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.

Picture: ECD’s W+K Amsterdam Mark Bernath (left) and Eric Quennoy (middle), mainly responsible for Wieden+Kennedy’s huge success in Cannes and Enrico Balleri from Nike, just after the award ceremony last Saturday. What a great closing night for the Amsterdam agency it was. Nike Write the future scored seven more Lions – earlier in the week it already won gold in Cyber. At the most important award night the Amsterdam agency first of all won the prestigious Grand Prix in film. It was a very close finish with Puma’s ‘After hours athlete’ as jury chair Tony Granger (CCO Y&R) explained at the press conference. After a lengthy discussion he asked the jury to put all the rational arguments aside and vote from the heart. This gave Nike the final push. Nike also won five Lions in Film craft: two Gold (Editing and Script), two Silver (Production and Sound), and one bronze (CG). And the seventh Lion, Gold in Integrated, proved that the campaign didn’t just have a pretty face. And then Heineken; for this other power brand W+K won five Lions in Film and Film craft. Four for The Entrance: Film: Gold and Bronze (interactive). Film craft: Gold and Silver (Direction and Sound Design). One Lion went to The Date – more or less the sequel of The Entrance. It won bronze in Film. This brought the grand total for Wieden+Kennedy to 13 (!) Lions. Together with all the Lions that Portland won for Old Spice, W+K must easily be the most awarded independent network in the world. Two more Amsterdam Lions went to MINI ‘Flow‘ (Silver in Film craft) by BSUR and one to Volkswagen’s ‘Old Lady’ (Bronze in Film) by DDB. All in all Amsterdam (officially) won 25 Lions, 8 (!) more than last year.

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!

Finally, Amsterdam wins its first golden Lion – in cyber. Nike’s ‘Write the future’, created by Wieden+Kennedy has already won a truckload of prizes, but winning in Cannes, is the cherry on top, of course. The campaign won in cyber, because it used social media very effectively; the film received 40 million online views. And since the film is so impressive, we expect it to win (at least) a golden film Lion this Saturday. Two virals were rewarded with a bronze Cyber lion. The first one: TomTom’s special edition StarWars voices – created by Pool Worldwide and directed by Willem Gerritsen (CZAR). This film will surely also win another Lion at the end of the week. The other viral, was Liquid Mountaineering for Hi-Tec by CCCP – a brilliantly executed mockumentary. Interesting detail; this second viral was also directed by Willem Gerritsen. In design two silver Lions were won. One by Amsterdam agency BrandBase for its pallet project, a unique working environment, built entirely from pallets by Most Design. The other silver design Lion went to Heineken’s STR bottle, a bottle that lights up in the dark thanks to its UV-sensitive ink – created by dBOD and Iris.

Yesterday was a good day. Not just because it was our first day in Cannes and we enjoyed soaking up all its extremes – Le Palais, the sun, the beach, ‘le canard au miel’, and lots of drinks – check out our photo’s here. It was also a good day for Amsterdam, because it won 5 Lions! Two silver lions went to outdoor; Interbest ‘mail stripper’ and the Go Fast water-bike, both to Y&R Not Just Film. At the time, we weren’t too positive about the unattractive stripper, because we doubted its effectiveness. You could say the silver lion has proved us wrong. Two bronze lions went to the radio commercial ‘sexual harassment’ (Publicis) and an Allsecur outdoor ad (Ogilvy). In Media Muse and Starcom won Silver for their 3D Samsung projection. Earlier, on Monday Amsterdam won two meager bronze lions; the Dutch dress for Bavaria in promo – which definitely deserves more in our opinion – and bronze for Boondoggle’s KLM Suprise in PR – in Holland this won a golden Spin (read: cyber) award. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate some gold later this week.

Our first day in Cannes! We’re going to keep a photolog this week, so any tips on interesting (preferably Amsterdam related) activities are welcome – like winning a Lion for example. We look forward seeing you and (maybe) getting a little tipsy together!

You have to brace yourself a little for this one. Not just for the length of it, but also because of the dark, post apocalyptic picture it draws – it literally shows how it gets under your skin. We guess it makes sense to ask hybrid production house Post Panic to create the leader for OFFF, the post production festival held in Barcelona this year on June 9, 10, and 11 and themed ‘Year Zero’. The visual orchestra features the names of artists that appeared at the festival. And of course, if there’s one shop that knows how to majestically merge digital, real life, and a general, unsettling, even menacing feeling, it’s Post Panic. Still a huge honour when you’re asked to show off your skills to the most critical audience in this creative domain. The film was written by Post Panic founder Mischa Rozema and British graphic designer Si Scott. It was also directed by Rozema and shot in Prague (the line production was done by Savage). The sound, influencing the suggestive character of the film so strongly, was done by Hecq. We love it, because it’s so beautifully…um…offf!

Last Friday the digital Podge was held in Amsterdam. The podge (meaning ‘small belly’) was founded in 1994 by Phil Jones (right in picture). What started out as an informal dinner between design professionals has now branched out into sports and digital. The digital podge now travels through Europe. When Achtung! visited the event last year in Stockholm they liked it so much that they decided to invite the event to Amsterdam. Together with Bert Hagendoorn (left in photo) Achtung! invited about 100 CD’s and MD’s from the best digital agencies from the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Germany and Sweden. The day started with a reception at Herengracht 502, the official residence of the mayor of Amsterdam, clearly breathing the wealth of the Dutch 17th century and creating a nice contrast with the modern, mobile addicted, casual scene. The podgers were welcomed by Achtung!’s Dick Buschman (second left in photo) and Caroline Gehrels – responsible within the municipality for selling Amsterdam to the world – together with jenever (Dutch gin), haring (herring), and kroketten (meat croquettes). The creme de la creme of digital was then taken on a ‘rondvaart’ boat to view Amsterdam from the water – though the presence of an abundance of cold Heinies and interesting conversation partners made sightseeing a little difficult. We were then taken for a late lunch to ‘De Goudfazant’, a restaurant on the Northern, industrial, hip and happening shore of the IJ river. After a rich lunch there was time for coffee and ping pong. Through the rain – to remind everyone to be in Holland – the online professionals were finally taken to café Nol, a bar in the Jordaan that used to be visited by true Amsterdammers. Unfortunately Amsterdam Ad Blog didn’t make this, because the intense conversations about the future of digital in combination with a considerate amount of alcohol persuaded us to call it a day – a wonderful day! A visual impression can be found here.

The Digital Podge is a get together of ECD’s and MD’s that work in digital. It was founded in 1994 by Phil Jones. The idea is to get the creative digital leaders together in an informal way to talk about their business. When Achtung! visited Podge last year in Stockholm, the agency successfully picked up the idea to take the event to Amsterdam. The theme of this year’s podge is ‘Kopstoot. The wrong side of Amsterdam’. A ‘kopstoot’ is a traditional Dutch drink: a beer with a jenever (Dutch gin) on the side. The attendants will also visit some other Dutch classics, like the Red Light District (no shit?), FEBO (eating out of a wall), and *tada* a coffeeshop. Sounds like things are going to be very informal. The Amsterdam Podge will be held on June 10th. If you would like to attend, you can visit the website to register – make sure to turn off your sound when you do so.

Here’s yet another agency that converted its creativity into a special Christmas concept. Last week Wieden + Kennedy organised a Virtual Holiday Dinner via Skype. It allowed the many expats ‘living’ at Wieden to enjoy their Christmas dinner with their relatives overseas. The software was quite ingenious, allowing the Skypers to move their own virtual doll by turning their heads left and right in front of their webcam to face the other people at the virtual table and have a real conversation – that is, as ‘real’ as the paper turkey, of course. Traditional and innovative at the same time. Now we think of it, a little more tweaking and W+K might be able to do all its international conference calls like this.