Pink and Poodle is a fairly small agency that was co-founded by Wencke van Amstel. The agency's biggest succes so far is for Jillz, a cider brand by Heineken, targeted at women. The integrated campaign, featuring four very handsome, bare chested men, was an instant hit among the target and helped the brand to become one of the most successful beverage introductions of the year. Pink and Poodle - referring to something that draws a lot of attention - is specialized in catching target groups that play hard to get (“angry young men, lazy teenagers and women”) and feels naturally at home online, because interactivity is in its nature.

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This Jillz commercial, clearly targeted at those who like football for different reasons than most men, uses the momentum of the World Cup in South Africa next month, to playfully start a movement against the rule that the players are not allowed to take off their shirts during the game. On a dedicated website, called Jillz Loves Football, they can sign a petition against this 'rediculous' rule. The spot, that is meant to go viral, is smartly seeded online and aired around the regular World Cup TV programming. The campaign was created by Pink and Poodle and just like last year, it uses the male hard body as advertising property. And while that may come accross as a little simple and over the top, it apparently works like clockwork. Last year Heineken's apple cider was one of the most succesful introductions on the Dutch market, for a large part thanks to the advertising.

Wencke van Amstel is founding partner and ECD at Pink and Poodle. Though she is a typical Amsterdammer, she grew up and studied in the south of the Netherlands. Apart from dancing on bars and drinking cocktails, Wencke loves to use her creativity in fashion, photography, psychology and advertising. Therefore it’s not much of a surprise she admires a broad party of creative minds; from John Irving to 50 Cent and from Jeff Koons to Maria Callas. And although she picked up some wise lessons from the Scientology Church, Muhammed Ali and Donald Trump, she doesn’t like people who are angry. Click here to read the full interview.

If you think this great ad for Activia was made unauthorized by an amateur creative, trying to build up a portfolio; you are very right! The ad was made by Anna Komarek - or rather, advertising agency Pink and Poodle, that conceived Anna. The ADCN (the Dutch art director’s club) asked Pink and Poodle to promote the new ADCN website, on which the ADCN members can from now on integrate their portfolio and social media pages. Anna - sexy and ambitious at the same time - infiltrated the ad creatives’ social networks in search of a job. She promoted herself on Facebook and Twitter, using YouTube video’s and a very 'promising' Flickr portfolio. And although most of Anna's followers knew she was a hoax ("too staged", as someone commented), her job hunt made pretty interesting content. And this of course immediately proofed the value of the improved ADCN site. Wonderful strategy, brilliant execution. Pretty lamp (= ADCN award) worthy!

‘WTF?!!!’ was our first reaction when we saw this commercial for Jillz. Apart from the fact that we don’t drool on male hard bodies, we just didn’t know what to think of it. But after watching it a few times, it slowly started to grow on us. It has a Moulin Rouge over-the-topness and production value that’s quite irresistible. Jillz is a new sparkling cider (containing 5% of alcohol) that should give Heineken’s product portfolio more balance towards women. And that’s probably why the ad, made by Pink and Poodle (what kind of association should this name evoke?), is so explicit about its target.