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.

Last Tuesday the VEA (Dutch Association of Advertising Agencies) and VCP (Dutch Association of Commercial Producers) organized ‘Creative Lounge’ – an initiative that brings the creative advertising scene together. The theme was ‘Two worlds of advertising’, referring to the clear distinction in Amsterdam between the typical Dutch agencies that make typical Dutch advertising and the international expat scene mainly working for international clients. One important difference between the Dutch professionals and the expats, as talent recruiter Keith White of Wieden+Kennedy explained, is the fact that the Dutch are used to work from 9 till 6, while the Wieden+Kennedy’s of this world live in a parallel world and often start their day when the Dutch go to bed. There’s  a different work ethic. It helps of course that for expats social life is for the biggest part happening within their working environment. When the question was raised why the international agencies never work with Dutch production agencies, Clair Finn of U-Turn (180) said it was partly due to the lacking service level of the Dutch. White added to this that it’s not just within the agencies, but in general; Dutch restaurants, shops, the service is overall quite poor. Paul Lovoie (Taxi) suggested that you should do your advertising in Amsterdam, while outsourcing the service to the French. We’re not sure whether that’s a wise idea, but without a doubt learned that Amsterdam has to raise its service level.

Source: Adformatie

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).

This ad in the Amsterdam Vondelpark reads: ‘The park used to be so pretty’. It asks us ‘Amsterdammers’ to clean up our junk when we use the park. Good point. It is amazing to see how many people don’t clean up their picnic spot. We were surprised though by the polluting character of this humongous ad. Indeed, the Vondelpark used to be so pretty…

This poster for PICNIC, the three day (September, 23-25) cross media conference, was made by Los Design (= loose design). PICNIC is described by the organization as “three inspiring days of ideas, fun and sensory stimulation in media, technology, entertainment, art and science”. We describe it as an event where Charles Leadbeater and Clay Shirky discuss the future of collaborative creativity, while Woody Harrelson gives a yoga workshop. The spirit of PICNIC thus resembles the spirit of Amsterdam; the hottest place for cross media innovation, combined with a high level of recreation. Indeed, not your ordinary PICNIC.

We are very proud to introduce our new visual identity. It is created by Meneer de Zwart. The reason why we wanted to change our previous logo, is that it looked too much like the city marketing logo of Amsterdam: I Amsterdam. We kept the original colours red and black, because these colours represent the Amsterdam coat of arms. The lettering in the logo is inspired by the Amsterdamse School, an architectural style from the 1920’s that is very dominant throughout Amsterdam. Many bridges still display the Amsterdamse School font. With the new identity we’ve also added two new sections to our blog: interviews and jobs. For the interview section we will ask Amsterdam creatives 9 questions about creativity, advertising and Amsterdam. The job section will display vacancies in the Amsterdam creative industry and give tips for expats that (want to) move to Amsterdam. In the next few weeks we’ll start to upload content to these new sections. And there are still some design changes to be made and technical bugs to be fixed, but we hope you appreciate our new design and would love to hear your comments.

The Amsterdam Gay Pride is on its way (last weekend of July), so ‘gayvertising’ pops up everywhere. Last week we learned that the Dutch Tourist Board launched a campaign in the US with the slogan ‘Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam’. We hope the Americans will understand the pun, otherwise the amount of visitors might drop dramatically… Today we were sent this very subtle print ad for Suit Supply, made by New Message. “For him. For her”. As you can see, great advertising doesn’t need much words. Gay couples are of course an attractive target group. They usually have the DINK-status and thus much to spend. And since gays invented the metro man – wearing expensive clothes, moisturizers and a little too much after shave – we can imagine why Suit Supply addresses its advertising to this worthy target group. However, just in case, if you are planning to visit the gay pride in Amsterdam, don’t expect a procession of well tailored suits.

As everyone is enjoying their summer holiday, there’s not too much happening in advertising. So we’ll simply share two outdoor campaigns that show some of Amsterdam’s cultural events; a tribute to Alain Delon in the film museum and the international fashion week. For those of you who haven’t heard of Delon, he was the European George Clooney of the 60′s. The poster was created by Van de Jong. We don’t know who made the AIFW poster, but it’s endorsed by I Amsterdam (the city marketing brand of Amsterdam). We assume there wasn’t much budget…

How Amsterdam Became the Industry’s ‘Talent Trap’ is the title of an article by Rupal Parekh of Advertising Age, published this weekend – the term ‘talent trap’ is actually quoted from Philippe Meunier, chief creative officer at Sid Lee. An interesting article about Amsterdam as magnet for agencies and creative talent. Paul Lavoie for example, explains how his Canadian agency Taxi was courted by Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen and chose to open its headquarters here – above London or Paris. And W+K’s global COO, Dave Luhr, is quoted saying that “Creative recruitment into Amsterdam is pretty damn easy. There is no other city is the world so art-directed”. 180’s Managing Partner Alex Melvin also elaborates on his love for Amsterdam: “My commute to work is six minutes on a bicycle. We have 150 people here and only one car owner amongst us all. We all work in a stressful industry, but when you leave the front door at work there’s a beautiful canal and an hour and a half in the plane and you’re in the south of France.” And – let’s be honest – Amsterdam Ad Blog is proud to be quoted as well: “Amsterdam’s lenient laws that tolerate prostitution and marijuana don’t hurt either. That kind of liberal attitude is appealing to creative thinkers of all disciplines, including musicians, dancers and photographers.”

Once a year, on April 30th, Amsterdam throws the biggest, best and craziest party in the world to celebrate the Queen’s birthday – hence the name: Queensday. And while most world leaders try to stay sober in public, on this special day even Berlusconi and Sarkozy don’t mind losing their decorum. Since Obama is not much of an alcohol man, he usually sticks to the local ganja – while Putin tries hard to look sober after his first e has kicked in. Made by BeyenMeyer for I Amsterdam.

update: The French ambassy told Amsterdam Partners (I Amsterdam) that they are not amused. However, Amsterdam Partners was not impressed; there won’t be a recall.