If you live in the Netherlands you probably know ‘Artis de Partis’; it’s an icon of the Amsterdam zoo and a cuddly doll for many Dutch kids. Two years ago Artis conceived an alien brother for Artis de Partis to promote Artis’ planetarium, called ‘Artis de Marsis’. The cyclope was a logical step to further exploit the success of Artis de Partis. When Dutchman André Kuipers – a big fan of the Artis planetarium – recently went into space with the ISS international space program, he decided to take Artis de Marsis with him, which led to this wonderful picture of Artis de Marsis in space. On top of this Dawn – Artis’ agency – created a goodbye film, a dedicated webpage where one can follow Artis de Marsis, and a special program in the Planetarium. The fans of Artis de Marsis will soon even be able to make an inflight call with Kuipers live from the planetarium. Engaging advertising in its truest form.

We were invited to Fitzroy’s New Year’s Bash last Friday and we have to say it is already one of the better parties of 2012. Why? Because they served fantastic mojito’s at the huge bar supplied by Fitzroy’s client Bacardi, they had a great show going with leggings, organised by a former intern who is now part of Legguns, and the tunes rocked our eardrums with Teenage Lady Killers and The Pony Peaches behind the decks. Thanks, Fitzroy.

What a great clip, showing the grand opening of Massive Music’s fifth office in London – after Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai – which will be run by Paul Reynolds and Nico Steiger. The clip was directed by Oscar Verpoort (Bananaz) and the song is ‘Sleeping Dogs’ by Big Smoky (a ‘Massive Talent’).

Since a traditional ‘portfolio night’ attracts traditional people, brand new agency Kingsday – founded last July – organizes a black book night on the 14th of December to attract talent. The black book should carry at least three great commercial ideas – think PR, brand utility, or anything that is a bigger idea than an advertising idea. Kingsday gives the participants feedback and if they really like the idea, you just might win a job. You can register here – before December 12th!

Recently Achtung! created quite an unusual campaign to communicate Vodafone’s fiber internet; in the small town of Roggel (Limburg) a real race track was laid out around the center, where celebrity Jenson Button raced his Formula 1 car against the locals – who were racing in a simulator. The entire town was involved and a documentary was made of the event. The event was to bring Vodafone and its proposition (high speed internet) as close as possible to the user. To learn more about the story behind this campaign we asked Dick Buschman, MD and Head of Strategy of Achtung!, a few questions.

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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.

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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.

This is not what you’d expect from a museum. But when you hire The Stone Twins you often get what you don’t expect. The film, directed by Bill Tanaka, promotes the ‘Underground’ exhibition at the Zeeuws Museum, an exhibition on illegal treasure hunting – “an activity that often culminates in a harvest of priceless artifacts”, according to the Twins. The exhibition consists of empty vitrines with captions representing the items ‘lost’ to the public and science, as they are in the private collections of these diggers. The exhibition is also supported by a mini documentary (i.e. interviews) that features the ‘criminals’ – they received alias’s of nocturnal creatures (Mole, Wombat, Fox, etc.). It’s doesn’t seem a coincidence that the commercial was produced by 328 Stories, if you compare it with December – also from 328 Stories.

A part of us was at Lowlands this year and the most entertaining thing we saw – apart from the bands of course – was the mobile Patattoo service, using the good old potato as a tattoo stamp. Created by Natwerk.

If there’s one retailer in the Netherlands with a cheap image it’s Zeeman. Last week the clothing (and textile) brand that sells t-shirts for €2.5 tried to radically turn this image upside down by buying a show during the Amsterdam Fashion Week (AIFW) to introduce the fake brand ‘Frank’ – nice pun. The brand is named after the Swiss designer Frank Kungl of whom 6 designs will be sold at Zeeman. Though Kungl is not as famous as Karl Lagerfeld, it’s clear that the Dutch brand was inspired by H&M. By doing the same thing Zeeman wants to prove that ‘looking good doesn’t have to be expensive’. The show was hyped by spreading fancy leaflets and seeding rumour around the brand. At the end of the show – that featured among other items a slip dress with padded cups for €14.99 – Bart Mausen of the AIFW commented that from a distance it looked ‘quite nice’, but giving it a closer look the quality proved ‘inferior’. Though the guerrilla stunt – organised by Amsterdam based Coz – has already proved very successful in harvesting free publicity, the idea is not new. TBWA did the same thing for IKEA in 2006 by introducing the new brand D-Project during the Amsterdam Interior Design trade show – this won a golden lamp in 2007. In September Zeeman will also be selling underwear designed by Bas Kosters.