Nothing was founded in 2008 by Bas Korsten and Michael Jansen -  one of the most awarded creative teams in the Netherlands. A bit of a surprise, since only four years earlier they started Selmore. And though Selmore was (and is) a big success, Korsten and Jansen wanted to enrich the Dutch ad market with a more versatile brand that thinks beyond advertising. That's one of the reasons why the creative team simultaeneously introduced another label: Nothing Ventured. While Nothing offers its clients creative ideas and experiences. Nothing Ventured develops complete business concepts without client assignments.

www.nothing.nl

Herengracht 124-128
1015 BT Amsterdam
+31 (0)20 794 4646
info@nothing.nl

It is the digital special effects and – more specifically – the person behind them, that makes this commercial worth watching. 24 year old Tim Smit is (with respect) your typical ‘computer nerd’ who has found his way up the steep bit of the long tail, through his attic production ‘What’s in the box?’ that he posted on YouTube last March. After an item on the Dutch (NOS) news, an appearance in a popular talk show, a call from Hollywood (“who is this guy?!”) and 1.7 million hits on YouTube, Tim was approached by Amsterdam agency Nothing to direct this commercial – with the pay-off “This is a job for Werkspot.nl”. Werkspot is the eBay for small jobs around the house, like painting, plumbing and gardening. So in the unlikely event your house is ever attacked by aliens…who you gonna 'call'?!

Beginning of this year Nothing introduced ‘Nothing ventured’, a brand offering full business concepts - instead of just advertising. The entrepreneurial brand’s first fruits are the introduction of a new sport; FootGolf. As the name suggests, it combines football (= soccer) and golf. Our first reaction: jezus, why haven’t we thought of that before?! It should have quick growing potential, since (retired) football players love the game of golf. In fact, it was Willem Korsten (partner Bas Korsten's brother), an ex professional football player, who is the driving force behind this new game. Things have been taken seriously, since there’s already an International FootGolf Association - based in Geneva. Requests from other countries to adopt the game have already been submitted. And in September the first Dutch Open will be held, broadcasted by RTL7. Looks like FootGolf will become more successful than DiscGolf - a sport Lipton tried to introduce in the Netherlands in 2006.

Our last Shoptalk reported about a brand new Amsterdam agency: Nothing. In last week’s Adformatie the founders, Bas Korsten and Michael Jansen, announced yet another label; Nothing Ventured. With this parallel proposition they want to introduce new products and services for existing and potential clients, to prove that the essence of their added value is creative power. The idea is not entirely new; agency John Doe already introduced 'From The Supermarket' products (“Buy it and it’s yours”) and Rotterdam agency ARA Cardinal Condoms (“The safest way to heaven”). However, Jansen assured us that it’s not about quasi humoristic one-offs, but about serious, relevant product propositions. We like the idea very much and suspect it could even be a future trend in the world of advertising. After all, online is dramatically changing the way many companies do business; the medium is their product, which makes it harder to seperate business development from advertising.

Adformatie reported last week that according to research conducted by Synovate 63% of the Dutch advertisers believe that the added value of advertising agencies will diminish. The reason is that more and more advertisers obtain agency expertise in-house. The same research clearly shows that agencies are pessimistic about the future – no news really, when you look at the worldwide stock markets. For TBWA it is business as usual though; this week it announced a new online agency: \Neboko Flow. Floris Hülsmann and Stephan Gonnissen (previously working as a team at JWT) will form the creative management. Another new agency, Nothing, was recently founded by Bas Korsten and Michael Jansen (ex Selmore, ex DDB). Although the agency’s name is not very promising, the team itself is ranked within the top 10 most (Dutch, not international) awarded creatives. At the same time Lowe Amsterdam is struggling; MD Ed Stibbe is leaving the agency. He is the fourth and last member of the management to leave the agency within one year. It wouldn’t surprise us if the agency merges with Draftfcb (also part of Interpublic) in the near future.