This film, created by production agency +1 Amsterdam, conveys ‘The Rediscovery of Wonder’ – TED’s payoff. It will be used for TED2011. Last year, +1 created the leader for TEDxAmterdam. When Chris Anderson, international TED curator (and NOT the writer of The Long Tail), saw it, he asked the agency to make this year’s flagship conference leader. It’s not as ‘out of the box’ as we could have imagined it to be (especially when made for TED) but attractive and skillfully made nevertheless. In fact, it does make us look forward to some fresh TED juice.

We already knew that the MINI is quite a sexy car. But this Rocketman, MINI’s ultra modern concept car to be launched at the Geneva Motor Show on March 1st, sounds like sexy 2.0. And when you ask BSUR and production agency PostPanic to create a product film for it, you get sexy 3.0. So that’s what MINI did. The two minute film tells the history of MINI in both 2D and 3D animation – which is PostPanic’s specialty. The car has a super light carbon fibre cross system, which makes a natural link to Sir Alec Issigonis words that the first MINI was designed in 1959 as a fuel efficient car. A salient detail is the Union Jack on the roof made from in-laid LEDs that can light up when switched on. It makes a respectful tribute to MINI’s heritage, as the brand is German nowadays. According to the press release the concept car will go in production “based on the response from the MINI fans”. We don’t really know what that means, but it adds the obligatory social media in the loop. This stunning piece of advertising is the proof that “History may repeat itself, but MINI doesn’t“.

Google AdWords can easily be called the best advertising invention ever – anyone can use it, it’s well targeted, efficient, and cheap. The product is so successful that it gave Google a whooping $24 billion dollar revenue in 2009. This year marks the 10th anniversary of AdWords and that’s why the juggernaut wanted to thank its advertisers (for once) with a personalised message. It asked AKQA San Francisco to help them do it.  AKQA wrote a script and then asked PostPanic’s Mischa Rozema to help them visualise it – earlier they worked together on the McDonald’s ARG ‘The Lost Ring’ in 2008. As you can expect from Rozema and PostPanic, the result is a surreal experience that smoothly combines live action with digital effects. Rozema did a lot of the footage handheld and edited it purposely clunky to give the impression that it was indeed done by the Google research department. The possibility to integrate the brand names of the Google customers in each fail – in this version “postpanic.com” – was technically realised by London based Rehab Studio. What we like about the 4 minute during ad, is the contrast between the corporate, if not robotic, Susan Wojcicki – Senior Vice-President – on the one hand and the somewhat geeky humour on the other. It gives Google a human face. In fact, Wojcicki reading from her autocue “what we need here is a heartfelt thank you”, followed by the employees all over the world saying “THANK YOU”, even reminds us that Google was once an internet start-up.

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!

Nice! You got to love these 3 minutes of advertising that opened the H&M flagship store on Dam square in Amsterdam on November 22nd. And, yes, the idea is not entirely new – literally 200 meters away agency Muse did more or less the same – though slightly more impressive – for Samsung last May. But we don’t care; it’s an awesome brand experience anyway. It was done (again) by Muse and the 3D projection was designed by Elano Collaço do Monte Teixeira. Well done.

As from January 1st, next year, healthcare will become more expensive. That’s why the Dutch Consumers’ Association (Consumentenbond) asks its members to go online and check the ‘Zorgvergelijker’ (care comparer) to see whether their current insurance matches their personal situation. It made us think of the good old advertising adage “When everyone screams, you gotta whisper”. Or, to put it differently, if everyone tries to change 30 seconds into a visual orgy, you just keep it sober. Though you could argue that throwing buckets of golden CG paint on an ambulance, is not exactly sober, it will probably stand out nicely in your average overstimulated commercial break. What’s more, the distinctive style gives the concept years of mileage. Created by TBWA\Neboko, produced by Beautiful Minds, and directed by Marcel Christ – who calls himself a still life photographer.

Last March we wrote about the beautiful idents director Mischa Rozema created with his production agency PostPanic and sound production agency Massive Music for alternative rock channel MTV Rocks. MTV liked them so much that Rozema was asked to make some more. Again the idents (Fly-by, Bugs, and Loop-the-loop) clearly carry Rozema’s signature; imaginary landscapes, surreal characters, and a visually stunning mix of live action and CG. It took PostPanic five months to create them. Which shows once more that the more creative freedom you give your agency, the more energy it will put in your project. Or maybe it’s just a case of: the less you pay, the longer it takes. It doesn’t matter, it’s great work anyway.

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.

Finally! We’ve been waiting for this all summer! But we don’t actually mean the new MINI Countryman. No, we are referring to a piece of advertising just being awesome. Something that is so well made that your rational brain doesn’t have time to wrap itself around it. Your limbic system simply screams: NEED to have. The way that this four wheel driven race monster is sexed up, makes you want to try it as soon as the 60 seconds are done. The only thing we don’t understand is why they’ve added two extra doors. Surely not to be able to squeeze your little baby inside? Way too dangerous! Anyway, the commercial, called ‘flow’, was mostly filmed in Milan and directed by Brian Beletic. It was produced by Smuggler and the visual effects were added by Sway Studio. Check the making of here. Last but definitely not least, the concept was conceived by bsur. The agency won a three-way global pitch last May against 180 and KesselsKramer – all Amsterdam agencies. And when seeing the result, we are pretty confident that it was a fair decision.

The commercial we’re showing today is not that interesting in itself. It is about Red Bull sugar free being distributed all over the place. To stress this message, Red Bull hid 4-packs of Red Bull throughout the Netherlands. And with some hints on a dedicated website you can search and find them – yawn… What is interesting about this project is that the animation was created by “junior” director Aras Darmawan from Indonesia. We don’t know why he is called junior, cause the animation looks pretty senior to us, but the fact is that he is part of the PanicProgram, a new brand recently launched by (post) production agency PostPanic to give new visual talent (both local and international) a chance to show their skills. The other side of the cutting knife, is that PostPanic can also take in projects with meager budgets. A great idea that will hopefully give many ‘junior’ directors wings.