Yacco Vijn leaves digital agency Kong (N=5′s digital sibling) to become Managing Creative Director at TBWA\Neboko alongside Bas Engels. It was a hard decision for Vijn, but the fact that TBWA has been so consistent in its creative success over the past decade and the fact that he leaves Kong in good shape, made him decide to accept this new adventure. By hiring Vijn TBWA wants to incorporate digital in its DNA, which is different from previous attempts to found separate digital agencies; first agency.com and a few years ago Flow – both attempts failed. When we asked Vijn what he thinks of becoming MCD at an agency known for being especially good in making (Dutch) TVC’s, he told us that ‘digital’ is becoming obsolete: “The term is slowly eroding; when I go to a shop to buy a camera, I’ll ask for a camera, not a digital camera. It’s obvious that it will be digital – everything is. I think the time is ripe to stop putting digital labels on agencies and go for integrated by default“. Wise words. Floris Hülsmann, who ironically enough left Flow last year to join Kong, will be taking over Vijn’s role until Kong has found a replacement.

Not really groundbreaking, this banner created by Kong, but way more interesting than your average banner and therefore more effective we’d guess. The banner educates us about using our mobiles as a weapon to identify offenders; “Catch the thief Use your mobile”. We wouldn’t recommend the shopkeeper to use his mobile, cause he’s being robbed with a gun – clearly a stronger weapon. It’s for the bystanders. The banner allows you to move your pointer over the scrambled thieve to make him visible. And with a click of the mouse you can capture him. You could call it practice. We can imagine it’ll help the police, but if feels a little dangerous nevertheless. What if this adrenaline pumped figure stops to direct his fear and aggression towards the person behind the mobile phone? Maybe the government should use this banner in combination with a disclaimer; ‘taking photo’s of criminals might get you killed’.

After having been part of the Cyber jury in Cannes this year, Yacco Vijn has now been invited to join the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences (IADAS) and to be part of the jury of the 16th annual Webby Awards to be held in New York next June. Vijn co-founded Kong – the digital sibling of N=5 – in 2007 and helped to put it internationally on the digital map within no time. One of its biggest hits so far was Stanislav, an online campaign warning against cyber crime, winning all the important digital awards. It was one of the first campaigns – if not the first – in the world that aggregated data from a social media profile and use it in a campaign.

Four Amsterdam agencies scored a Webby award this year. The most serious one went to Boondoggle with Take Mokum (Online Campaigns) for Nike+. Boondoggle has a running gag going that mentions penguins in every interview; hence the 5-word acceptance speech by CD Gaston Serpenti – please note that this is Belgium humour. The others went to Streetview Sudan (Rich Media/Non profit), by Kong; Samsung 3D (Integrated Media Plan), by Muse and Starcom; and LBi Lostboys, with a website around the Anne Frankhuis (Cultural Institutions).

Cordaid and ad agency Kong created a website for Japan dubbed ‘Haiku for Hope‘. Not directly to raise money, but to sympathize with the people of Japan. You can create a Haiku in Dutch and Google Translate changes it into Japanese. Since most people are not very good at writing Haiku’s and Google Translate not very good in translating, the messages (spread through social media) probably won’t be very poetic. But hopefully Japan gets the point that we’re thinking of them.

Update: We were just told that there is also a Japanese translator who moderates Google’s translations.

We often wonder how long it will take before Google will bring us ‘Live Maps’. Hard to imagine, but at some point it’ll be there. Kong must have had the same thought when creating this ad for Cordaid. The online agency created a Streetview of Sudan, showing you a village where refugees live. At first it’s a normal streetview; you can scroll around, with your 360° view, and pass Justin Tambuz, 19 years old. She looks into the camera, not very happy. And then, all of a sudden, she starts to talk to you and tells you about her miserable conditions. “I was abducted by a rebel army and violently raped over a period of three months. I managed to escape and flee to Sudan. Now I’m in Makpandu refugee camp. We have little food and water and no bed to sleep in”. Wow, that’s heavy. Once she starts talking, there’s no escape. After all, you were curious enough to check out her refugee camp, so it feels a bit rude to click her away. And when, at the end, you are asked if you want to simply watch or take action – by paying only 10 Euros to help thousands of refugees in need – there’s not much that will stop you. Simple, impressive, and effective.

Kong made an interactive film, called ‘72 hours’, for the Ministry of the Interior to educate the Dutch about what to do in case of a nationwide emergency – think The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The online experience – that was a little too heavy for our internet connection – shows that you can drink water from the toilet if the tab runs dry and that you shouldn’t eat sambal (an Indonesian spicy salsa) when you’re hungry – no shit. The film interacts with your telephone and webcam to make the experience richer. It is all very nicely done, as if you’re watching a proper thriller, but what we found a little odd, is that the main character only after 72 hours comes up with the idea to turn the radio on to find out what’s happening. Apart from the fact that the hyper connected target group probably doesn’t know what ‘a radio’ is, it wouldn’t take them 72 hours to get informed. O.k., fair enough, not everyone uses Twitter, but obviously there are other ways to get in touch with your ‘social network’. It will probably take the target about 72 seconds to find out what’s going on.

Last night Amsterdam won 2 golden design Lions. Amsterdam Worldwide for its Onitsuka Tiger Tansu sneaker (picture) and FHV BBDO for its black Mars packaging (almost) without the iconic Mars logo. Consumers received a sheet of letter stickers to create their own text on the Mars bar. The jury was charmed by the fact that Mars dared to change its world famous packaging so radically. In Cyber Amsterdam won 2 bronze Lions. Achtung! with ‘Public Polo‘ for Volkswagen and Kong (again) with Stanislav for the Ministry of Justice. The day before yesterday we got 2 silver outdoor Lions. Again, one for MINI Christmas box by UbachsWisbrun/JWT and one for Interbest, created by Y&R Not just film. Indie won bronze in radio for Dance4Life.

Source: Adformatie

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.

World Cup: Bavaria’s Dutch Dress babes arrested in South Africa
It almost sounds like a hoax, but through the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, we learned that a group of girls showing off their Bavaria Dutch Dress (created by Selmore) were arrested from their hotel in Johannesburg last night. Since Budweiser is the exclusive WC sponsor, no other beer brands are allowed in the stadium. The girls (getting paid by Bavaria) were disguised as Danish supporters when entering the stadium to see Holland-Denmark play. Once they were in, they revealed their sexy dresses and started to draw attention from the crowd. Ambush marketing in its purest form! And ironically, thanks to the arrest this news will travel the world!
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Last week the Esprix awards were divided between the Dutch campaigns that were most persuasive in changing the consumer’s behaviour. Originally the Esprix was a direct marketing and sales promotion award, but since these terms sounds old school nowadays, the institute changed its proposition – already a few times in the past years. In any case, there were 31 winners. Etcetera and Red Urban (sister agencies, both owned by the DDB network), performed best. They won 5 awards each! Jointly Etcetera and Red Urban won gold for Bol.com – recently awarded advertiser of the year. The Dutch Amazon advertised its study books in outdoor (see picture). Subsequently, a fictional student hijacked the campaign by slapping his own, personal print ads on top of them (“50% cheaper!”), selling his second hand study books on Bol.com. A smart idea, with impact; Bol.com saw its study book sales increase with 15%, and its second hand study book sales with 29%. The other golden award went to N=5 – recently awarded agency of the year – and Kong (N=5’s online sister) for the Ministry of Justice. The message; be careful in sharing your personal details online. Very smartly the agencies created two pieces of content; one ‘traditional’ TV commercial for the parents and one personalized online video, called Stanislav – going viral through social network site Hyves – for the digital generation. Though it seems hard to measure the success of this campaign on behavioral parameters, it surely must have had impact in terms of awareness. Our favourite (read: most original) campaign was ‘Alex, who follows?’ (silver) created by Dawn. Alex is an online broker that facilitates ‘do it yourself’ trading. To persuade potential customers to try it out, it asked its existing customers to share their experiences online – both positive and negative – through a webcam. Talking about transparency of financial services! Here you can find all the winners.

Source: Adformatie

Last week the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) awards, or simply the ‘Lamps,’ were divided between the most creative Dutch agencies. DDB was the big winner, with 3 silver Lamps – and 29 nominations, out of 204 nominations. DDB’s best silver Lamp went to its commercial made for Ziggo. DDB’s digital sister, Tribal won two times gold with Carousel for Philips, which is no surprise after having won already so many international prizes. Indie won 2 golden and one silver Lamp; all for Domino’s pizza. Indie’s golden awards both went to ‘Delivery Point‘ (outdoor and activation), silver went to ‘Builders‘. Kong won 2 golden lamps for Stanislav (interaction and activation). Out of the 7 golden and 15 silver Lamps, our most favourite Lamp (gold) went to Kit Kat Jesus by Ubachs Wisbrun/JWT. It’s brilliant in its simplicity and shows you don’t need an incredibly big budget to come up with a great idea.

Last night at the SpinAwards – the awards for digital advertising – Achtung! regained the title ‘interactive agency of the year’ – in 2008 the online agency also won the prestigious title. A logical choice, since Achtung! was the most nominated and awarded agency around. It won 3 silver ‘rings’ for Catch the Polo (cross media), Chocomel snowball fight (best game) and Skoda Octavia introduction (best interactive video concept) respectively. For the first time this year Belgium agencies could also send in their cases. So we found it a little rude that the organization strongly branded the event ‘Made in Holland’ – were the Belgiums really welcome, or was it just their money? Fortunately Boondoggle  Leuven went home with one golden ‘Made in Belgium’ ring for a blog that closely followed the birth of a baby elephant in the Antwerp Zoo. An online campaign that generated 200.000 extra ‘physical’ Zoo visitors – which is 2% of the entire Belgium population. The Albert Heijn supermarket Appie, by Muse (recently launching a 1.5 version), also won a golden ring (mobile). Stanislav (made by Kong), the viral web video that uses social network content to show the dangers of cyber criminality, went home with two (silver) awards. The only other agency that won two (silver) awards was the through-the-line agency 2010 with Zonneradar (sun radar) for Wieckse Witte and Amstel teamlink for Amstel beer – both Heineken brands. 2010 very inconveniently changes its name every year to show that it’s always up to date, but with these two ‘brand utilities’ (concepts that go beyond entertainment by being useful in a brand related way) 2010 lives up to its choice of name. We saliently have to mention though that one of the founders of 2010, and big brain behind these concepts, Jeroen de Bakker, left 2010 this year to found Lab 1111, taking Heineken with him. Guess which agency will be winning some awards next year…

Here’s the complete list of winners.

Just like in Cannes this film by Tribal DDB won a Grand Prix in the TV/Cinema category at Eurobest in Amsterdam, last Friday. The commercial, only distributed through the internet (how could it win in TV/Cinema?), advertises the new Philips cinematic widescreen standard in a mind blowing way; a violent bank robery filmed in freeze frame and done in one single take. Cinema 21:9 also won Gold in the category Interactive – on the dedicated website you can (among other things) influence the speed and direction of the timeline of the film. The DDB network also won the best network award. At the awards ceremony, DDB asked Gary Raucher (VP Head of Integrated Marketing Communication) to accept this prize on behalf of DDB, which was a nice gesture given the fact that Philips trusted DDB with such a big budget to advertise a TV that is still in a very early stage of its product lifecycle. In general, compared to last year, the Netherlands (read: Amsterdam) did quite well. It won 22 prizes, of which 1 grand prix, 3 gold, 8 silver and 10 Bronze. Compared to the European competition, however, we didn’t. Belgium and Sweden for example – with a lot less inhabitants – scored significantly better. Amsterdam interactive agency Kong (N=5’s online agency) won Gold in the Media category for Stanislav, a short video spread through Hyves (Dutch Facebook), using your profile details to show how personal information shared on internet can easily fall in the wrong hands. Another favourite of ours, the IDFA films “You cannot make up reality” by TBWA\Neboko, won gold. ‘It’s all about the suit’ by Selmore for Van Gils won Silver in the Media category. Looking at the competition in this category, it easily deserved Gold in our opinion.

Kong Amsterdam, the digital agency of N=5, built a very smart feature with Hyves (= Dutch Facebook) for the Dutch Ministry of Justice, called Stanislav. A video, with strong James Bond-like execution (the Eastern Europeans play  the bad guys), warns in quite a convincing way to be prudent about sharing your personal information online. When you watch the video through your Hyves profile, it uses your accessible data, like name, age, city and photos in the story. The subtle thing about it, is that you don’t realize it is using your profile content, until you all of a sudden see your friends’ and your own photo appear. Interesting detail: Hyves also gave the advertising agency access to the data of hidden profiles, which they weren’t allowed to do according their own terms & conditions – would that be a cyber crime? Anyway, a minor detail when you realize how useful and effective this message can be. And compliments to the government. Usually they make unconvincing, waste-of-money advertising.

Update: (August, 21st) Adformatie reports that the campaign was terminated this week, because of its overwhelming effect. Three million Hyvers watched the personalized video (out of 16,5 million Dutchmen), while the link was forwarded more than 7 million times. Impressive.