Sony Playstation introduces a new Harry-Potter-like game, “Book of Spells,” that turns your (motion) controller into a Magic Wand. This commercial – created by 180 Amsterdam – enlarges the qualities of the wand by giving it powers beyond the game – turning you into a rat and a cat into a huge chunk of cheese. Not the fattest concept we’ve ever seen, but the weirdness of it definitely carries a certain appeal. Directed by Jeff Low (Biscuit Filmworks), and 3D animation by Glassworks Amsterdam.

Remember when we used to send digital Christmas cards with a tune inside? Very web 1.0. This is the 3.0 version; a Western Union platform that allows you to perform a virtual duet and produce a personalized music video with Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sunidhi Chauhan or K’naan – at the time of writing not all songs are released yet, for that matter. You upload a photo of yourself, pick an artist, and a song. Then you karaoke it – with the lyrics streamed on the screen – and your personal avatar singing the duet is sent to family and loved ones – together with the money, of course. Simple and sweet. Created by 180.

With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epica awards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…

Last Wednesday the ADCN (Art Director’s Club Nederland) hosted a session in ‘De Kring’ on the Rembrandtplein dubbed ‘XXX Expat’ (XXX is part of the city’s shield), with the noble aim of bringing two parts of the Amsterdam ad industry together; the Dutch and the expats. Some would say these two groups are surely two sides to the same coin, others would say these are separate entities with little or nothing in common other than geography. The somewhat lacking relationship between these two communities has been well documented over the years, yet despite this, nothing has ever quite bridged that gap, except of course – modest as we are – Amsterdam Ad Blog. Lode Schaeffer (ECD at Indie), new chairman to the ADCN is determined to branch out and readdress the balance. The idea was simple; get five speakers from leading agencies in Amsterdam to each give a presentation about the experience of living and working in Amsterdam as an expat.

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180 co-founder Alex Melvin passed away peacefully in his Amsterdam home last Friday, August 12. He was 53. Alex, who bravely fought melanoma for three years, was comforted by family and close friends. He leaves behind his wife, Alison Melvin, and three loving children. For more than a decade, Alex played an integral role in the agency’s growth including his work with marquee global client Adidas. In 2007, he and the other two founders Chris Mendola and Guy Hayward launched a U.S. office in Santa Monica, CA. Alex was of enormous importance to the city of Amsterdam; not only did he found an agency that put the city internationally on the map, he also embraced the city as the true representation of his agency. In an interview with us in 2009, during the Boards Conference that he co-hosted with Indie’s Mark Aink, he explained that the resemblance was so strong, because just like 180 the city of Amsterdam has always been a city of talent, ideas and international trade. With a big smile he added: “and I also believe Amsterdam is home to 180 different nationalities, but you’d have to double check that with the chamber of commerce”. In that interview – and all the chats thereafter – we got to know Alex as a modest, good humoured, and overall amiable guy. We’ll miss him. There will be a memorial for Alex on Friday, August 19th at 3 p.m. at De Rode Hoed, Keizersgracht 102, Amsterdam. He will be buried in his native Scotland. His family has set up a Facebook page for people to post memories of Alex.

With 13 shortlist nominations in film and 7 in film craft, Amsterdam should be able to win some more Lions tomorrow night. Of all these nominations 4 go to Nike ‘Write the future’, 3 to Heineken’s ‘The Entrance’, and one to Heineken’s ‘The Date’, which adds up to an impressive 8 film (craft) nominations for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. Write the future also has a nomination for Titanium (integrated), though this case was sent in by Nike. BSUR also does well with 4 nominations for MINI Countryman’s ‘Flow’. Philips’ ‘Wake up the town’ by Tribal DDB has 3 film nominations. Other film nominations go to Volkswagen (DDB), Centraal Beheer (DDB) – we personally liked this more subtle Centraal Beheer film a lot better – De Bijenkorf (Selmore), IDFA X-ray eyes (TBWA) – a very smart film – and the beautiful Sire film ‘Marked for life‘ (180). We’ll keep our fingers crossed!

As from June 180 has a new MD: Stephen Corlett. He worked both on agency and client side, starting his career at Saatchi & Saatchi London with Kevin Dundas, who is now CEO at 180. After Saatchi’s, Corlett moved to Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam where he worked alongside 180 ECD Al Moseley on Vodafone. He then led the team that won and created the global Coca-Cola marketing platform the ‘Coke Side of Life’, including the iconic ‘Happiness Factory’ campaign. His itchy feet then brought him to Anomaly, New York, where he worked as ‘Brand Director’ to lead the pitch-winning team that refocused the Converse brand following its Nike buyout. The sports brand experience then led him to Umbro, on the client side. About joining 180 Corlett says: “I felt a desire to go back into the type of creatively led, highly motivated agency I have always loved; where the power of ideas is paramount and valued. 180 is a perfect fit, the team here has a relentless commitment to world class, transformational creativity.” An impressive mouthful. We wish him all the best at 180.

What a beaut of a commercial. To understand it as a non-Dutch speaker, you need to know that the tattoos say things like: “If you’re gonna visit dad now, you can stay there”, “If you’re taking the house, I’m taking the boys”, and “Don’t you think your dad still wants to see you”. You can guess what the pay-off is: “What you say during divorce, may last forever”. Impressive. We’ve asked ourselves a few times why SIRE (The ‘Ministry’ of underexposed social issues) exists – previously they educated the Dutch about how to react to kind behaviour – but with this film they’ve won back their reason for existence. And ‘chapeau’ for 180. Not just for making this commercial, but also for doing something in Dutch for a change. Oh yeah, there’s also a website (‘children in divorce’) that elaborates on the issue using the same visual style as in the commercial.

180 created a new font, called EcoDIN. The font is designed to use less toner when printed – which gives the impression that ‘Eco’ stands for ‘Economical’. The font was inspired by the Ecofont by Spranq (an ad agency in Utrecht) – using 20% less toner. 180’s font, based on DIN Mittleschrift, goes one step further. While in Spranq’s font holes are punched through the glyphs, 180 did the opposite (a nice case of 180 thinking); it just shows the holes. We would love to recommend 180’s EcoDIN, but instead we’re going to bring this yet another step further; we recommend you to start a paperless office, like ourselves; it uses no ink at all. And what’s really eco about it; it doesn’t require any dead trees.

Good news for 180 Amsterdam; ASICS appointed the agency for its global communications around the London Olympic Games 2012 – after a competitive pitch that started last summer. 180 will also work with ASICS to launch key product ranges through 2011 and 2012. ASICS asked 180 to give emotional meaning to its ethos ‘Sound Mind Sound Body’ (Anima Sana In Corpore Sano) – an inspiring assignment when combining it with the idea behind the Olympics. 180′s big advantage in the pitch was its extensive experience on the Adidas account – 180’s founding client who left the agency in 2010. Next to 180 ASICS also works with Vitro in San Diego. Together with Vitro ASICS very recently developed a global campaign around the proposition ‘Sports releases more than just sweat’ – namely negative energy. It seems ASICS is working hard to capture some market share from Nike and Adidas.

If you want to believe Matt Beaumont’s brilliant novel ‘E’, then advertising is by far the most interesting industry to work in for starting exciting liaisons with colleagues – we’ll never forget the extremely funny ‘elevator scene’. If we may believe 180 Matt Beaumont was right. The agency developed a website that generates rumours. And if you click the site’s refresh button a few times, you get the impression that 180 is one big orgy. The fact that 180 built this Rumour Generator might also give the impression that they have a little too much spare time, but we were told that the agency is very busy and feels the economy picking up again. So, all in all, 180 is definitely the place to be; they work hard and ‘play’ hard.

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.

Draftfcb will be the sole lead agency for Beiersdorf – owning personal care brand Nivea – as from January 1st 2011. The agency won a lengthy international pitch with among others TBWA\. For Draftfcb the pitch was led by international Chief Creative Officer Jonathan Harries and Amsterdam based ECD Dagan Cohen. For years both Draftfcb and TBWA\ were working on different Beiersdorf brands/products, which didn’t exactly create a situation of strategic and creative coherence. This should now change.
180 Amsterdam has made a series of new hires. From left to right in the picture: First of all Ben Hartman and Neil Durber from Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe London joined the agency. They will primarily work on 180’s newest account DHL. To further reinforce the creative department, creative David Chalu is also joining the agency as Senior Copywriter – he came from McCann Erickson London. Earlier this year, in September, Galen Graham was appointed as Creative Director – coming from DDB Chicago.

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam/London won gold at the London International Awards (LIA) for Nike’s ‘Write The Future‘ – in the category film. The campaign also won three bronze awards in the categories print, poster, and music adapation – the latter went to Massive Music for updating Focus’ hit ‘Hocus Pocus’. Grey Amsterdam won silver in print for Pink Ribbon Magazine’s happy breasts. 180 Amsterdam won bronze for ‘The Match Tracker’ for Adidas.

Source: Adformatie

This commercial kicks off an online Adidas game that allows you to play against random people on Facebook. You choose a city (from a team that plays the Champions League), then a part of your city, and then a move you would like to make against your opponent. It’s like rock-paper-scissors (where have we seen that before?), so everybody can play it. If you win, a part of the city becomes your team’s colour. Created by 180 Amsterdam.

StrawberryFrog NY/Amsterdam won the pitch for the Downtown Dubai account, owned by Developer Emaar Properties (PJSC) – it was a three-way pitch with Saatchi & Saatchi London and Y&R London. Strawberry Frog Amsterdam can be happy with this second global account win since re-opening offices in Amsterdam. In july the agency won Emirates, another company from the Middle East, and one of the reasons they were invited to the pitch. Downtown Dubai has a total project (not just advertising) budget of $20 billion (!). Part of Downtown Dubai are the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and the Dubai Mall, the biggest shopping/entertainment mall in the world. 180 Amsterdam also won. Not an account though, but a new creative director; Galen Graham. Before he worked at DDB Chicago, where he worked on clients like Bud, McDonald’s and Dell. His most famous piece of ad is Bud Light’s ‘Swear Jar‘, a huge hit on YouTube, and the first non-broadcast ad winning an Emmy Award. Before DDB Chicago Graham worked as an art director at Cramer-Krasselt. He started his career in 1998 at Fallon. Sean Thompson, who was ECD at 180 Amsterdam since January 2006, became global creative director for the brand new Team Volvo. They probably found him through all the awards he won for Honda – especially with ‘Grrr’ – at W+K London.
Source: Adformatie

Finally! We’ve been waiting for this all summer! But we don’t actually mean the new MINI Countryman. No, we are referring to a piece of advertising just being awesome. Something that is so well made that your rational brain doesn’t have time to wrap itself around it. Your limbic system simply screams: NEED to have. The way that this four wheel driven race monster is sexed up, makes you want to try it as soon as the 60 seconds are done. The only thing we don’t understand is why they’ve added two extra doors. Surely not to be able to squeeze your little baby inside? Way too dangerous! Anyway, the commercial, called ‘flow’, was mostly filmed in Milan and directed by Brian Beletic. It was produced by Smuggler and the visual effects were added by Sway Studio. Check the making of here. Last but definitely not least, the concept was conceived by bsur. The agency won a three-way global pitch last May against 180 and KesselsKramer – all Amsterdam agencies. And when seeing the result, we are pretty confident that it was a fair decision.

Quite spectacular this outdoor ad for the Adidas F50 Adizero. Not only did Adidas change the tram stop benches, the real boots were also incorporated in the outdoor furniture. Created by 180, TBWA\BEC and JC Decaux.

Talking about some slick advertising. Here it is. It starts like a movie trailer: “The first rocket to reach the moon had less computing power than today’s Sony VAIO notebook”. The trailer announces a branded documentary that shows how some whiz kids learn “rocket science” to launch a rocket with a Sony Vaio. The Hollywoodish tone of voice is no surprise when you realize it was created by 180LA (180 Amsterdam’s sibling). And while the cynics among us might say that probably any other comparable laptop can launch a rocket, you got to admit this (literally) is a great piece of ad. We can easily imagine people getting goosebumps when seeing the trailer. And they might even be compelled to see the entire documentary on Science Channel “this fall”. It caries all the Hollywood tricks (“a weather setback!”) that will make compelling TV. And we’re pretty sure that Sony Vaio will gain on the brand attributes “smart” and “powerful”. Job well done – this goes for both kids and agency.

Adidas is moving its digital account from 180’s Riot to Sid Lee. A worrying move for 180, since it makes Sid Lee, already working for Adidas Originals,  own yet another piece of the advertising pie. Through the grapevine we also heard that Boston based Arnold will be opening an Amsterdam office at the end of this year to service its international client Volvo. This sounds like an efficient move since Volvo’s international digital agency EuroRSCG 4D is already based in Amsterdam.

On Saturday the last Cannes Lions were awarded to Amsterdam agencies in the categories Film and Film Craft. Silver went to the intelligent commercials made by TBWA\Neboko for IDFA – international documentary festival Amsterdam. Though we liked the previous concept a little better, the one showed in this post brings the message ‘You can’t make up reality’ in a similarly convincing way. 180 Amsterdam won silver in the ‘Film Craft’ category for their Adidas film ‘Every team needs the spark’. Indeed, a lot of craftsmanship. XXS and N=5 won bronze for their Dierenbescherming (animal protection) and Live Interactive Billboard ads respectively. The latter is an aggression awareness campaign that shows a billboard with ambulance personal being harassed. Bystanders that watch the billboard are being filmed and integrated in the film – so they watch their selves being inactive. Quite smart, though in our opinion this case would have been better of winning in Outdoor or Cyber. Like last year Philips won a Grand Prix (this time in ‘Film Craft’) for The Gift, “a sci-fi thriller in a dystopian future” that shows quite some skills being brought together. It was created by DDB London in assocation with RSA Films. We mention it, cause Tribal DDB Amsterdam was responsible for the overarching Parallel Lines campaign that included the 5 short films – of which The Gift was one. O.k., enough chest pounding already. Let’s get back to work!

“And so this journey brings me here…”. The extensive journey started about a year ago with Messi as the Spark and the mysterious voice-over of Zidane explaining what was going on. To us the whole concept was a bit over-complicated. We never really understood what Zidane was trying to tell us – not only because of his poor English. But we forgave Adidas and its agency 180 Amsterdam easily, cause it was all so richly executed and therefore not a punishment to watch. Especially the previous commercial – “inspred by Sin City” – was a very pleasant orgy of special effects. So now the long journey has brought Zidane to South Africa. And to celebrate this, you can join the Adidas “Match-Up experience” on Facebook. Again, quite a bombastic ad. But if we understand correctly, you can pick a favourite player out of the 32 Adidas heroes from the different countries (Messi from Argentina, Gerard from England, Pienaar from South Africa, etc.) and then predict who will win when they’re playing each other. The winners get free Adidas gear. So to put it banally, it’s betting on matches, sponsored by Adidas. And so the journey must end.

With this rich, Sin City inspired ad, it looks like 180 Amsterdam wanted to display how easily it integrates so many different creative disciplines into one single piece of advertising. But just like the previous ad with Leonal Messi as The Spark and Zinédine Zidane as the voice over, the commercial is made primarily to sell the Adidas F50 football boot – this time as the the lightest and fastest. What we didn’t know yet, is that there’s two kinds of fast; there’s the spark and the blaze – the latter respresented by David Villa. While the spark needs a ball to be fast, the blaze simply is a consuming inferno of speed. To be honest, we don’t really care, we simply love to watch it – over and over again.

What an inspiring event it was. Here are the insights we took home. The first key note speaker, Ed Ulbrich from Digital Domain, talked us through the process of getting the multi-platform remake of Tron to market. He showed what looked like a trailer of the movie ‘Tron Legacy’, but later revealed it was ‘just’ a teaser to get Disney excited; they could make a movie, a game and a theme park ride out of this single concept. He called this a ‘transmedia content prototype’; a piece of content that mitigates the investor’s risk, because it provides a tangible window into the opportunities of the concept. Ulbrich founded a  company, Mothership, that single mindedly builds these kind of prototypes. (more…)

We were invited by the VEA (Association of Ad Agencies) to attend the second edition of Creative Lounge on Monday in Pakhuis de Zwijger. The night was hosted by Jelani Isaacs (Brenninkmeijer and Isaacs) and Claire Finn (U-Turn). Guests of the evening were Matthew Atkatz (Riot, digital arm 180), Romke Oortwijn (N=5), Raphael Mazoyer (Asics) and – Skyping in from London – Florian Schmitt (Hi-Res). And this night’s topic was the controversy between digital agencies and non-digital agencies; is digital part of the idea or is digital the idea itself? A promising question, though it did take a while before the discussion stopped to bounce all over the place.  We do understand why it did though; there’s no unambiguous  answer to the question what the exact role of digital is in advertising. Some big ideas can only exist thanks to the technology behind it, while some ideas merely use existing digital tools to execute it. (more…)

Holland won 18 Epica awards – four times gold – last week in Belgrade. It ended fifth after Germany, France, Sweden and the UK.  Our favourite gold went to Kit Kat Jesus. Kit Kat pretended as if Jesus had been spotted in a Kit Kat bar and this news spread as quick as only internet can spread news. We didn’t just like it because we are atheists (or at least agnostic), but more so because we love simple (but great) ideas that generate tons of free publicity. We found it a little odd that this was in the category ‘technique’, but apparently their was no better category available – the category ‘big idea’ would have been more to the point. It was done by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. Heineken’s Walk-in fridge also won gold in ‘film’ – it was submitted by TBWA’s production company CZAR. 180 won gold for Adidas with ‘Every team needs the spark’. And Grey won gold in print for Pink Ribbon.

Source: Adformatie

Al Moseley, partner and executive creative director at Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer (HMDG), has quit to join 180 Amsterdam. Though Mosley is responsible for the ‘M’ in HMDG, the agency won’t be changing it’s name. He will become part of the management of 180 together with Kevin Dundas, who’ll become managing partner. Before HMDG, Moseley worked at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and before that he worked for Mother. Dundas (ex Saatchi & Saatchi) was president and chief executive at Sapient Nitro and only joined the agency last January. Moseley and Dundas will work alongside 180 chief executive, Chris Mendola, and the chief creative officer, Andy Fackrell. Alex Melvin continues in his role as Chairman focusing on key clients and agency expansion.

Last Tuesday the VEA (Dutch Association of Advertising Agencies) and VCP (Dutch Association of Commercial Producers) organized ‘Creative Lounge’ – an initiative that brings the creative advertising scene together. The theme was ‘Two worlds of advertising’, referring to the clear distinction in Amsterdam between the typical Dutch agencies that make typical Dutch advertising and the international expat scene mainly working for international clients. One important difference between the Dutch professionals and the expats, as talent recruiter Keith White of Wieden+Kennedy explained, is the fact that the Dutch are used to work from 9 till 6, while the Wieden+Kennedy’s of this world live in a parallel world and often start their day when the Dutch go to bed. There’s  a different work ethic. It helps of course that for expats social life is for the biggest part happening within their working environment. When the question was raised why the international agencies never work with Dutch production agencies, Clair Finn of U-Turn (180) said it was partly due to the lacking service level of the Dutch. White added to this that it’s not just within the agencies, but in general; Dutch restaurants, shops, the service is overall quite poor. Paul Lovoie (Taxi) suggested that you should do your advertising in Amsterdam, while outsourcing the service to the French. We’re not sure whether that’s a wise idea, but without a doubt learned that Amsterdam has to raise its service level.

Source: Adformatie

We had to view this Sony commercial a few times, before we could fully appreciate it. The reason is that if feels a little corporate. As if Sony told its agency: make a big budget commercial, throw in massive special effects, show that we spend lots of money on R&D and please feature some of our fantastic entertainment titles. Oh yeah, and make sure everybody likes it. As said, a little corporate. What we like about it, however, is that Sony for the very first time in its history positions itself as a complete entertainment company that offers movies (2012), games (Motor Storm, Pacific Rift) and music (Hey Monday). We also like the on/off button as ad property, combined with the pay-off ‘make.believe’. It says: we are a ubiquitous, full service entertainment company that makes everything you can imagine. It makes Sony look confident, ambitious and ready for the next century. The commercial was created by 180’s Amsterdam and LA offices, directed by Noam Murro and given special effects by Animal Logic.

This year Amsterdam is hosting the Eurobest festival, so as Amsterdam Ad Blog we thought it would be appropriate to pay a little more than average attention to it. As you you’ve been able to see in the banner on our website – that has probably become a little annoying by now – the festival will be held on the 25th until the 27th of November. Yesterday the jury was announced. The following Amsterdam Creative Directors have the privilege to judge the best of Europe’s advertising: Chris Baylis, Tribal DDB (traditional); Sicco Beerda, Euro RSCG (jury president interactive); Coen Weesjes, Downtown (direct & sales promotion); Eugene Bay, VBAT (design); Andy Fackrell, 180 Amsterdam (jury president integrated) and Magnus Olsson, Saatchi & Saatchi (integrated).

This ad was made by 180 Amsterdam – and photographed by Carlos Serrao – to advertise Adidas Climacool. There’s not very much to say about it – pretty much on brief, we guess. Except maybe that the press release said the shoot was done with “a slightly retro advertising all-in-camera approach”. We don’t really know what that means, but apparently it made them cut off the guy’s trainer.

Marketing Tribune just published its yearly Dutch ad agency survey,  conducted by Intormart GFK. And because 180 Amsterdam scored so well, co-founder Chris Mendola (right) and Andy Fackrell were asked a few questions about the success of their agency. The results of the survey came from 865 advertisers, who answered questions about the awareness, preference and image of the Dutch agencies.

We were happy to learn that the respondents judged ‘coming up with original ideas’ as the most important feature of an ad agency. This basically means that if creativity is not leading in your agency, you have to change your proposition or your job. On this characteristic 180 Amsterdam scored best with 52% – which proofs that having 32 nationalities on board does induce creativity. The agency strongly climbed on the image ladder; last year it scored only 14% on this characteristic. On ‘enthusiasm’ (would that be hugging the client before selling your ideas?) 180 also scored best. Wieden+Kennedy, another very cosmopolitan agency, is the most trustworthy agency – The People’s Valley and McCann were second and third.

Advertisers with a one-million-plus budget, put DDB, N=5 and TBWA, respectively, on their shortlist for an above the line campaign. Not a preferable position when you realize that the interactive agencies (LBi Lost Boys, Clockwork, Achtung! and The People’s Valley) are gaining territory fast – this of course was already announced by the strongly shifting media budgets. And ironically Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy have a very strong brain position – amazingly still profiting from the brand position they built up in the 90’s.

To us the most striking conclusion of the survey is the image leap made by 180 and Wieden+Kennedy among Dutch advertisers. Hopefully it means they will finally become an integrated part of the Amsterdam ad community. We know from the interview that 180 is working hard on it; the agency is looking for a Dutch new business director, who can build its local business.

This web commercial, with Veronica Campell-Brown, was made by RIOT – the digital arm of 180 Amsterdam. The campaign is called Super 7 – after the invincible cartoon heroes – and made for Adidas Running. It features 7 different track and field athletes and their individual ‘super human’ qualities and personalities. The athletes are Tyson Gay, Jeremy Wariner, Blaka Vlasic, Haile Gebrelassie, Christien Ohuruogu, Allyson Felix, Veronica Campell-Brown. Here’s a film with the complete group. The films are typical for Adidas; showing athletes that look very serious and not so serious at the same time. Adidas wants to tell us that although these 7 athletes have the super hero status, they are human after all. It thus smartly combines aspiration with accessibility. Interesting about this campaign is that it looks very much like a TV commercial (because of the production value), while it’s made for internet only. A few years ago, it would have been considered a waste of (production) money not showing it on TV and thus not gaining maximum exposure. But today advertisers realize that you actually save (literally!) tons of money by excluding TV as a medium. And for some people that must be a worrying thought.

Grey announced yesterday that Hazelle Klønhammer will become the new MD of Grey Amsterdam. Klønhammer follows up Dick Klicks. Klicks moved to Grey EMEA in March and only a few months later he left Grey altogether to work for Tomorrow Design. Though her name sounds Scandinavian, Klønhammer was born in Australia and moved to Amsterdam in 1996 to work for Wieden+Kennedy and has never really left the city. She worked for quite a few international, creative agencies, like TBWA, 180 and Modernista! You would hope Grey Amsterdam’s reorganization is complete now. In May 2008 Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela (once co-founders of the London agency St. Luke’s) were the first hotshots to reinforce the Amsterdam ambitions. They came from Grey London and had been working on the international Fortis pitch with Dick Klicks. After they won the account Klicks asked them to creatively lead the Amsterdam office. They had a bad start when the distinctive clean and graphical campaign (‘life is a curve’) for Fortis was killed after the bank collapsed. Fortis had been at the top of its curve and the sad coincidence was easily and avidly spoofed. Anyway, it’s good that the Amsterdam hub is very important for Grey international and we hope that with Klønhammer on board Grey Amsterdam will find its way to top again.

This weekend ‘Carousel’ for Philips, made by Tribal DDB, won a Film Grand Prix in Cannes! Last week the online case was already awarded with a silver Cyber Lion. According to film jury member Richard Bullock (180 Amsterdam) the jury was unanimous and quick to decide that this was a Grand Prix. David Lubars (BBDO), who presided the film jury, called it mind blowing and said it showed the way forward. True enough; the technique gives an extra (interactive) dimension to film. And when content is fully animated, the viewer can even change the ‘camera’ angle in any desirable way – which we saw earlier this year in the commercial for the game Killzone 2. Other Amsterdam winners in Film: TBWA\Neboko won silver for its Heineken walk-in fridge and bronze for its IDFA films – both commercials won a golden ADCN lamp earlier this year. Amsterdam agencies Indie and Ogilvy also won a bronze Lion for respectively Orange Babies and Sensoor.

How Amsterdam Became the Industry’s ‘Talent Trap’ is the title of an article by Rupal Parekh of Advertising Age, published this weekend – the term ‘talent trap’ is actually quoted from Philippe Meunier, chief creative officer at Sid Lee. An interesting article about Amsterdam as magnet for agencies and creative talent. Paul Lavoie for example, explains how his Canadian agency Taxi was courted by Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen and chose to open its headquarters here – above London or Paris. And W+K’s global COO, Dave Luhr, is quoted saying that “Creative recruitment into Amsterdam is pretty damn easy. There is no other city is the world so art-directed”. 180’s Managing Partner Alex Melvin also elaborates on his love for Amsterdam: “My commute to work is six minutes on a bicycle. We have 150 people here and only one car owner amongst us all. We all work in a stressful industry, but when you leave the front door at work there’s a beautiful canal and an hour and a half in the plane and you’re in the south of France.” And – let’s be honest – Amsterdam Ad Blog is proud to be quoted as well: “Amsterdam’s lenient laws that tolerate prostitution and marijuana don’t hurt either. That kind of liberal attitude is appealing to creative thinkers of all disciplines, including musicians, dancers and photographers.”

Talking about production value! After shooting a documentary, Adidas and 180 Amsterdam thought it was time for a movie – or at least a trailer! ‘Every team needs the spark’. If you’re interested in football (or ‘soccer’ if you like) you might know that Messi indeed is that spark. A magical player. But if you thought his flashy looking, state of the art football shoes, the F50i (sounds like a new Ferrari or Nikon body), helped him being such a great player, you’re wrong. Legend has it that one night – when Messi was still playing football in the streets of Buenos Aires – something magical happened. And when it happened, there was this bald guy watching him. And, you know what, he was playing with his Zippo (Zippo’s can make sparks). To make it more complicated, the story teller, also bald and with a lovely French accent, Zinédine Zidane, walks in…and then… Well, here we were lost. Anyway, what we did remember after watching this complicated story, is that the new Adidas F50i’s look pretty cool!

Yesterday we were invited to attend the world premiere of the documentary Inside The Black Jersey in the Amsterdam Film Museum. The film - initiated by 180 Amsterdam and produced by U-Turn (the 180 production arm) - is a close and intimate portrait of the national rugby team of New Zealand; the All Blacks. Since the team is sponsored by Adidas and virtually all the equipment (trainers, suits, sweaters, underwear, etc.) worn by the proud Kiwis, shows the Adidas logo, it has turned out as an amazingly smart film. While you’re intently following a fascinating group of ultimate sportsmen, fully in love with their sport and their black jersey, the Adidas brand constantly pops up – quasi subtly. It’s like subliminal advertising; you watch an hour long commercial, without noticing it’s a commercial! The documentary is going to be cut up in 10 minute episodes to be seeded online and used as content for Adidas’ new media platform, adidas.tv. Well done, 180 and Adidas. The future of branded content is here!

We came across this 180 viral for Amstel Pulse – the new hip longneck from Amstel. The bottle was designed by VBAT and won a golden lion in Cannes last year. The beer is now slowly and subtly introduced in the Netherlands – hence the viral approach. We had the honour to taste the beer earlier at Boards Creative Workshop and X-Pollination. Although unfortunately the beer didn’t give us any choreographed saliva fountains, it convincingly quenched our thirst. One thing that could be improved though is the bottle top; it makes the beer spill easily and has the tendency to get stuck around your finger.

Last Thursday Boards Magazine organized their first European creative ‘workshop’ in Amsterdam. The theme of the day was ‘The New Age of Storytelling’. Alex Melvin (founder of 180 Amsterdam) and Mark Aink (general manager of S-W-H) co-hosted the day and invited an interesting mix of international and Dutch speakers with different creative backgrounds and inspiring angles on storytelling.
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The international agency Perfect Fools hired Tim O’Kennedy as non-executive director. The Swedish online agency that opened its Amsterdam office only this year, wants O’Kennedy to expand the international business. Last year O’Kennedy unexpectedly left W+K Amsterdam. Another online agency opening an Amsterdam office is London-based de-construct. It will be managed by Neil Bedwell. Bedwell in Adformatie: “Amsterdam is at the moment Europe’s most important creative hub”. The real reason though for de-construct to expand to Amsterdam is the Adidas account, on which it will work together with 180 Amsterdam. Interesting is that both W+K and 180 once started offices in Amsterdam, because of winning respectively the Nike and Adidas account.

This happy ‘Green Song’ is made by 180 Amsterdam for MTV Switch, a platform raising global warming awareness among the typical MTV target group. A very noble initiative – although a cynic might say it is exactly the kind of ‘green painting’ the commercial talks about. Anyway, the commercial itself is of course very well made and a delight to watch. Interesting though, is that this video immediately made us think of ‘Grrr‘; a divine peace of art made for Honda by W+K London – winning a Grand Prix in Cannes in 2005. To be precize ‘Grrr’ was made by Sean Thompson. And coincidently Sean joined 180 in 2006 to become Creative Director. Apparently he loves to make animated feel good films that sell a greener environment. Fair enough.