The most brilliant ideas are usually the simplest. Take this guerrilla glow-in-the-dark sticker that lights up at night and is put on the asphalt next to the graphical bicycles that indicate you’re on an Amsterdam bicycle path. It was created by Rademakkers for Move bicycle lighting.
A nice concept to indirectly ask the visitors of a museum what the definition of art is – made us think of Banksy’s work smuggled into famous museums around the world. But we immediately thought, why on earth would KitKat want to expose its ‘art’ in a Museum in Twenthe – of all places? The only comparison between KitKat and abstract American art is…um… nothing. But of course it’s not about the people in the museum. They are just part of the candid camera show. The target lives on the internet and is so busy with checking their Facebook a zillion times a day, hoping to be entertained by random content shared by their friends and wannabee friends, that every now and then they might need a little break. Or even better, for most people the break is checking their Facebook. Tada; we have a match! Have a break, Have a KitKat – or ‘Have a Breakism’ as the ad was dubbed. We hope it’ll go as viral as KitKat Jesus – though we’re afraid our hope might not prove strong enough. Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.
While the Pletterpet has not been the most successful premium Heineken ever launched – at the supermarket you’ll still find big piles of Pletterpet boxes – Heineken yesterday made a big come back during the national team’s canal parade. Heineken’s agency TBWA\Neboko – also responsible for the Pletterpet – came up with the idea to spoof the well known Heineken pay-off Biertje? (Beer?) – not in use anymore, for that matter. By leaving the ‘i’ out, it spells ‘Bertje!’, referring to the Dutch football coach Bert van Marwijk. During the last days of the tournament the Amsterdam brewer spread Bertje! t-shirts and flags through supermarket Albert Heijn and its own bars. By the time the Dutch team was hounoured with a canal parade – as if they had become world champion – it was impossible to miss ‘Bertje!’ Picture: the Heineken Brewery Museum; fan waiting for the Canal Parade; newspaper ad; and Dutch top scorer Sneijder holding a Bertje! flag. Though we are very impressed by the amount of (free) publicity this must have generated, we still preferred to look at the Bavaria Dutch dress girls.
World Cup: Bavaria’s Dutch Dress babes arrested in South Africa
It almost sounds like a hoax, but through the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, we learned that a group of girls showing off their Bavaria Dutch Dress (created by Selmore) were arrested from their hotel in Johannesburg last night. Since Budweiser is the exclusive WC sponsor, no other beer brands are allowed in the stadium. The girls (getting paid by Bavaria) were disguised as Danish supporters when entering the stadium to see Holland-Denmark play. Once they were in, they revealed their sexy dresses and started to draw attention from the crowd. Ambush marketing in its purest form! And ironically, thanks to the arrest this news will travel the world!
An exquisite example of (true!) storytelling. The ‘Pletterpet’ is the best WC premium we’ve come across so far – the Netherlands probably has the highest football-premium-density in the world. This instruction film shows the package you buy in the supermarket in its full glory – €11, including 8 cans of beer. We do feel slightly embarrassed for all the Dutch morons wearing one at the WC football in South Africa and hijacking two South African traditions – the Makaraba and the Vuvuzela (horn). But letting our political (over) correctness aside for a second, the commercial is well made and when you realize that Heineken, or rather its agency TBWA Amsterdam, needs to come up with a new premium every football tournament, we have to say it’s quite original. Nice detail: the guy at the end really is the inventor of the Makaraba. In this film you can see all the previous premiums TBWA created for Heineken – though the film is a bit lame, it shows how much fun both advertiser and agency must have had creating all those premiums. And it’s that fun exactly that is translated in the smiling e’s in the Heineken logo at the end of the Pletterpet commercial.
On the 9th of June the Dutch will choose a new government. In outdoor you see smiling politicians trying to win the sympathy of the voter everywhere. This inspired Icon Network to start a guerilla campaign for paint brand Flexa (Akzo Nobel). As if Pro Color is a real political party it asks the consumer to ‘choose for more colour’. The posters are easily interpreted as a vote against the right wing party Partij voor de Vrijheid (Party For Freedom) that clearly is against colour. The posters are not branded, but once you visit the website choose pro color you find out Flexa wants you to sign a petition for more colour in the Netherlands. Quite brave from Flexa to embrace this non traditional way of advertising, with a very distinctive tone of voice, for such a traditional product.
This commercial semi poetically explains that 4000 million years ago our ancestors lived in the water permanently. So it’s only natural that some of us never want to leave it, once they’ve found the perfect surf spot. It is part of the new activation campaign ‘Never Leave The Water’ for surf and snowboard brand Protest – created by KesselsKramer. Last year Protest persuaded the fanatic surf crowd to ‘Drop it all’, when the surf was up. This summer Protest goes one step further and invites the surf dudes and dudettes to stay on ‘Island Protest’, a custom-built, floating sanctuary where you can stay in the water for as long as you want. The island is equipped with ‘comfortable couches, WIFI, a toilet [the Ocean?], a kitchen and even ping-pong’. It will travel to some of the world’s top surf events this summer. A smart combination of facilitating your customers in their needs and creating big ass guerrilla presence in the perfect umfeld.
This is quite an innovative ad for Samsung. We’re a bit late showing it, since the Olympics are already over, but the mechanism of this ‘spectacular’ is quite impressive. The video basically speaks for itself; you can film and mail yourself directly from the interactive tram halt. The content is a bit lame, but we’ll forgive Samsung. At least we’re getting the message that de Samsung Omnia has an app that allows you to follow the Winter Olympics wherever you are – although we have to say that we could do the same with the offcial Vancouver App on our iPhone. Anyway, it was made by Media Republic and 2010 in collaboration with JC Decaux.
Everybody that lives in Amsterdam recognizes the human sized letters that spell ‘I Amsterdam’. So when the A and the M disappeared this week, people noticed that something was missing. Amsterdam Partners (AP) – the agency that exploits the city slogan – reported the letters as stolen. AP even stated they encountered the missing letters on Marktplaats (the Dutch eBay). But it was all a hoax. The letters were replaced by a (big) piece of origami. With this guerrilla action Sony tried to get attention for their new game ‘Heavy Rain’ – on sale as from yesterday. In this game there’s a character called the Origami Killer – hence the origami. The person selling the letters on Marktplaats was called Erik Gilliroam, an anagram for Origami Killer. Do they really expect gamers to buy this game after having seen such an incredibly far fetched example of bad guerrilla advertising?!
Dutch hip fashion brand Scotch & Soda opened a new flagship store in the center of Amsterdam. And to promote its new women’s label it came up with quite an original guerrilla idea. They attached little handwritten notes with a red ribbon to random (female) bicycles throughout Amsterdam. If you called the secret admirer’s mobile number or sent a text message, you received a message back saying “Just come to Huidenstraat 3-5 and ask for M”. If you followed up the tempting request you received a Scotch & Soda goodie bag. Though a few frustrated singles (including a journalist from Amsterdam newspaper Het Parool) couldn’t appreciate the joke, an overwhelming amount of reactions were very positive. Hats off for Scotch & Soda.
