Yet another aspiring concept by KLM, Tribal DDB, and sister agency RAPP. On April 22nd KLM will launch a high altitude balloon in the Nevada Desert, equipped with a camera and GPS-tracker to stream the real time data of the flight to a website, so that the balloon’s progress can be followed. As we’ve all learned from the idea that probably inspired this concept (a dad and son sending an iPhone towards space) the balloon will pop at some point – not in space, actually, but quite far away from it. On the website you can predict where it’ll pop – both the height and the position on the map. The winner will win a flight into space. Simple as that. Once you’ve chosen a spot in space, you can increase it, and thus the chance of winning, by asking friends to endorse you – read: spread the idea through social media. The idea is not just great in its simplicity, but also shows how a crafty execution can really make an idea; the visuals, interaction design, and sound turn it into an extremely attractive experience. Produced by Media Monks and the sound was done by MassiveMusic, Kaiser Sound Studios, and Media Monks.

Last Thursday the SpinAwards were awarded to the most digital clients, agencies, and ideas. Achtung! was the big winner with one Gold (Das Interland for Volkswagen) and three Silver (‘Tour dus Sofa’ for Skoda – an interactive game around the Tour de France). On top of that Achtung! became agency of the year – for the third time. KLM also won one Gold (Meet & Seat by Tribal DDB) and three Silver (Meet & Seat and Must see map by Code d’Azur), and became client of the year. Apart from these winners, our favourite cases were: Tweetphony (create your own 140-character symphony) by Havas – two Silvers – and the Twitter-directed film Under Control by Woedend!, winning Gold and Silver. Both ideas are simple, but at the same time quite innovative, using Twitter in a smart and unorthodox way. Finally, we were charmed by FHV/BBDO’s Holland’s Next Octopus Paul, winning Silver. You can find the complete list here.

After Chris Baylis announced to swap Tribal DDB Amsterdam for London, it must have been a difficult task to find a worthy replacement. After all, Baylis helped Tribal to its growth and international fame with the multi-awarded work for Philips and KLM. But with Mark Chalmers on board as the new ECD, DDB and Tribal seems to be in good hands again. Chalmers will be creatively leading the agencies together with Joris Kuijpers and Dylan de Backer. Chalmers was previously Creative Partner at Perfect Fools and co-founded Creative Social with Daniele Fiandaca in 2004. Just as Baylis Chalmers is keen to make truly creative advertising: “Creativity is the only significant business driver today. It is no longer restricted to communications; creativity must be an inherent part of a brand’s offering. Through creativity these guys have consistently delivered results at scale.” Word.

DDB & Tribal Amsterdam hire Anneli Rispens to manage the agency’s Content & Community department. This state of the art department is based on the ‘always on’ principle, offering social media strategies, monitoring, moderation, and crisis management, and, finally, corporate storytelling – which is, we’re guessing, the often lame content posted on Facebook by brands. Apart from Anneli, the department now consists of three content and community planners, a social media strategist and three community managers. Anneli Rispens has more than 5 years of social media and community management experience. For the last two years she has been working at KREM, a media consultancy working for NS (Dutch railways) – if there’s one brand in the Netherlands that needs crisis management, it’s them. Before that Anelli worked at Favela Fabric where she worked as community manager on KLM – if there’s one brand that takes community management seriously, it’s them. So, all in all an interesting hire, which shows that the gap between traditional and dedicated digital agencies is getting smaller everyday.

“How to present Heineken as a global Amsterdam brand?” is probably what the briefing asked. And then Tribal DDB conceived this very sympathetic idea; two ‘regular guys’ have to meet 194 nationalities, in 14 days, in 1 city. Makes the brand more personal, without losing its global aspirations. As we speak, Barnaby Slater and Mick Johan (from the UK and the Netherlands) only have about 3 days left, and still 94 nationalities to go. So you’d guess they are not going to make it. But that doesn’t matter because as the Facebook page shows, it is all about the experience of meeting so many different people with so many different backgrounds. The only thing that bothered us is that the UX design of the Facebook page is not ideal (partly due to Facebook’s restrictions) – e.g. a wider page with more clickable thumbnails, directly visible, would have worked better. But that’s a detail, we love the idea. Created by Tribal DDB and directed by Sam de Jong from production company 100% Halal.

And the winners are… Doom & Dickson, Publicis, and Lemz won Gold at Eurobest this year. Our very favourite Hema push-up bra won gold in PR (which should have been Gold for making a sound casefilm, really), and Silver in Promo & Activation. ALS’ ‘I’ve already died’ by Publicis won gold in PR, Silver in Direct, and Bronze in Promo & Activation. The third gold, in Promo & Activation went to KLM Live Reply by Lemz. In Interactive Tribal won Silver for KLM’s ‘Be my guest’ and Volkswagen’s ‘Hitchhike with a like.’ In the same category Achtung! won Silver for the Volkwagen Fanwagen. EuroRSCG (today Havas) won Silver in PR with ‘Save an orchestra‘ for the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. In Film Craft Wieden won bronze for Coca Cola’s Sitelets. The Wieden break-away We Are Pi was awarded with Bronze for the Human Arabesque for TEDx summit in Doha. In Design Arnold won Bronze for its Arnold bike. And, finally, Wieden also got Bronze in Promo & Activation for Live Serenade.

Pol Hoenderboom (32) and Bart Mol (27) (read their 10 Questions interview here) have become Creative Directors at Tribal DDB. The team has made a dream career at Tribal; in 2010 Hoenderboom and Mol started working at Tribal and since then they worked on many brands, winning a truckload of awards, like with KLM’s ‘Tile & Inspire‘ and more recently with Philips’ ‘Obsessed with Sound‘ – among which 4 Lions. In their new role they will be closely collaboring with Tribal ECD Chris Baylis and DDB CD’s Joris Kuijpers and Dylan de Backer, which seems to be the next step into integrating Tribal DDB and DDB.

What a nice ‘infographic’ (click to enlarge). It depicts the best agencies in town by comparing them with different ships. We shouldn’t take it too seriously, the introduction tells us, since it is not science and “therefore absolutely not measurable.” Glad we got that straight. The infographic is quite nicely designed (though the body copy font is a touch too small) and compares TBWA with a tanker; “It’s capable to ship a lot of work at the same time.” BSUR is a powerboat; “It needs space to go fast.” And Tribal DDB a submarine; “Fully equipped with the latest techniques.” Doom & Dickson is compared with a Ferry: “It will safely ship you to your destination, something many marketers still appreciate.” And Red Urban a pleasure yacht “about having fun, not too complicated.” We received this piece anonymously so we cannot hand out any credits. In any case, it seems as if the person or agency behind it could use some extra work – let’s say it’s comparable to the proverbial raft; very crafty, but completely surrendered to the waves of our feeble economy.

After Philips and Tribal DDB’s enormous success (award-wise) with ‘Obsessed with sound,’ Tribal was allowed to create yet another website around sound. The site gives 9 insights into the acoustic design and craftsmanship behind Philips’ Fidelio product range. For example, step 1, ‘inspiration,’ shows how Philips studied “the intricacies of air movement through a trumpet” and step 5, ‘improve,’ how “moulds were made from 400 different ear shapes in order to create the perfect cushion for the M1 headphones.” Each story makes a clickable frame and sound loop and together all these sounds make quite an uplifting, hypnotic track. As every piece of ad nowadays, this one also has a making of. And funnily enough the making of shows how creating the ad required at least as much research as Philip’s products did. So if no increase in Philips sales, this ad will at least impress the craft jury in Cannes next year. The experience was produced by Stinkdigital and the frames shot by director Gustav Johansson. The sound was designed by Ernest Greene (Washed Out).

Pol Hoenderboom (copy) and Bart Mol (art) are a creative team at Tribal DDB Amsterdam. The reason why we invited them to answer our 10 Questions is that they won 4 Lions last month in Cannes with Obsessed with Sound for Philips; a very ingenious, interactive website for the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. But that was not all. They won a truckload of awards both nationally as well as internationally – among which at ADCN (Dutch), Spins (Dutch), One Show, SXSW, D&AD, Eurobest, Epica, etc. Hoenderboom did the Junior Academy for Art Direction in Amsterdam and straight after his graduation found a job in advertising. Already after two weeks he went on a sunny shoot to Cape Town and knew he made the right choice. Mol discovered a few other directions before moving into advertising; first he tried to join the Marines – though he “luckily” got rejected on his eyesight. Then he tried construction. Finally Mol studied interactive design and in his third year he joined Tribal for an internship. In 2010 Hoenderboom and Mol became a team at Tribal. Since then they have worked on many brands, among which KLM for whom they also won many awards with Tile & Inspire. (more…)

Tribal DDB did well last night in the Cyber category, winning four (!) Lions for Obsessed with Sound: Gold (sound), Silver (website), and two Bronze (integrated and user interface). The interactive website Tribal created for Philips made it possible to very smartly single out any of the 51 members of the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. Y&R won Silver for its LG thief. This online video of a thief stealing a very thin TV on a security cam went viral instantly and already won Gold in promo – and many Dutch awards, for that matter. Achtung! won Silver for its sexy Fanwagen; a real Volkswagen van customized into a Facebook fangwagen. In Press 72andSunny won a Grand Prix. That is, the Amsterdam based agency didn’t officially receive the credits – these went to the Italian agency Fabrica – but the agency was partly responsible for the Unhate print campaign for Benetton that made world leaders, like Obama and the Venezuelan Chavez kiss with each other. In Radio and Design Amsterdam didn’t win anything.

MobyPicture and Tribal DDB Amsterdam have launched Feed the Lions, an online content platform that brings together all social media buzz during Cannes Lions – afterwards it will continue as ‘Feed the Creatives’ at other large advertising festivals. The platform gathers content from Twitter and Facebook, highlighting the best stories generated by the crowd, bloggers and festival jury. And of course the upload tool that needs to be used is MobyPicture – a smart way of making the service better known among the influential crowd that visits Cannes. What’s interesting is that if you register upfront you get the chance to become an ‘ambassador’ of the festival and win one of the 50 ‘Droam MiFi’ (portable WiFi’s). This device makes content sharing a lot easier and, more importantly, free - no roaming required. The ambassadors will also receive tickets to the hottest parties in Cannes, so that they can share the experience; a win/win for all parties involved.

Recently KLM introduced Meet & Seat, a smart brand utility allowing KLM passangers to share their Facebook and LinkedIn profiles while booking a flight. And if you are looking for an interesting neighbour during the flight, you can arrange a ‘date’ through KLM’s Meet & Seat service – available on all intercontinental flights. Can you imagine the possibilities and creative content potential of this service? It shows us once again how a great business idea almost automatically leads to great ad ideas. Anyway, Tribal DDB introduces the new service with Be my guest: choose the (Dutch) celeb you would want to sit next to during a long flight and maybe you’ll actually win a trip with this person. Online you can strike up a conversation with your favourite celeb (when you answer a question they’ll say “that’s interesting”); DJ Armin van Buuren, football ‘legend’ Ruud Gullit, ‘supermodel’ Yfke Sturm, astronaut Wubbo Ockels, actor Jeroen Krabbé, or Dutch designer Hella Jongerius. It might be overselling the Meet & Seat service somewhat – they won’t be sharing their social profiles when booking a flight, that’s for sure – but a ‘Journey of Inspiration’ (KLM’s brand proposition) it will definitely be for the winners.

Photo: Maurice Mikkers
The biggest winner last night at the ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) awards was Lemz. All the ‘bulbs’ – of which one was a Grand Prix (the very best integrated work) – went to their Fireworks campaign. Our very favourite campaign of the year Domino’s Pizza Pepperoni by Indie won one Golden and two Silver bulbs (TV, internet and activation) – in our opinion it was at least as good as Lemz’ work. Wieden also won one Gold and two Silver for Heineken’s ‘The making of The Date’ (internet, TV, and activation). Selmore won Gold for Bavaria and Hugh Heffner – so we can be sure that Charlie Sheen will also win Gold next year. We were a bit surprised that N=5 won Gold for Telfort – not really our taste. Y&R won one Gold and two Silver for LG’s ‘smart thief‘ (internet, TV, and viral). A bit strange that alle these films are winning different prizes for the different channels through which they are broadcasted – does the channel matter? Another one of our favourites was Hema’s with a push-up bra in print, promoted by a male model, going viral big time – by Doom & Dickson. It won Gold and Silver. Note: Hema is one of the most down to earth department stores in the Netherlands. TBWA won Gold with its print campaign for DIY chain Gamma; free Lego – “Just like dad.” In Interactive Tribal DDB won Gold and Silver for ‘Obsessed with Sound’ for Philips. One of the most impactful commercials of the year by Publicis for ALS won Silver – “I have died by now.” Special bulbs went to Mischa Rozema (for directing OFFF), Christian Borstlap (art direction and illustration, for LV and Mr Porter), and Simon Warner (photgraphy, for Octopus).

We weren’t physically there when last night no less than 30 ‘Spins’ (rings, either gold or silver) were awarded to the best digital work of the Benelux at the SpinAwards. Instead, we were mingling with the lesser gods at the NewWork Pre-Party. After ten, though, when the SpinAwards opened their doors for the after party, we were able to congratulate all the winners in person. First of all, Tribal DDB. The big winner with three golden awards; two for Obsessed with sound and one for KLM Tile & Inspire. On top of that Tribal won the agency of the year award. Lemz also won big with five Spins. Three Silver Spins went to Taskforce Tracing Bomb makers, targeted at teenagers making their own bombs around New Years and showing the impact proudly on YouTube. The Taskforce downloaded the videos and re-uploaded them with a warning to the bomb makers. Lemz also won two silver spins with KLM Live Reply. And – not much of a surprise – KLM became advertiser of the year. Buutvrij For Life won two awards with their ‘Pass it on day’ – they asked all their Facbook friends to form a line through Amsterdam to pass on their office interior when they were moving offices. Unofficially they also won a third award together with Cote d’Azur for ‘Everything smells like chocolate.’ Boondoggle won two awards with ‘Cordeals’ for Cordaid and with Medi-Plaza.nl for the government. The latter case is slightly similar to the Taskforce concept; consumers who were buying medicines online were led to Medi-Plaza, when about to make the transaction they were confronted with the message that buying medicines online is a dangerous affair. Red Urban won two awards with the Russian Roulette app for Duyves and their ‘Like’ campaign for KPN. Click on picture to see the entire list of winners.

This graphically inviting game called ‘Hitchhike with a like’ was created by Tribal DDB and Facebook. It let’s you hitch rides through Europe to different destinations with different Volkswagen Beetles. Though the copy teaches us that it’s about the journey and not the destination, the game doesn’t really show the journey. It simply tells you how many points you’ve earned after you’ve reached your different destinations. If you travel long enough, you can win a Beetle trip across Europe. Oh, and there’s also a ‘mojo’ meter that slowly runs on empty. Only by sharing your trips on Facebook you can recharge it. And that’s where Volkswagen’s briefing peeks around the corner: “Wir wollen Facebook Likes, und schnell!” As usual we weren’t patient enough to sit out the entire game, but we’re sure that if you do there’s champagne and fireworks – and if you’re lucky a grand prize. The game was produced by B-Reel, the 3D animations built by Prime Focus, and the different tunes accompanying each trip created by Massive Music.

We were invited to Digital Dinner at Rainarai, an Aglerian restaurant in Amsterdam. Though the food was wonderful, the portions were a bit meager. And since there was plenty of alcohol, we’re writing this piece a bit hungover. But the good news is that the evening was packed. Achtung!’s Dick Buschman did the introduction, explaining that Emerce initiated the event to connect with the Dutch creative industry. The organization (Achtung!, Bert Hagendoorn, and Pop The Campaign) then asked Creative Social to select some interesting speakers. Marc Chalmers (Perfect Fools), founder of Creative Social explained how members of Creative Social have to introduce theirselves; they have to show what they are working on and finish their presentation with the words “That’s me that is.” So we had the honor to witness the introduction of the 10 new Creative Social members.

(more…)

If I have to name the advertiser of 2011, I don’t have to think long; it’s easily KLM. The reason? The Royal Dutch airline launched numerous digital platforms in the past year, experimented wildly with social media, and turned Twitter into a mature customer relationship channel. If there’s one company that has fully embraced the extensive possibilities of digital communication, without forgetting about both its commercial and communication targets, it’s KLM.

(more…)

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 month we wrote about Tribal DDB’s campaign for Philips ‘Make me a morning person’, which asked real people to share their Wake-up Light experiences. Here’s the result; Iris works at Artis and is very grumpy in the morning, but as you can see she has totally changed thanks to the Wake-Up Light. Here‘s another one with Wernke. A new light, A new dawn, so to say. We like the look and feel of this film; the stop motion effects and playful edits make sure Philips doesn’t take itself too seriously – after all we’re talking about an alarm clock here – and give the product the needed emotional touch. Nicely done by Revolver Media.

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.

(more…)

Quite an integrated campaign this new work ‘See what light can do’ by Tribal DDB and DDB Amsterdam for Philips. A ‘lightover’ team – based on the successful home make-overs – visits 29 homes in 8 countries around the world to show how the right lighting can transform your house into a much more atmospheric environment – the insight behind it; light changes your mood. The results are presented online. This content is not exactly our kind of content, since we’re not big fans of home make-over TV, but we can easily imagine it will persuade enough consumers to start thinking about LED and – more importantly – see Philips as the thought leader in this field. Part of the platform is a ‘3D Home Lighting Designer’ app that helps consumers to choose between different lighting options and advises them on which (Philips) products to buy. There’s also a Facebook page where you get in contact with the experts on ‘light design’. To generate mass attention Tribal/DDB also created a (bit of a corporate) commercial in which Philips presents its platform as the future of lighting. Together with the recent Wake-up Light campaigns, Philips is firmly reclaiming its strong heritage of being the lighting expert.

The impressive series of interactive ads created by Tribal DDB Amsterdam in the past year has found the right award show to get fully appreciated; The Lovie Awards. Named after Ada Lovelace, an English writer who lived in the 19th Century and – believe it or not – wrote the first algorithm. That’s how the Lovie Awards should represent “European innovation and creative ingenuity”. Tribal won three golden awards (out of a total of 40) for Philips with ‘Wake up the town’ (featured in this post) and ‘Obsessed with sound’ – and a handful of others. KLM’s ‘Tile & Inspire‘ won two silver and one bronze. Other awarded Amsterdam agencies were LBi Lostboys (Anne Frank), Pool Worldwide (TomTom and Sound Circus – great website!) and Blast Radius (Hugo Boss).

Last year we were much impressed by Tribal DDB’s work for the Philips Wake-up Light. The agency made an entire village in the Arctic use a Wake-up Light and share their experiences – they even made a documentary about it. This year Philips and Tribal DDB chose to go for the masses; everyone can test the product (for free). That is, not everyone, but a ‘selected’ group of consumers that ‘Like’ the Wake-up Light Facebook fan page. This group can download an app (on iPhone) to register the ease of waking up on a daily basis. You can also simply do a quiz to find out whether you are a “Morning person” – or a ‘zombie’, ‘grump’, ‘early bird’, etc. Apparently the proof of this product is really in the eating. But it fascinates us that even though this product feels scientifically sound, it is so hard for Philips to make everyone use it. That is, we’ve never come across one except in Tribal DDB’s campaigns. Is it the price of the product (around €100)? The appearance maybe? Or are consumers simply conservative by nature? Probably a bit of each. Anyway, compared to the Wake-up light itself, Tribal DDB has done everything possible to make things look attractive. The film was produced by Mini Vegas and Revolver Media. The animations were done by Keytoon Animation Studio and the website was built by MediaMonks.

Philips is obsessed with sound. At least, that’s what they try to communicate through this ingeniously made, interactive website that allows you to single out any of the 51 members of the Metropole Orchestra – known for its non-traditional attitude towards music – and ‘hear every detail’. On top of that you can also read about each musician’s musical preferences and find out more about them on their personal blogs and Twitter. Since every digital campaign nowadays requires an activational element, Philips also launched a competition in which its target audience is to submit home made compositions – in the jury: Steve Lillywhit (ex producer Talking Heads) and Benjamin Herman (New Cool Collective). The winner will see his composition played and recorded by the Metropolitan, which sounds like a serious incentive to us. Created by Tribal DDB.

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!

In September last year Philips launched an online series, called Nigel & Victoria. We then judged it “a fairly watchable boy-meets-girl comedy.” When we saw this teaser for Season 2, which started last week, we were even more impressed. It not only confirms once more that Philips has a modern look on advertising (allocating its ad budget to production, rather than buying media) and doesn’t mind experimenting a little, it also shows how an ad property can grow – if you only give it some time. In the first episode Philips brand manager Nigel (actor Ben Willbond) was creating a series of product demonstrations with the stubborn, but sexy Victoria (Koblenko). Now that they’ve fallen in love and want to separate their work from their relationship, the second episode ‘The search for the new Victoria’ is about Nigel traveling around the world to find someone that can replace his girlfriend. And, tada, there’s your consumer engagement and branded content; attractive girls from all over the world demonstrating Philips gear – though we’re not sure how honest the selection process went. The episodes are released on a dedicated Facebook page. Created by Tribal DDB and production agency Wenneker.

Write the future did what most of us expected, it won big last night at the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) Awards: the Standing bulb (read: Grand Prix) and three golden bulbs (Integrated, Film, and Print/Magazine). Massive Music also won an award for the music in this commercial. Overall, TBWA\Neboko won most awards, taking home 2 golden (in Film for Pearle and in Print for Heineken’s Social Networks) and 4 silver bulbs. Live Interactive billboard (n=5) won gold in Outdoor. Bavaria’s DutchDress (Selmore) – causing such a big stir at the World Championship football last summer – also received a very deserved golden bulb in Activation. Christian Borstlap’s posters for the overview exhibition of Dutch advertising classics won gold in Graphic Design. In Interactive there was no gold. This could mean that digital creatives are still mostly tech driven, rather than aiming for the big idea. It could also mean that the ‘traditional’ creatives (the largest part of the Jury) are not able to fully appreciate digital innovations. Or it might be a bit of both. In any case, there were three silver bulbs in Interactive for Philips ‘Wake up the town‘ (Tribal DDB), Live Interactive Billboard (see above – a big digital idea, created by a ‘traditional’ agency), and Vodafone’s Madame TreSesti (Achtung!). Our very favourite film ‘Drama Queen‘ for the Young Director Award (TBWA Helsinki, directed by Rogier Hesp) got a bulb in the category Young Directors, but unfortunately not gold.

Last Thursday the SpinAwards were divided between the top digital agencies in the Netherlands and Belgium. In ‘Online’ there were two golden awards; ‘Philips wake up the town’ (A fantastic concept by Tribal DDB) and ‘Hi-Tec Liquid Mountaineering’ (a very strongly executed viral by CCCP – judged as the best mockumentary of 2010 by Adage). There was one silver in Online; KLM Surprise (see embedded case film) – this also won gold in ‘Cross Media’. KLM Surprise winning two Spins was indeed a surprise. The concept is quite thin; passengers at Schiphol airport using Twitter or Foursquare were given a special gifts that matched their travel plans – seeding the shaky film footage online didn’t make it a stronger concept. In our opinion the only fair award for this surprise would have been in ‘Social Media’. Speaking of social media, in this category Boondoggle won silver for ‘Take Mokum’ – “a great way to activate your audience” is how we judged it back in September. The three awards for Boondoggle made it digital agency of the year – regardless the surprise a fair decision. KLM – also winning a second golden award for iFly Magazine in ‘Content’, created by Born 05 – became digital advertiser of the year. Considering the amount of innovative stuff KLM has created in the past year, their award was entirely deserved. Muse & Ice Mobile won gold in ‘Innovation’ for their app ‘Appie’. Indeed one of the more innovative concepts we’ve seen last year. Another gold went to the addictive game ‘Noisia Infection’, created by Flavour – “playful branding”. A very strong SpinAward (gold) went to the Blurshirt for Beachmasters (party holidays for teenagers), in the category ‘Young Talent’. It was  created by Nik Sluijs and Nanette Visser of de Willem de Kooning Acadamy. The shirt has a shotcode underneath the collar so that, when embarrassing pictures are uploaded on social media, the face above the collar automatically gets blurred. Now there’s a concept that taps into a serious target group need.

Another great idea by Tribal DDB for KLM; Travlr, a website that inspires travelers by aggregating geo-tagged holiday snapshots and presenting them on a navigable map of the world. Travlr allows you to search for – let’s say – ‘scuba diving’, together with a budget (the link to an airline ticket), and the map offers you all there is to find about scuba diving on YouTube, Twitter, Google Maps, Wikitravel, Flickr and Foursquare. A difficult task, since the algorythm needs to filter out all the crap that is floating on the internet – that’s why the platform is still in beta. We’ve often asked ourselves why Lonely Planet doesn’t use more traveler generated content -  the ultimate strategic fit – but now that KLM is jumping into this opportunity, we certainly hope Travlr will be nurtured and raised to become a mature travel platform. It would add a huge amount of value to the brand and KLM might even be able to expand its products and services beyond that of an airline. Very innovative.

Since the 1950s KLM offers every World Business Class passenger a gift; a Delft Blue miniature Dutch canal house, filled with jenever – a traditional Dutch, juniper-flavoured gin. Every year, on October 7th – the anniversary of KLM’s founding in 1919 – a new house is launched. According to KLM over the years these houses have become collector’s items. Tribal DDB created a real life, 7 meter long canal street with 91  minitiature houses, then filmed it, and finally turned it into a virtual, online experience, dubbed ‘Take a trip down KLM lane’. The different houses are clickable and reveal information about the different buildings’ location (in Google maps) and history. The miniature bridges, trees, boats, etc. were created by model maker Lucas van Doorn. Speaking of craftsmanship!

Awesomeness, this new Philips campaign. Tribal DDB Amsterdam went to Longyearbyen, one of the most northerly towns in the Arctic, – where in the winter the sun doesn’t rise – to demonstrate the benefits of the Philips Wake-up light. Though one of our editors immediately called out “Tropicana, BBDO Toronto” (winning a Lion in Cannes this year) we think Tribal did a very nice job here. Last year Tribal woke up a rooster with the wake-up light, but you can imagine that testing this product on real people comes across way more credible. Especially when you make a documentary out of it. And even more so, if you let Dough Pray – who also did Art & Copy – direct it. On a dedicated website you can follow the inhabitants of Longyearbyen and see how they react on Philips’ Wake-up light. We don’t know when the documentary will be released, but having seen the trailer we are sure it will be a qualitative piece of advertising.

Quite a visual ‘trip’ this NS Hispeed ad. “Wherever you want to travel within Europe, every high speed trip starts at home” is what the voice-over tells us. O.k., maybe it’s not the greatest ad in the world, but we very much like the art work – except for the last frame that creates a huge anti-climax and makes you realize that the client always has the final say. The commercial was conceived by Tribal DDB, animated by Joris Blomjous and Michiel Krop, and directed by Raphaël Bartels.

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!

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.

This teaser features snippets of the five short films that are part of the new Philips ad campaign, Parallel Lines, selling Philips’ 21:9 home cinema television – or rather its credibility as an innovative television manufacturer. The campaign is built around the idea that ‘There are millions of ways to tell a story. There’s only one way to watch one’. Five different films were made, all using the same copy, but telling a completely different story. Philips’ ad agency Tribal DDB asked production company Ridley Scott Associates to come up with the different scripts – between 2 and 3 minutes each. The briefing was very open; the most important restriction was the copy that was already there; “It’s a unicorn. I’ve never seen one up close before. Beautiful. Get away. I’m Sorry”. Out of a huge pile of different scripts featuring a unicorn in one way or another, Philips and Tribal DDB chose five scripts that were each able to optimally show the qualities of a Philips television in a different way. Director’s Jack Scott (son of Ridley), Johnny Hardstaff, Carl Erik Rinsch, Greg Fay and Hi-Sim were elected. Though it was not easy to outshine Philips’ previous cinematic ad, Carousel (showered with international awards), we think the result is stunning. Not only because it produced more or less five times as much content, but more so because there’s an actual concept behind it. Carousel – however beautifully made – ‘simply’ showed the qualities of a Philips home cinema TV with ambilight. Parallel Lines, instead, is based on a tagline with a meaning and mileage, and even allows Philips to crowdsource the sixth script. On a dedicated YouTube channel Philips asks ambitious film makers to upload their own interpretation of the story about a unicorn. By doing so the campaign will activate a set of highly motivated and credible Philips ambassadors that will probably give the campaign more momentum than its predecessor. The only question left for us is, will Philips be able to win a second Cannes Grand Prix in a row.

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.

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).

With this fantastic idea about global warming for MTV Switch, Ogilvy won a golden Outdoor award at the New York Festivals. Last week we were slightly disappointed with the meagre Amsterdam-score in Cannes (except of course for the wonderful Grand Prix by Tribal DDB); we only won a few silver and two handfuls of bronze – no gold! Fortunately we scored better at the New York Festivals. Although we have to say that their website is so crappy that we doubt the quality of the awards. Anyway, EuroRSCG 4D won four awards – two gold, one silver and one bronze. Gold (2x) was for Volvo – we’re not sure what exactly they made (couldn’t find it on the NYF website), but the awards were won in the categories ‘Art & Technique’ and ‘Interactive’. This doesn’t surprise us, since 4D has won a truckload of prizes in the past years for Volvo already. 4D’s online partnership with Volvo is surely one of the more successful ones in the business. Creatiefteam.nl won gold for DHL and New Message silver for promoting a program called The Phone. The program is an Augmented Reality Game (inspired by the great movie The Game) with hidden phones, assignments and the chance to win a big sum of money. New Message hid some ringing phones in TV and Radio programs, which of course generated instant word of mouth. Simple & Smart. It also won bronze in Cannes last week.

When it rains, it pours; we are writing yet again about brand new Grand Prix winner Tribal DDB. This week they launched another campaign for Philips, called Philips Versus. Through a dedicated website, Twitter and Flickr, the Dutch consumer electronics brand tries to reel in UGC. More specifically, they are asking its ‘user’ to pit Philips against an unusual competitor. The example of the rooster being woken up by a Philips wake-up light – instead of the sun – should explain what is expected. Quite a complicated task (the golden rule of UGC; never overestimate the creativity of your consumer). Messages are sent in like: “A Philishave that tells you when your chin is bald”. That’s just a product functionality, really – not a very good one, for that matter. But the good thing about this campaign is that Tribal DDB chose Twitter as the preferred medium. A medium that is being used by an innovative and techy crowd. And also a medium to learn from; will the instant character of Twitter make the campaign spread faster than, let’s say, the average ‘send a friend button’? Probably yes.

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.

The cyber lions are of course the most important Lions at the moment; they can predict the leading agencies of the next decade. Three Cyberlions yesterday for Amsterdam; silver for Tribal DDB with a cinematic widescreen (21:9) experience for Philips; Skipintro won silver for ‘For the love of god’; and bronze went to 2009 with its sun radar for Wieckse Witte. In our opinion the Tribal DDB lion should be mainly attributed to the execution. The idea is not new and comes from the gaming industry (we believe Halo was the first game to combine 3D with a timeline), but the execution is so impressive that it deserves lots of ‘kudos’ anyway. The sun radar for Wieckse Witte (a blond beer brand), showing in real time on which terraces in the Netherlands the sun is out, was maybe more original, but lacked execution. And the website ‘For the love of god’ for the Rijksmuseum was our favourite. While the Rijksmuseum decided to exhibit Damien Hirst’s famous diamont skull, the object was heavily polarizing the art scene; was it art or simply a very expensive object? This gave Skipintro the idea to record the opinions of the visitors of the Rijksmuseum and give them a voice on the dedicated website. Though the idea was both original and well executed, a silver Cyber Lion seems to be a fair deal.