Photo by Johannes Abeling / HH

Last month we wrote about Boris Nihom becoming Head of Strategy at THEY. Today we know why: as of May 1st, Roland van der Vorst, co-founder of THEY, after seven years leaves the agency to move to Singapore and set up some new businesses. Van der Vorst: “THEY is the nicest and most inspiring company I know, but after 14 years of advertising and consulting, I have the urge and curiosity to keep myself busy with other things in a very exciting part of the world.“ As a shareholder, Van der Vorst will remain part of THEY India and champagne brand Zarb – introduced on the market by THEY. Through his move to Singapore, Van der Vorst will help Zarb to further expand in Asia. On the 25th of April the agency will throw a farewell party and introduce the new Zarb Rosé Six³. Van der Vorst will then also present his new book ‘Het Camouflage Effect. THEY are busy…

Boris Nihom (31) will become Head of Strategy at THEY next month. Nihom, winning the ‘Jonge Haan’ (a marketing award for young, promising marketeers) in 2010 and co-founding the Account Planning Group Netherlands in 2011, joined THEY six years ago. Roland van der Vorst, current Head of Stategy and founder of THEY, about Nihom’s promotion: “In the past years we’ve invested in renewing our strategy department and Boris showed great leadership in this proces.” Asked about his mission, Nihom answers he wants to build the most versatile strategy department of the Netherlands, in which brand and campaign strategy are merged by offering services like business development, data analysis, touch point planning, and community management.

…we love this topical ad from Vodafone and THEY to celebrate Valentine’s day – click for full image. Doesn’t need much explanation. Which is actually what makes good ads.

THEY created a campaign around the drama of losing or breaking your mobile phone – which happens to 55,000 Vodafone clients every year. With this campaign Vodafone aims to tout it services of blocking a phone, retrieving it, insuring it, and backing up the data. The drama in this campaign was literally added by director Arne Toornen (hazazaH) and DOP Jeroen de Bruin, who created a set of commercials spoofing crime scene television. The voice-over – “This true story can be experienced as shocking by smart phone users” – makes things complete. We like.

Update: Idea is not entirely new: Ben reconstructs user generated content.

Vodafone introduces The Company Voice of Holland, a smart variant of the popular talent show on TV. Together with agencies Achtung! and THEY, Vodafone is looking for the receptionist with the best voice. The online audition – built by This Page Cannot Be Found – is done, quite appropriately, through the telephone. By means of ‘advanced technology’ (whatever that means), the voice of the contestants is analysed in real-time and they are given feedback straight away. The winning receptionist, announced on the 21^st of December on Business News Radio, receives a private office concert by one of the Voice’s finalists. The activation should promote One Net, a new phone service that integrates mobile and landlines, which is a blessing for business lines. What a smart way to reach this very specific target group – that is essential in convincing companies to use One Net – with such relevant content. Well done.

To promote its Prepaid+ subscription Vodafone has introduced the hashtag #delenalseenbaas (‘share like a boss’). It celebrates the phenomenon of ‘oversharing’. The most superfluous tweets – like “I think my hamster has a cold” - using the campaign hashtag are put in the spotlights on a dedicated website. If you wonder why Vodafone is doing this; apparently the subscription gives away ‘free’ data every time you upgrade your subscription – hence the ‘plus’ in Prepaid+. Which allows you to send as many brainless tweets as you like. Or something. Anyway, it all looks pretty flashy; the website is adorned with a hip animation designed by Miktor & Molf. Concept and design by THEY and Achtung! Technical realization by B-Lex.

This is the kind of concept that makes us instantly jealous. Smart, innovative, and great in its simplicity. The casefilm pretty much speaks for itself; the idea combines the mechanism of Facebook’s Timeline with teaching history. Here’s an example of one of the timelines: 20th century inventions - in Dutch. The concept was created by THEY for the 4th Gymnasium in Amsterdam, under the guidance of school principal Hans Verhage. Verhage: “Many schools are anti-smartphone, SMS, and Facebook because they feel that these means of communication distract from learning. But you can also turn them into tools and see social media as an educational asset” Amen. This tool obviously needs to grow, but it’s definitely a plausible step into the future of teaching history.

Very nice, this glow-in-the-dark poster, advertising the Bos Theater, an open-air theater in the Amsterdamse Bos, where the play Wiener Wald is performed from July 3rd – September 15th. We love the fact that these posters are wood printed – using a gouge to draw. And to obtain the pearly color, more colors than just black were used in the printing process. Here’s all three posters – in daylight. Created by THEY.

For those of you not following what’s happening in Dutch football: there is (or was?) a fight going on between two former Ajax Amsterdam coaches. Van Gaal and Cruijff both want to reorganize the love of their life, Ajax, but in their own way. And they have more in common; they both grew up in Amsterdam Oost and coached FC Barcelona. But since they have their separate visions and are quite narcissistic, they are not best friends. But Ajax’ current shirt sponsor Aegon, or probably rather its agency THEY, convinced Louis Van Gaal to congratulate Cruijff with his 65th birthday in this newspaper ad (click = full picture) last week. A smart move, since a stable Ajax means a more profitable sponsor contract. And whatever you think of Johan Cruijff, the man is a living legend who deserves credit for his big career – both as a player as well as a coach. The print ad was trending topic in the Netherlands and even integrally read out loud on TV by the biggest news channel. Some nice free publicity for Aegon – and Van Gaal, for that matter. Hopefully it will even stir Ajax towards a more stable era. Though we must say that all the rumour hasn’t really bothered Ajax, cause it will most likely become the National champion for a second time in a row.

A bit of a bipolar ad this. It starts quite art directional with some beautifully directed images and a subtle sound design (Studio de Keuken) that makes it feel special and easily draws you in. And then, about half way down, when the sleepless consumer (wearing the art director’s beard) tweets to @VodafoneNL that he cannot sleep, the commercial all of a sudden changes into a corporate commercial with a shitty tune that can only come from a company where employees wear spotless white shirts and a constant tan. Don’t get us wrong; we think 24/7 webcare is a smart brand utility. It’s just that the art directional contrast struck us; as if an arthouse movie changes into a Hollywood blockbuster. Created by THEY, directed by Bill Pols (hazazaH), and shot by Gabor Deak.

When we first saw this commercial for the ‘Meer Dan Voetbal’ foundation (bonding society through football), we thought ‘this has already been done’, but after a brief discussion we realized we mixed it up with this Nike “Take it to the next level” commercial. Speaking of taking things to the next level; the view from the ball (with a camera inside the ball) makes the footage even more dynamic. After Dutch ex international Giovanni van Bronckhorst (it probably helps to use a celeb) kicks off, the ball is passed on and the voice over speaks from the ball’s perspective, saying things like “I am the reason that people go outside”, “I give children their excercise”, “create friendships”, etc. The film ends with “a ball can accomplish a lot”. True that. Created by THEY and directed by Bill Tanaka (328 Stories).

There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.

(more…)

Happy New Year to you all. To stay in the right mood, we present to you this film about Champagne. A nice slow motion of a bottle of Champagne being uncorked – in reverse. Not the most original idea ever, but pleasant to watch with Vivaldi in the background and likely to make the viewer thirsty. What makes less sense is that the film was made for Lidl, known as one of the cheaper supermarket chains – and recently in the news again for treating its personnel like rubbish, for that matter. Promoting a cheap Champagne (with ditto label and price) for a cheap supermarket in a relatively stylish way feels like a contradiction. But that’s the whole idea – recently we also saw Zeeman being promoted on the catwalk. The film is part of a more integrated campaign with a print ad featuring a Dutch chef, Ramon Beuk, promoting the Champagne in Dutch glossy Linda; “The best tasting Champagne for an incredibly low price. Where to get it?!” With a QR code in the Linda readers were directed to a dedicated page showing the film and revealing the source (see case film here). The concept was created by THEY – who launched their own Champagne brand Zarb a few years ago – and the Champagne film was directed by Bill Tanaka (328 Stories).

When it comes to location based – i.e. geo-tagged – shopping there are roughly two kind of benefits (apart from telling people where you are); either you can proudly tell the world you’ve become the virtual mayor somewhere or you get an instant discount – or both. Now there’s a new web app, created by THEY, that tells you through live data where you don’t want to be shopping. The app that sources Foursquare check-ins and tweets is built to avoid the crazy X-mas shopping crowds. Since it only services a few areas in Amsterdam (like ‘Centrum’ and the ’9 Straatjes’) and most people don’t have the luxury to go shopping when nobody else does (unless they shop online), it seems more of a PR builder than an ambituous project that is to conquer the world. But whatever you think of it; it does show that THEY is thinking forward and likes to experiment.

Zarb – French slang for bizarre – is a champagne brand brought to market by Amsterdam agency THEY in 2009. The idea behind the brand is that the bottle is used as an artistic medium. In December last year Zarb opened a pop-up store in Amsterdam to show its collection. This year the brand is a little more ambitious by having its new designs exhibited in gallery Joyce in Palais Royal in Paris. 20 different artists were given complete freedom to create their own Zarb bottle. Amongst them Dutch Fashion Designer Jan Taminiau (in pic), Andrea Crews, PP from Longwy (in pic), Chaotic Bastards, Hedi Ferjani, Emeline Piot, Mini Mercredi, Paul Hamy, Deux d’Amsterdam, Nina Naustdal (in pic), Antoine Bouillot and Hanna Hermans (in pic). We’re glad to see that THEY is keeping up the good work.

Just like the previous Vodafone commercial – also made by THEY – about the €2-abroad-deal (the one in the snow), this ad won’t win any prizes in Cannes – though Wouter Stoter directed a fairly sexy commercial. But speaking of Cannes; some of us used Vodafone’s €2/day-deal there and it was great. Especially when comparing it to T-Mobile; they also charges €2, only then per Mb, which now feels like going back to the Middle Ages. We’re not sure whether there’s any reception at Blue Cove (wherever it is, cause we couldn’t find it on TripAdvisor), but this commercial would definitely make us consider a switch – after all, T-Mobile even in Holland doesn’t have proper reception. So what can we learn from this; you don’t need award winning work to advertise a good product. Which is more or less the opposite of: award winning work will make a bad product fail faster – but we knew that one since Bill Bernbach was still alive.

We wrote about this campaign, created by THEY, before; it’s based on the ‘IkKan’ (I can) theme and built around the ‘Talent Translator’. This online platform helps the jobless to focus on what they can do, rather than on what they cannot – sounds logical. And this positive approach should encourage people to look for a job more actively. Whatever. We just like the visual style.

We received a press release from THEY telling us that the agency just won the assignment to roll-out the Polish vodka Sobieski in India. Sobieski is (in quantity) the sixth-largest vodka brand in the world, but we never heard of it. After doing some Googling we came across this Bruce Willis commercial. Apparently he’s not only Sobieski’s advertising property, like George Clooney for Nespresso, but also a partner in the company. The commercial made us laugh out loud. Having seen this, we’re sure THEY will do a better job in India. Though selling vodka in India still feels like selling Vindaloo curry’s on the Northpole – fortunately India is a little denser populated.

“Internet overseas. Our network is ready for it. Start your journey.”

Sometimes advertising seems so simple. Or let us put it differently; some agencies can make advertising look simple. Though it helps of course that Amsterdam agency THEY was allowed to bring us good news. After all, we’ve asked ourselves for ages: ‘why don’t these assholes provide us with cheaper internet overseas’. As if they still had to ‘make’ a network in Switzerland. Vodafone has been ready for it for many years, but first they wanted to empty our pockets before introducing this new standard – €2/day, which is still ridiculous. So ironically the message reminds us that mobile providers are not to be trusted. We’re not gonna shoot the messenger, though, cause THEY did a good job in making Vodafone look attractive. The commercial, shot in St. Moritz, was directed – just like the previous commercial – by Wouter Stoter (Comrad).

Zarb, meaning bizarre in French slang, is a relatively new Champagne brand that was introduced by agency THEY two years ago. An understandable brand name, if your plan is to turn the traditional champagne market upside down. Instead of becoming cautious or even apathetic, THEY wanted to convert the economic crises into something positive; hence Champagne, a drink you have when there’s something to celebrate. The Zarb bottles were turned into a creative medium by asking different artists to design their own bottle. This December the agency launched a new series, named Deep Black, using the wonders of the underwater world as inspiration. The first bottle (left) shows a photo of a squid taken by deep sea photographer David Shale. The second and third bottle (middle and left) show pictures of two mermaid-like creatures. The middle one is designed by underwater photographer Zena Holloway and the one on the right is a collaboration between Holloway and costume designer Vin Burnham. In December a pop-up store in the Amsterdam Berenstraat exhibited the new collection. Several other artists were asked to create special edition magnums. What a great idea. And if you thought it’s ‘all play and no work’, you’re wrong. The brand is slowly expanding its distribution around the globe. A lesson to be learned for all agencies that still have the feeling that the economic crises is putting them out of business; you can simply create your own – after all, you are a creative agency.

“Online gaming with mobile broadband, Vodafone is ready for it” is what the voice-over tells us. We like it. Finally. In June 2009 agency THEY won the Vodafone account together with Achtung! – the latter agency was primarily responsible for the digital work. Since then Vodafone has been all over the place with its advertising – as if they were drunk during office hours. But fortunately Vodafone didn’t (only) blame their agency – after all, a client always gets the advertising it deserves. And we’re also glad to see that the brand finally found a proposition that is both relevant and executed in an attractive way.  There are also two other commercials that show that if you like partying or yoga, fast internet can be handy. The commercials were directed by Wouter Stoter – whose production agency Comrad (sharing offices with CZAR) lent its building for the ‘OZAR’ party in one of the commercials. Let’s hope Vodafone stays off the booze and follows a steady course for a while.

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.

Vodafone, with a seemingly unlimited budget for cross-media communication, has launched yet another online thingy. Last year Vodafone introduced Vodafone 360; the answer to how the hyper-connected consumer can manage its different online social tools, like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Vodafone 360 integrates these different platforms – making itself a one-stop shop – and asked Achtung! and THEY to explain this service in a digestible and engaging way. The agencies created Madame TreSesti (phonetic: 360), a virtual crystal gazer who knows things about your love life, your ‘online health’ and your work/life balance by ‘reading’ your different social networks – with a specially designed API. The intro, with Madame TreSesti in a mystical room, promises an interesting experience. However, when the website asked us whether we allowed Vodafone to leave branded messages on our Facebook page, we had to answer ‘no’ – we don’t want to be used as advertising dummies. So unfortunately for us it ended there and then. And that’s a pity, cause we would have loved to see how Madame TreSesti was going to visually show us our online personality by sourcing from a database of 600 different audio and video snippets – especially recorded for this campaign.

Update: Achtung! changed the settings – Vodafone won’t ask if they can use your profile for spam anymore. So we gave it a go and it’s a pretty insightful experience.

Here’s another example of Vodafone’s ‘Life Insights’ campaign  – made by THEY. A campaign that revolves around insights on mobile phone usage. With these insights Vodafone creates products that match its different consumers. Last time we showed an ad that talked about accidentally sending text messages to the wrong person (read: sending dirty text messages to your grandma). This time we see a lady that angrily throws a glass of wine in your face. Why? Because 107.440 Dutch men (only men!) check sports results on their phone during a date. How rude! Although emptying a glass of wine because of that certainly isn’t normal behaviour either. In fact, if that happens, you know straight away that a relationship with this person is probably not such a good idea. So thanks to Vodafone’s thorough research, we can now get a mobile contract that allows us to find the right partner. We still like the design of these ads, for that matter.

Normally we wouldn’t have noticed this ad, but since Vodafone has surprised us many times in the past half year by introducing so many different styles of advertising, we wanted to share this one with you. Agency THEY introduced yet another visual identity for Vodafone’s communication. We like the looks of it; it is clean, designy and distinctive. If they are able to stick to it for a while, we would say it’s a keeper. However, we don’t understand it. It says: “325.205 Dutchmen have sent intimate text messages to the wrong person”. Interesting market insight, but what’s in it for us? Is Vodafone going to intercept dirty text messages to our grandmas or something? The bodycopy reads: “However you use your telephone, we have a contract that fits your behaviour. The call+text contract for example. With two times as much text messages. Handy if you need to make up with someone”. So let us get this straight. If you send your grandma a text message saying “Look forward to tonight…I’m horny as hell”, then this contract allows you to send a second text message saying: “I am so sorry grandma, that was meant for someone else”. Is that what Vodafone is trying to tell us? We’re confused. Can anyone explain?

This distinctive print ad was created by THEY (and photographed by Ilja Meefout) for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. It says “I can” and then sums up some random talents: “fishing, carpeting, conducting [an orchestra] and calculating”. A strange combination it seems. But as we all know Asian people are really good with fish, calculators and crowds – only carpentry should have been replaced by ping pong or something. Anyway, the message this ad tries to convey, is that the online ‘talent translator’ translates your talents into a job. A great idea. Although we wonder whether people are really too dumb to translate their own talent into a job. What would have been really awesome, if this online tool combined your talents and offered you a job as a doorman at a strip club, if you told it that you’re verbally strong, like naked women and enjoy the outdoors.

THEY is not having too much trouble with the recession. In fact, it just announced to open a second office in New Delhi, India. As far as we know this will be the second Amsterdam agency opening an office in New Delhi – Wieden+Kennedy already has one, especially to service its client Nokia. THEY Consult (THEY’s strategic arm) partner Tjaco Walvis will be leading the new agency. THEY got a foot in the door in India through its client Indira Ghandi International Airport – opening a brand new terminal next year. Roland van der Vorst – head of strategy – told Adformatie it started with a workshop THEY organized for the management of the airport. One led to the other. Van der Vorst sees lots potential in India. Though you don’t need to be visionary to see that, we congratulate the agency for taking the big plunge!

Source: Adformatie

We ended our last post about Vodafone with ‘to be continued’. Why? Because we were surprised that Vodafone’s new, distinctive characters (the ‘mutated guinea pigs’) weren’t used at all in Achtung!’s brand activation, ‘Upgrade a stranger’. And while Vodafone internally is still being divided over the new ad property – created by THEY – Achtung! was asked to create yet another activation campaign for the (young) consumer. The principle is quite similar to the previous activation; through two different micro-sites Vodafone gives away more mobile phones. The first campaign is called BlackBerryHideout; phones (BlackBerry Curves) are hidden around universities, video clues are given by two students  (in English) on the website and anyone can search for it – in real life. The other activation, is called TheYouFlickInMyHyveFaceChase; an online treasure hunt through social networks and blogs. This time the prize is a Samsung H1 (and some other prizes). We are not sure how many consumers are involved in these activations, but it definitely sounds like something that will cause a lot of rumour around the brand – this time mainly positive rumour…

This commercial by THEY for Vodafone, is the talk of the (advertising) town at the moment. No wonder, the mutated guinea pigs are kind of odd. But we think it’s very brave of Vodafone to adopt such a distinctive ad property and respect THEY for being able to sell it. And since it is always hard to judge a completely new concept, we can only say we didn’t expect it from Vodafone. It is actually a campaign we would expect from a completely new player in the market – that needs to build up awareness in a short time – or one with a niche target. The brand proposition ‘Power to you’ sounds a bit like marketing talk. On the other hand, it should give a creative agency enough inspiration to come up with an ‘empowering’ campaign. And the phrase ‘life is too short for hasty calls’ seems illogical (we always keep our calls short for the same reason), but makes sense when used in different ways – ‘Life is too short to search for Wifi’ etc. The campaign is accompanied by a set of banners, made by Achtung!. And there’s also a ‘Power to you’ website (also made by Achtung!) dubbed ‘Upgrade a stranger’. Complete strangers, filmed with a hidden camera, can win different gadgets (a mini laptop, a mobile phone, etc.) when the visitors of the website vote for them. We wonder why the mutated guinea pigs don’t play a role in this. You want to push your ad property through different channels, right? And didn’t Vodafone choose for the partnership THEY/Achtung! to enrich the market with truly integrated advertising? To be continued…

Bystanders always judge the advertising scene as being so vein; there’s an award for every fart being aired. Here’s another one; Advertising Age’s ‘Small agency of the year’! We have to admit that AdAge’s goal is noble: “to help uncover some of the great but not enormous agencies that too rarely get recognition, and to celebrate some of their best work, which rarely seems to make it through the big awards-show machinery”. Amsterdam based THEY became ‘international’ (= outside the US) agency of the year. The jury said that THEY “has both the small-shop creative dexterity that can transform unlikely media into ad canvas and the brand-steward chops to win big pieces of global business”. The ‘Small agency campaign of the year’ went to LA/Amsterdam-based 72andSunny for its ‘Next Level’ campaign for Nike – a fast-paced two minute commercial directed by Guy Richie, shot from the athlete’s first-person view. We wonder whether this award show is the answer to the problem at hand. If Charles Leadbeater is right in predicting that boulders will become pebbles over the next decades – meaning that the amount of small agencies will increase strongly at the expense of the big ones – the better solution is to make the international awards shows cheaper and thus more accessible. Then every fart, regardless the size of its agency, has the same chance to get awarded.

Finally UbachsWisbrun/JWT seems to have taken the big turn. Through Adformatie we learned that the agency has won the prestigious Belastingdienst (National Tax Collectors Office); a several-million-account. DDB, Publicis,  Roorda and Imagine were also involved in the pitch. Through the grapevine we learned that at JWT the champagne has been flowing abundantly. In the last two years the office has only been loosing (important) accounts. After having been ditched by Vodafone (went to They/Achtung!) and Rabobank (went to N=5) the agency shrank from 188 employees to 50. Belastingdienst came from Indie, who owned the account for five years and produced some very smart advertising. Indie literally gave the tax collectors a sympathetic face, which is – if you look at the nature of their ‘business’ – not an easy task. 15 employees were made redundand, because of the loss. Anyway, congrats JWT.

We are very much starting to like internet provider Ziggo! After several surreal commercials – made by DDB Amsterdam – here’s yet another great ad. It features an Indian, called Howling Wolf, a woman on an Egyptian camel and some ‘naughty’ girls (read: ‘porn stars’) getting the fast download-train. A great metaphor, using living images to get this message across. Apparently though, a concept quite easily conceived, since Amsterdam agency THEY used the exact same metaphor last month. It’s interesting to see how both agencies executed the same idea in two different ways. It also tells you a lot about the Dutch internet market. As you can see, the main goal of these cable providers is to give ADSL a bad name. A tough fight for ADSL, since cable is faster (according to UPC up to 120Mb!) and since the Netherlands has one of the highest cable-densities in the world. What’s more, most consumers prefer to have one single provider for both TV and internet. And cable providers already offer landline calls (within the Netherlands) for free – a service many ADSL-providers still have to live on. So the question is not, do you prefer cable or ADSL? The question is, which ad did the best job in persuading you to choose cable?

After having worked for 7 years with UW/JWT, Vodafone this February announced it wanted to reconsider its communication strategy. The brand that facilitates communication had noticed that its target group had changed its way of communicating (well spotted!). No less than 7 agencies participated in the pitch for 2 different parts of the account; theme and online. This seems to be the best of both worlds; THEY is known for its solid brand strategies, while Achtung! is one of the best online agencies around. But how will they work together? Hopefully not like many agencies still do today; one agency comes up with a superb offline idea, while the online partner is asked to translate it into a flashy website.

Students putting this Coffee Company slide in their presentation and uploading a photo of the presentation on a dedicated website, receive a coupon for 10 cups of free coffee. Slidevertising! Nice idea by Amsterdam agency THEY. No wonder they have to give away free coffee; for students a latte is way too expensive – especially since they can buy a 50 cents coffee on campus. So we’re curious to learn what the long term effects will be.

The frustrating thing about working in advertising is that most advertisers don’t really believe in advertising. So when a recession is looming, the first thing they do is cut their advertising budget. But fortunately ad agencies do believe in advertising. Hence this ad by Amsterdam agency THEY. Apart from the fact that we love the agency’s visual identity (very distinctive and recognizable), it communicates a strong message. By doing this THEY wants to show that in times of recession the stronger become stronger and the weaker, weaker. And with so many ad people being made redundant these days, it shouldn’t be difficult for them to catch some fearless fish.