We were invited by the VEA (association of Dutch advertisers) to attend the second edition of Creative Lounge on Monday in Pakhuis de Zwijger. The night was hosted by Jelani Isaacs (Brenninkmeijer and Isaacs) and Claire Finn (U-Turn). Guests of the evening were Matthew Atkatz (Riot, digital arm 180), Romke Oortwijn (N=5), Raphael Mazoyer (Asics) and – Skyping in from London – Florian Schmitt (Hi-Res). And this night’s topic was the controversy between digital agencies and non-digital agencies; is digital part of the idea or is digital the idea itself? A promising question, though it did take a while before the discussion stopped to bounce all over the place. We do understand why it did though; there’s no unambiguous answer to the question what the exact role of digital is in advertising. Some big ideas can only exist thanks to the technology behind it, while some ideas merely use existing digital tools to execute it. (more…)
Archive for the ‘Online’ Category
‘Talent translator’ translates talents into jobs
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
This distinctive print ad was created by THEY (and photographed by Ilja Meefout) for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. It says “I can” and then sums up some random talents: “fishing, carpeting, conducting [an orchestra] and calculating”. A strange combination it seems. But as we all know Asian people are really good with fish, calculators and crowds – only carpentry should have been replaced by ping pong or something. Anyway, the message this ad tries to convey, is that the online ‘talent translator’ translates your talents into a job. A great idea. Although we wonder whether people are really too dumb to translate their own talent into a job. What would have been really awesome, if this online tool combined your talents and offered you a job as a doorman at a strip club, if you told it that you’re verbally strong, like naked women and enjoy the outdoors.
‘Tansu’ sneaker for Onitsuka Tiger
Thursday, February 11th, 2010Here’s a teaser for the new Onitsuka Tiger campaign made by Amsterdam Worldwide (AW). What a cool brand to work for. First of all Onitsuka always seems to give its agency carte blanche with respect to coming up with truly creative stuff. Secondly the brand proposition ‘made of Japan’ allows AW to draw inspiration from the rich Japanese culture. Every year the agency creates a giant sneaker with a special Japanese theme. Last year it was the Zodiac calender. This year the agency created an integrated campaign around the traditionally crafted ‘Tansu’ (a chest with box shaped drawers). It took a team of Tansu masters four months to handicraft the shoe shaped ‘Kaidan’ (step) Tansu, using techniques that date back from the time of the Samurai. Back in the days these chests were used both as a cabinet as well as a hidden ladder that made upstairs lofts look inaccessible – and thus not taxable – to the tax collector. But there’s more; the Onitsuka shoe works like a puzzle; the boxes must be unlocked in a specific sequence to unveil its hidden treasures. For those who cannot admire the real chest – on display in Onitsuka’s flagship stores – AW made an online version that invites the consumer to solve the puzzle. The project is topped off with special instore Tansu-themed materials. Talking about craftmanship…
Nike Football+ Challenge
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
The ‘Nike Football+ Challenge‘, that’s quite a mouthfull for this ’transmedia’ campaign created by Boondoggle. The challenge – accessible through Hyves (the Dutch Facebook) – asks Hyves members to show their football skills to Dutch football player Wesley Sneijder. The best ‘players’ are flown into Milan to train with Sneijder – who plays for Inter. We tried the first challenge, testing whether you can quickly asses match situations and predict where Sneijder played the ball in real life matches – by clicking in the game footage. We performed really badly, but were impressed by the intelligence and the execution of the campaign. It looks like Nike and Boondoggle properly invested time and energy to make it work. The only pity is that you have to be a Hyves member to participate. Though the social network site has a very strong penetration in the Netherlands (it has about 8.5 million members and the Netherlands counts about 16.6 million inhabitants), we suspect that a big part of Nike’s target is not actively involved in the site anymore – it either switched to Facebook or uses other social media tools to stay in touch with friends. On the other hand, these are the kind of games that make Hyves more interesting. So eventually it’s a win-win concpet for both Nike and Hyves.
‘Dreaming In Mono’ brought to you by…
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Stockholm/New York/Amsterdam based agency Perfect Fools created a whole new, unexpected and daring campaign for McDonald’s in the Nordic countries. The most striking thing about it, is that the campaign doesn’t revolve around bad burgers and salty fries, but around 60 minutes of “satire”. The story, written and directed by Jens Jonsson, was created together with TV production company Happy Fiction and is told over seven episodes on the website Dreaming In Mono. It is also broadcasted on four Nordic TV networks. The story is about a rivalry between two ski legends of which one wants to break a ski record on a monoski – this topic proofs how McDonald’s always thinks global but acts local. The first episode definitely made us curious to see more. Since the only link to McDonald’s is that the fictional characters buy their food there, we can easily imagine that this campaign will change the McDonald’s brand into a more exclusive brand – or at least less mainstream. And if McDonald’s would simultaneously upgrade its food, we can even imagine ourselves eating there! All in all, a beautiful example of branded content.
World’s largest website!
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
Smart idea by CCCP. They’re building the world’s largest website for Natuurmonumenten (‘nature monuments’). It is called ‘make a meter’. Natuurmonumenten is an organization that privately buys pieces of land in the Netherlands to let nature (more or less) take its own course and prevent it from being built on. A very sympathetic organization. As a ‘consumer’ you can claim an online square meter (scale 1 on 1) of land on the site, by choosing one out of six different kinds of (typical Dutch) nature and leaving your personal details. CCCP calls it ‘user generated nature’. Since the sounds are as tranquil as the displayed nature, it is quite nice to wonder around and snap out your hectic life for a minute.
Vodafone keeps trying, this time with Lucky Calls
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
We’ve been writing quite a lot about Vodafone in the past months. Mainly because the mobile company seems to be in some sort of identity crises. Every time we see a Vodafone advertisement it communicates in a different way, with a different style and seems to be targeted at a different group of consumers. It started with the mutated guinea pigs, then they were giving away phones and other stuff, then you had to search for them (off and online) and the previous promotion asked us: ‘Who wants to be a prepaid millionaire?’. This time it’s not about your knowledge, but about your luck. That is, if we go by the campaign proposition: ‘Lucky Calls’. The concept is simple: you just call your favourite phone and ‘Anouk’ picks it up by moving through the screen in different ways. When you can answer a really simple question, you might win the phone. Not until you’ve submitted your personal data though – so Vodafone can add you to their database. Fortunately digital agency Super Heroes tried to make it all as digestible as possible.
I Amsterdam: Happy 2010 sing-a-long
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
First we thought about not showing this website. We think it’s corny and it embarrasses us a little. Even if you ask a cool character with smoky voice and countless tattoos to sing ‘Happy 2010′, it’s not cool. But then we realized it advertises Amsterdam – or at least, that must have been the objective. And if your blog is called Amsterdam Ad Blog, it’s not something you can ignore. It was made by Amsterdam agency Beyen Meyer. We preferred their Queen’s Day poster.
Blindfolded keepie uppie challenge
Friday, December 18th, 2009We already knew that Ronaldinho was kind of alien, but now we know for sure he is from another planet! Even blindfolded he can see the ball and keepie the ball uppie 44 times! Or did the hole in the blindfold – that you see at the end – help him a little bit? The video is made by Wieden+Kennedy for the EA Sports game FIFA 10. It challenges football fans and gamers to beat Ronaldinho and upload the result on the dedicated YouTube channel.