” (JWT). Sadly in the past years we haven’t seen any advertising with much aspiration anymore. The last one we can remember was ‘Everlasting love‘ – with the pay-off “Beer, the Grolsch way” (DDB). A few years ago Grolsch started to claim creativity in combination with music stars. Though a good idea in itself, the advertising was probably too complicated and therefore not picked up by the consumer. We can imagine that this made Grolsch go more mainstream, moving towards the other beer brands and away from its once unique positioning. The climax was the last commercial – shown above – celebrating the ‘pop’ sound, It felt so average that the pay-off “Beer that grabs you” sounded completely incredible. So, time for a change. We hope Grolsch allows Alfred to give the iconic brand back its exclusiveness. We wish them luck!

This film, asking people to wish for a brighter future of Japan, is launched a little late of course. The disaster that hit Japan on March 11th, has already disappeared from the news radar – JWT will probably argue that that’s exactly the reason for launching it 100 days after the Tsunami. Anyway, it’s a good cause and done by JWT International – based in Amsterdam, among other cities – and production agency Bang from London; reason enough to share it with you. Colin Firth lent his voice to this project and the Pixies their (existing) music. There’s also a website (bit clunky) built by De Franse Kamer that lists all the charities and institutions that take donations – a huge list.

A nice concept to indirectly ask the visitors of a museum what the definition of art is – made us think of Banksy’s work smuggled into famous museums around the world. But we immediately thought, why on earth would KitKat want to expose its ‘art’ in a Museum in Twenthe – of all places? The only comparison between KitKat and abstract American art is…um… nothing. But of course it’s not about the people in the museum. They are just part of the candid camera show. The target lives on the internet and is so busy with checking their Facebook a zillion times a day, hoping to be entertained by random content shared by their friends and wannabee friends, that every now and then they might need a little break. Or even better, for most people the break is checking their Facebook. Tada; we have a match! Have a break, Have a KitKat – or ‘Have a Breakism’ as the ad was dubbed. We hope it’ll go as viral as KitKat Jesus – though we’re afraid our hope might not prove strong enough. Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.

Amsterdam won two Grand Prix in Film and Design at Eurobest in Hamburg, last Wednesday. Wieden+Kennedy was awarded the prestigious award for its epic Nike ‘Write the future’ commercial – alledgedly the most expensive commercial ever made. And for the same film it won bronze in Film Craft. Amsterdam Worldwide earned a Grand Prix in the category Design for the Onitsuka Tiger ‘Tansu sneaker’. Other than that Amsterdam did not do extremely well, we have to admit. In interactive Pool Worldwide won silver for its brilliant StarWars branded TomTom viral. In the same category 180 Amsterdam won bronze for Adidas’ Match Tracker and NRG3 won bronze for an interactive banner for the EA game Need for Speed Shift. N=5 was awarded silver in the category Media with a ‘Live interactive billboad’ – an aggression awareness campaign. BSUR got bronze in Film for MINI’s Flow, Publics won bronze in Print for KIKA, and JWT bronze in Promo and Outdoor with the MINI Christmas box.

Amsterdam won 5 silver Lions in Cannes yesterday. Big winner was Kong with 3 silver Lions for Stanislav – 2 for Promo & Activation and 1 for PR. Not really a surprise, since the online viral, that used people’s photo’s from social network site Hyves in an online film, already won several national and international prizes – though Cannes, of course, is the Wimbledon of the Grand Prix shows. Salient detail, according to Adformatie, Zwier Veldhoen, ECD at THEY and part of the P&O jury, said the case probably would have won gold, if submitted better. DDB also won silver in Promo & Activation for Centraal Beheer (CB), the insurer, known for its pay-off ‘Just call us’, created 3D outdoor spectaculars with typical accidents. The consumer could photograph itself in the accident and upload it on a dedicated website. The best ones – judged by the online audience – were used in a (2D) outdoor campaign. The fifth silver Lion went to MINI’s Christmas Box (see picture), by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. The message; only €99 per month. That is what we call, a big idea.