A while ago we wrote about Muse recruiting an intern via a very original contest. They used DrawSomething to find the best artist. Over a 1000 games were played and this video shows the result. Strangely enough the winning drawing isn’t part of this film. When we asked about that Muse told us that the responsible person at Muse left and that the winning intern is on holidays. So nobody knows. Anyway, we still love it and congrats, Hidde Stokvis.

For those of you who don’t know who the characters in this picture are; Frank Rijkaard and Rudi Völler. The only reason we can think of for choosing them as the icons of this Euro2012 penalty kick app (both on mobile and Facebook), is that Rijkaard spit Völler in the hair during the World Cup 1990 – which was, to say the least, not very chique. In other words, for some, they are the epitome of Dutch-German football rivalry. The app allows the Dutch and Germans to take penalties against each other. For every shoot out, a Dutch player is linked to a German player – via a complicated back-end that ensures a similar experience as playing with your Playstation Network. Quite impressively 45,000 players already played 210,000 penalty shoot-outs. So far Holland is leading with 115,000 against 105,000. Oh, and not for forget, you can also win a Volkswagen Up, somehow. Created by Achtung! and built by Superhero Cheesecake.

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.

Muse created an ad, or rather a contest, using the app ‘DrawSomething’. The one who will make the best drawing of My Little Pony – or whatever the game asks you to draw – gets to do a creative internship at Muse. The copy is a bit clunky (“In advertising a message should be as clear as possible. We’re looking for interns who own this skill”?), so maybe they should have searched for an intern with writing skills, but we like the animation and using an existing social game app to recruit an intern is quite a smart idea.

Earlier this week we wrote about EA’s Grand Slam Tennis 2, today we’re writing about yet another EA game, called FIFA Street. Just like GST2 this one also shows some in-game footage – probably a client mandatory – but what is different about it, is that it’s all about real life swagger. A dude with a bowler hat, a DJ, a monkey, a girl with white sneakers and golden legging, and some old school TV’s being smashed by the ball. And some dinstinguished copy: “Welcome to the home of hustle…to the school of swagger. Abracadabra. This is the birthplace of every move you’ve ever seen.” It feels a bit wannabe cool, though we instantly admit that we might just be getting a little too old for this stuff – we’re more the FIFA ‘normal’ generation. In any case, if you want to ‘Free Your Game’ FIFA Street is clearly the way forward. Created by Wieden+Kennedy, directed by Paulo Gandra and Steve Hudson (Hungry Man).

We can imagine that when you get a brief for a new EA game it will often tell you that the gameplay is new, improved, and more realistic than ever before. To demonstrate this the most obvious thing to do is to show some in-game footage and lift a little corner of the veil of gameplay. That’s what AKQA did to promote the launch of Grand Slam Tennis 2. The responsive “total racket control” is translated into a replay of the final shot at match point during some memorable Wimbledon, US Open, etc. match. We tried McEnroe (or at least an avatar that vaguely resembles McEnroe) vs Borg. And we found out that the game is so realistic that – amateur as we are – scoring the winning point against Borg proved impossible. Then again, maybe we were just too impatient. For those of you with more patience, try it out here.

We’re big fans of WeTransfer; a service that allows you to transfer big files for free. We like the clean site and are impressed by its business model; it simply sells wallpapers as advertising. And though the ads cover your entire screen, they’re not intrusive at all, cause WeTransfer only allows stylishly branded images – rotating every 45 seconds. With this game, built by Samsung and promoting the 3D LED Monitor, WeTransfer has taken things one step further. When you click on the pair of glasses (see picture), you become part of a first-person shooter and have to perform some simple tasks like reloading your rifle and spotting a terrorist with your binoculars. The game is not that special, but we like the fact that WeTransfer made it subtly ‘on demand’, instead of in your face.

The Liquid Mountaineering viral for Hi-Tec, conceived by CCCP is already legendary. So what’s next? The Hi-Tec “Infinity Run“, a game also conceived by CCCP and built by Soepel. The game lets you run on water and also has an in-game shop, which is apparently fairly unique. Once you enter the game, you only need to choose your character, your Hi-Tec gear, and the city in which you would like to hit the water – of course we chose Amsterdam. We were crap at it, but that’s actually a good thing, since each week a very ugly pair of trainers is being given away to the highest score.

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.

This short Rivella (a Heineken brand) film promotes the ‘one button website’, a website that helps you to snap out of your daily routines for a few minutes in a *tada!* refreshing way. The lovely Japanese tunes that make us very happy come from YMCK. If you don’t know the brand Rivella, you might want to know that Rivella’s pay-off always used to be: ‘A bit strange, but quite tasty’. Though they don’t seem to use this line anymore – what a shame – this ‘one button website’ combines strangeness and tastiness perfectly. Created by Superheroes, together with illustrator LouLou en Flash artist Mark Barcinsky.