What we like about this ad is that you can fully imagine these guys sitting in one car and all reacting differently on the crash that got them decapitated. We especially like the stare of the driver, facing his destiny bravely – a nice case of method acting. And of course it’s all well captured by photographer Krijn van Noordwijk (hazazaH). Somewhat ironic maybe that TopGear Magazine asked EuroRSCG to create an ad (yet another – here’s #1) about the risks of driving, but then again, Heineken also asks its customers to drink responsibly.

Creative agency Dolly Rogers initiated a storytelling project, dubbed Spinnin’ Yarns (read: telling stories). Through interviews and photographs the agency reveals the heart and soul of Amsterdam by portraying a selection of its diverse inhabitants. The stories are written and photographed by Anne Britt, a graduating student of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute. She also translated each story into an illustration – which could have been left out in our opinion. The exhibition is on display in the sky-lounge of the newly built Mint Hotel, close to Central Station.

Recently Russia celebrated the 50th birthday of the first man in space; Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968). In Russia he is still a hero and revered throughout the country. This inspired director René Nuijens (328 Stories) and writer Steve Korver to visit Russia in search of Gagarin. Nuijens and Korver created a booklet with photographs of Gagarin statues and portraits; 50 Years of Human Space Flight. You can order the booklet on roadtogagarin.com.

In the past 5 years the Dutch bicycle scene has undergone a small revolution. Where a bicycle used to simply be a means of transportation, today it is a fashion item. Especially the fixed gear bicycle (or ‘fixie’) is beyond hip (Vans, tattoos, Chrome courier bag, rolled up trousers, funny hairdo, etc.). Ironically, the fixie lifestyle that comes with the single gear bicycle was imported from the US, a country where only the coolest couriers dare to defy the NYC traffic. The first brand to copy American styled bicycles and that started the revolution, was Johnny Loco. It was created in 2005 by advertising agency New Message. In the beginning the bikes were made in China and fell apart within no time, but nowadays they’re pretty reliable. And since no bicycle brand does fashionable advertising, Johnny Loco is the one eyed king in the land of the blind. We don’t mean that in a derogative way; we very much like the ads. We also came across another poster with former Elite “model of the year” Barbara Egeler. It is probably no coincidence that Loco means stupid in Spanish… Which reminds us; the ads are a more classy version of the “Be Stupid” campaign by Diesel that was banned in several countries, because it supposedly provoked ‘stupid’ behaviour. The photos were made by René Kramers.

A trailer should make you curious and reveal something of a storyline, suspense, action, drama, whatever. This trailer doesn’t really do that for us. However, we’re not the target group (Russian or Eastern European) and have never heard of the ‘Legend of Akhtamar’, nor from ArArAt – an Armenian brandy, with a beautiful name and ditto logo, owned by Pernod Ricard. Professionally though, we did get excited by the announcement of a 15 minute commercial that will be launched January, first and promises to make some interesting long form content. The short film is made by Amsterdam Worldwide. The agency hired some big names to make the project a success; Stephen Hilton wrote the score, ‘the award winning’ Shammasian Brothers directed it and Erwin Olaf (renowned Dutch photographer) shot the print campaign. It also features a handful of actors that are ‘world famous’ in the East. Yet another example of an advertiser that invests in content, rather than media, to tell a heritage based brand story. Recently we saw a similar concept for Martini; a 3 minute film distributed through YouTube, creating an atmosphere that perfectly conveyed the heritage, brand personality and tone of voice of Martini. For brands that want to tell a sophisticated brand story, the future of the 30 second commercial is a branded story, 15 minutes in length, rather than 15 seconds – regardless the picky and time deprived consumer.

G2 Amsterdam, together with Perfect Fools, created a website (this is an English demo, in Dutch the site is called ‘fragrances from nature’) for Ambi Pur that tickles almost all your senses – unfortunately not smell. The site, beautifully made with a combination of photography and animation, shows where Ambi Pur’s new ‘National Geographic’ fragrances ‘Japan Tatami’ and ‘Nevada Desert Flower’, come from. The joint promotion together with National Geograhpic (NG) feels a little stretched. Certainly NG is the specialist in showing remote and wonderful sceneries, but what has that got to do with smell? On the other hand, NG is a very strong brand that will certainly give credibility to the sceneries shown. Unconsciously the consumer might very well believe that Ambi Pur’s fragrances are therefore more exclusive, natural and special than those of the competition. Let’s see if both brands can think big and produce the first mass market scent DVD: ‘a fragrant journey into nature’ – or something along those lines.

Though a lot of advertising is based on the principle that sex sells, ads never explicitly show frontal nudity. If you’re selling breast cancer awareness, however, it only makes sense to show the ‘product’ at hand. Grey Amsterdam created this ad with lots of stopping power for Pink Ribbon Magazine, a charity glossy from which all profits are directly donated to the Pink Ribbon Foundation. The work was shot by Rankin and executed with differently aged models – we chose the middle aged model. A very sweet poem about the breasts as a pair of friends, with names, is written across the body (the print ad we’re showing is a translation). And there is also a TV commercial (in Dutch), directed by Chris Palmer (Gorgeous). Interesting detail: a call was put out throughout the Netherlands, asking for volunteers of any age. More than 1000 women, aged 16-72, volunteered to be part of the shoot and show their breasts. Apparently in today’s world it is also charity that sells.

Here’s one of several mini films, made by by KesselsKramer (KK) for Protest Boardwear. KK asked different young and upcoming filmmakers to give their own interpretation of Protest’s brand proposition: “Every obstacle to the slopes is an enemy of Protest. Protest exists to help riders overcome these obstacles.” This kind of collaborative creativity, where agencies work together with small creative cells outside their own agency, is becoming a trend. Although the film in this post, called ‘Protest Sightseeing’, is the exception to the rule and made by two KK creatives; Ewoudt Boonstra en Zack McDonald. Other films are called Grocery shopping, Obstacles, Traffic jams and Bad weather. Older films can be found on the Protest website. The reason why we chose to highlight this film, is that the old 8mm footage that was used, makes us think of Erik Kessels’ (co-founder of KK) passion for abandoned photographs. Kessels already made several photo books with photographs that he found at flea markets. We were told however, that this is merely a happy coincidence. Boonstra already made a photo book himself with found photo’s, called Anonymous.