Asics launches a new range of women’s sportswear, called AYAMi – the perfect fusion of fashion and technology, as Asics explains. And in Japanese AYAMi means ‘feminine’, ‘design’, ‘colourful’ and ‘beauty’ – all at the same time! So we can imagine where Amsterdam Worldwide came from when developing this campaign. The agency recruited (pretty) amateur female runners who were shot by world-renowned sports photographer Robert Wilson. A fashion studio backdrop was created in the amateur’s natural running environment and they were photographed while cooling down. It thus became a sort of visual testimonial. We love the photography, but are slightly disappointed by the ‘real beauty’ message. It made us immediately think of both Dove and Nivea. And apart from the fact that these are not the hippest brands on earth, this amateur runner can do without the marketing talk. If there’s one reason why for her “beauty is not inside a make-up bag”, it is because she looks awesome in an AYAMi outfit.
Archive for the ‘Print’ Category
AYAMi; Sound body, forget the mind
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010K-Swiss: the classic tennis shoe from Kalifornia
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
Between 1966 and 1986 Californian sports brand K-Swiss sold only one model tennis shoe without ever changing it. Today K-Swiss reverently calls it the ‘The Classic’, because every other tennis shoe that followed was derived from it. And 44 years after its launch, and with the help of Amsterdam based agency Lemon Scented Tea, K-Swiss shares the shoe’s rich history in a story of 8 chapters. Under the campaign motto ‘You gotta know your classics’, every chapter highlights one of the unique aspects of the white leather tennis shoe. On top of that K-Swiss asked 8 designers across the globe to graphically interpret the ‘chapters’ on a poster; Mario Lombardo (Berlin), Value & Service (London), Cobbenhagen & Hendriksen (Amsterdam), Mark Owens (Los Angeles), Non-Format (US), Grand People (Bergen), Fabian Jenny (Zurich) and Sung Min Choi & Sulki Choi (Seoul). Only 400 copies of each poster were printed to give the whole project limited-editionesque exclusivity. We chose to share chapter ‘K’, since we guessed most people would like to learn where the letter ‘K’ comes from. And, believe it or not, coincidently we chose the artwork that is designed by Amsterdam based Cobbenhagen & Hendriksen. Here’s a passage from the copy that accompanies it: “K is for Kalifornia. We know, it defies all logic, deliberately misspelling the name of our home turf like that. But to the two Swiss brothers who designed the first Classic from their L.A. garage, calling their company Kalifornia-Swiss was the most logical thing in the world. It was their way of paying homage to a place that had welcomed them with a progressive, creative and playful culture – and limitless tennis courts”. You got to love this kind of designvertising that adds heritage, profile and sophistication to a brand.
Comedy Central promotes ‘Better off Ted’
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
“Erection? Veridian Dynamics is looking for test subjects with balls”. In this outdoor campaign Comedy Central teases its audience to watch the new TV series ‘Better off Ted’ about a dubious research institute called Veridian Dynamics. After a week the Comedy Central logo was slapped on top of it to reveal who was behind it. But of course that wasn’t clear from the start. No less than 4000 curious guinea pigs called the number to find out how they could earn some extra money – welcome to Holland. Other ads asked the Dutch test subjects to be deep frozen or launched by a rocket. Comedy Central also built a (bit of a crappy) dedicated website that links to the TV series on Comedy Central. The striking campaign was created by Dare.
Vodafone: Trouble finding the right partner?
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
Here’s another example of Vodafone’s ‘Life Insights’ campaign – made by THEY. A campaign that revolves around insights on mobile phone usage. With these insights Vodafone creates products that match its different consumers. Last time we showed an ad that talked about accidentally sending text messages to the wrong person (read: sending dirty text messages to your grandma). This time we see a lady that angrily throws a glass of wine in your face. Why? Because 107.440 Dutch men (only men!) check sports results on their phone during a date. How rude! Although emptying a glass of wine because of that certainly isn’t normal behaviour either. In fact, if that happens, you know straight away that a relationship with this person is probably not such a good idea. So thanks to Vodafone’s thorough research, we can now get a mobile contract that allows us to find the right partner. We still like the design of these ads, for that matter.
Vodafone: Dirty text message to your grandma?
Friday, February 26th, 2010
Normally we wouldn’t have noticed this ad, but since Vodafone has surprised us many times in the past half year by introducing so many different styles of advertising, we wanted to share this one with you. Agency THEY introduced yet another visual identity for Vodafone’s communication. We like the looks of it; it is clean, designy and distinctive. If they are able to stick to it for a while, we would say it’s a keeper. However, we don’t understand it. It says: “325.205 Dutchmen have sent intimate text messages to the wrong person”. Interesting market insight, but what’s in it for us? Is Vodafone going to intercept dirty text messages to our grandmas or something? The bodycopy reads: “However you use your telephone, we have a contract that fits your behaviour. The call+text contract for example. With two times as much text messages. Handy if you need to make up with someone”. So let us get this straight. If you send your grandma a text message saying “Look forward to tonight…I’m horny as hell”, then this contract allows you to send a second text message saying: “I am so sorry grandma, that was meant for someone else”. Is that what Vodafone is trying to tell us? We’re confused. Can anyone explain?
‘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.
Budget advertising
Monday, February 8th, 2010
The cheapest tickets, that’s all that matters. Budget Air makes its outdoor posters as small as possible to be able to offer the cheapest tickets – which makes the Mupi lightning visible. We ourselves never use Budget Air, since they never end high enough in our Google search, so maybe next time they should spend some money on Google Adwords. Nice ad anyway. Created by New Message.
KIXX: working gloves for sexy women
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Apparently there are women who work in the garden and want to look sexy while doing so. To us that sounds very odd – if not incredible. But hey, we never work in the garden. For KIXX – a company that makes working gloves – it is a very important target group. And if there are women out there that want pink working gloves to “impress” the shit out of the neighbours, KIXX is bound to find them with this appealing ad. It was created by Rademakkers and photographed by Gerrit Schreurs.
The sooner you advertise here, the better!
Friday, January 15th, 2010
Wow, you must be pretty desperate to show an ad like this. We like it, cause it makes us philosophical. How effective is this? Would the potential advertiser think; ‘I was planning not to do outdoor anymore, but just because I have to look at this unattractive body every day in traffic, I am going to rent it for the rest of the year – just to make sure it won’t come back. And what if the decision maker is a woman? That depends on what she’s used to, of course. Maybe she’ll ask Interbest to put the text somewhere else, just so she can imagine it’s a Calvin Klein ad. Ummm. No, that’s not very realistic either. The most likely scenario is that the passer-by will simply chuckle, unconsciously thank Interbest for the free entertainment, simultaneously feel sorry for them and maybe even decide there and then to allocate a bigger part of the advertising budget to online… Anyway, it was made by Y&R Not just film – as you can see apart from film the agency also does outdoor.
8mm triangle shaped retro bush
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
In the 90’s FHV/BBDO was Amsterdam’s flagship advertising agency – only working for the biggest brands around. Today any kind of client will do, even if it is a sex cinema in the dodgy Red Light District, called Venus. And since retro is still the trend, Venus decided to buy some 8mm vintage porn. FHV came up with this poster to advertise it. For those who long for the ‘good old times’ when porn actresses (or all women, for that matter) were still wearing genital hairdo’s – instead of today’s hairdon’ts. The triangle shaped bush was built up from – et voila – 8mm film. Nice one – the concept, that is, not the hairdo.