Very nice concept by Incl. – which stands for all-inclusive communication design. It is to promote a poster made by Rop van Mierlo, exclusively for Found by James. Found by James is a design blog and online webshop selling arty exclusiveness from around the world. The limited edition illustration of the housecat was sold out for €350 (!) a piece in no time – there were only 9 copies, since the cat’s existence is also limited to 9 lives. The guerrilla campaign spread a note around Amsterdam and Eindhoven (home of the Dutch design week) which said ‘Found by James’ instead of ‘Missing’. “I’m quite surprised someone lost this well-fed housecat, since it has the incredible size of 84.1 cm high and 59.4 cm wide. I’m not sure about its gender, but a big brown dark spot distinctively marks half of his/her face” it says (click on pic to see full text). The wonderful book Wild Animals in which Van Mierlo draws animals in the same distinctive style won a Dutch Design Award last weekend.
In the series of tongue in cheek messages conveying the unattractiveness of the Hans Brinker hotel in the Kerkstraat, KesselsKramer this time conceived these freshly designed posters apologizing for the bad service. Let us be clear about one thing: the concept of positioning Hans Brinker as the crappiest hotel in Amsterdam is rock solid. It has proved its success wonderfully well over the past decades by attracting millions of shoe string travelers visiting Amsterdam. Nevertheless, we wouldn’t mind seeing something new.
“Can we find the morning news in the morning newspaper?” – click on picture to see the ad. Pay off: “Nothing is more up to date than Nu” (‘Now’). True that. Nu is an online news site, deriving its name from being always up to date. Even the newspaper delivery boy reads Nu.nl, because once the paper is being distributed it is already old news. We know, the newspaper gives more background information, explains the news in depth, and provides more insights, but there’s already an entire generation that hardly reads newspapers. Bang! Paper is gone. Created by Noise.
You might have thought we were going to say “Che Guevara.” And you probably even finished our sentence before we did. Well, not if you have seen this billboard for the NFS: “Give those who stutter a second”. Ro Ro Roger that! Created by Y&R Not just film (apart from ‘film’ they also do cut up billboards) and JC Decaux.
The Artis animal sticker campaign by agency Dawn was one of the better campaigns we’ve seen this year. This huge ‘sticker’, measuring 20 x 30 meters – on the former head office of Shell, next to the new futuristic Film Museum that seems to have problems with the white sheets that should cover it – follows it up with the text: “Before you know it they are too big“. It promotes the September discount entrance fee at Artis – which was introduced more than a century ago to allow the poor Amsterdammers to visit the zoo. It was difficult the get the council of Noord (the district north of the IJ river) to coorporate with this huge outdoor ad in the up and coming area of Amsterdam (where Dawn itself is located), but eventually they did after Artis threw in some of its goodwill. The photo was taken by Ronald van Weeren.
The good thing about working as an ad agency for small clients (with small budgets) is that your creative playground gets much more spacious. Big brands often don’t dare to stick their neck out, let alone go political – the consumer might turn against them! Not Lotte Yoga School; she hasn’t got much to lose. And that’s why she gave KesselsKramer carte blanche. And when you do that, you get distinctive work. Together with these posters – that promote a €5 trial session – Lotte Yoga School also sent each politician a letter. Unfortunately they are not very well written – here’s one that invites Geert Wilders to try yoga. In any case, a sympathetic idea; if we ever feel our brain is getting rigid, we’ll try out Lotte’s Yoga School!
What a killer concept; a last minute billboard, becomes a last-minute billboard! The copy underneath the offer: “Our offers are so last minute that we could only create this ad last minute”. It proves once more that brilliance and simplicity go hand in hand in advertising. Created by N=5.
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.
We hope this ad – that prevents your wine glass from dripping – will at least make some money for the famine in the horn of Africa, cause we find it incredibly tasteless. Created by Villa DM.
This is something Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam has proven to be good at; showing the essence of a sport and the passion of its supporters. They’ve done this for Nike several times – recently in Copa Barrio – and for EA Sports’ FIFA – here’s #10. It’s all done with heroic copy and visually supported by lots of action, packed stadiums and close-ups of fans. Since the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand is sponsored by Heineken this year and since W+K is the Dutch beer brand’s favourite agency after winning a cabinet full of awards for The Entrance and The Date in Cannes, the agency makes a logical choice. The commercial explains ‘The Code’, which basically comes down to the well known saying that rugby is a barbarian game played by gentlemen – while football is a gentleman’s game played by barbarians, for that matter. The film was directed by Steve Rogers (Revolver). In print the code is aptly translated into: “We lost some teeth. We gained some friends” (among other lines).
