Fltr: Carl Johnson, Hazelle Klønhammer, Marika Zijp, Colin Lamberton, and Seyoan Vela.

New York and London based agency Anomaly – in 2010 ‘Agency of the Year’ according to Adweek – has just opened a third office in Amsterdam. Carl Johnson, who also spoke at the Tomorrow Awards last week, says the agency opens a second European office so close to London, because “London is not as instinctively continental as Amsterdam.” Hazelle Klønhammer will be managing the Amsterdam office. Before, Klønhammer was group account director at W+K Amsterdam and most recently MD at Grey. At Grey she worked with ECD’s Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela. Lamberton and Vela recently left to Team Volvo and JWT Dubai, respectively. They are followed up by Marika Zijp, who previously worked at MRM and McCann Amsterdam, among other agencies. Zijp will work at Grey along strategy director Paul Sijtsma, digital director Peter Hoekstra, and managing director Patrick Joore.

About a year ago Massive Music decided to give away a custom designed Gibson – in the colors of its visual identity. The contest was simple; conceive a nickname for the guitar and the best name will win the guitar. Wouter Boon – strategist and editor at Amsterdam Ad Blog – won the guitar dubbing it ‘The Ripple’. Massive Music founder Hans Brouwer; “Out of 192 names, we chose The Ripple through a democratic process; all our agencies around the world were allowed to vote. It was a close call, but eventually ‘The Ripple’ was liked best.” The other finalists were ‘LollyRock’ (Heinrich Vejlgaard, freelance creative in Denmark), and ‘Rockwork Orange’ (Floris Cobelens, marketing director at Heineken). Massive asked Gibson to make 6 customized guitars in total, also one for each office – next weekend Massive is officially opening its 5th office in London. Boon: “It’s funny, when I saw the guitar I instantly knew ‘The Ripple’ should be its name, since it matched so well with the design. I am really glad I won and feel obliged to take some lessons now!”

Fltr: Alex Lavery, Chayenne de Witte, and Simon Robinson (click = full picture)

Since very recently there’s a new independent music agency in town, called P&S. That is, we’d simply call it a music agency, but P&S – meaning Pitch and Sync – will tell you it uses music, and the creativity that surrounds it, to amplify brands and their communication. The agency, that opened an office on Singel 146, was founded in London’s East End in 2005 and works for agencies like 180, W+K, Fallon, Sid Lee and also directly for clients such as Bacardi, Cadbury, Rafa  and Wallpaper. We met up with the Amsterdam staff, being co-founder and creative director Alex Lavery, head of music Simon Robinson, and business manager Chayenne de Witte (previously producer at 180 Amsterdam), in café De Tuin in the Jordaan to find out what has brought them here.

What made you come to Amsterdam?

First of all a love for Amsterdam as a place. The talent and creativity is inspiring; it’s a fantastic outpost for the rest of Europe. And – let’s face it – it’s a really fun place to do business. London is also a great city, but is quite inward looking and not as open to collaboration as Amsterdam. The collaborative process is part of our ethos and integral to how we like to work.

Did you also consider other cities?

Well, to be honest, there’s also a practical side to it; we’ve already done business here since we first opened in London. Opening an office here felt like a natural progression. One of our goals with having the new office here on the Singel is to start working with local talent and clients – more than we have previously done.

Is there much competition in Amsterdam?

There are some great music companies here already such as Massive Music, Sizzer and The Missing Sync – we know those people already. Each has its own strength – one for example is very good at throwing parties.

Apart from being the new kid on the block full of passion and excitement, we feel we differ as we bring our closeness to talent. We are strong in making the best creative fit and use music in as many creative ways as possible. We also have a dedicated team that understands both sides of the music and brand equation.

How come you bring ‘closeness to talent’?

All those years in the industry has given us great direct relationships to a whole wealth of talent. We’ve worked at respected indie labels such as Wall Of Sound, Moving Shadow, 679 and with names like Röyksopp, The Streets and Plan B. That’s why we understand the artist’s viewpoint and know how to creatively engage – instead of creatively control. When you work like that, artists align themselves more naturally to campaigns.

Can you give us an example of a piece of advertising where artist and campaign were perfectly aligned?

The first Citroën dancing robot commercial featuring “Jacques Your Body (Make Me Sweat)”

Some of the P&S team at the time worked at record label Wall of Sound that licensed the track for the commercial. The artist, Stuart Price, worked on an edit of the ‘track to picture’, which involved a dialogue with Justin Timberlake’s choreographer, who in turn advised the animation team on moves for the dancing robot against the new and faster tempo edit of the song. That’s how the picture perfectly matches the sound. This campaign gave us the blueprint and ambition for the P&S model, learning from the experiences of the rights owners, agency and client.

How are you planning to make yourself known to the Amsterdam market – apart from this interview?

It is our intention to create a cultural platform within the creative community – with music at its heart. We have a series of events lined up to reflect this, the first being our launch party on 27th October at Rokin 75 – in a collaboration with Breed Artists. It also features a great new artist called Chad Valley and – of course – there’s lots of free beer.

But most of all we are just really excited to be here and to get started and to get out there talking to people.

Well, we’re glad we were one of the first.

If you RSVP to info@pitchandsync.com you can secure a spot on the guest list.

From left to right: Barney Hobson, Rick Chant, Alex Bennet Grant, and Jamie Kim (click = full picture)

There’s a new shop in town, called WE ARE Pi. It is located on the Herengracht, in the same building as production agency 328 Stories and theGirls™. It was founded by Alex Bennett Grant (account/strategy) and Jamie Kim (production) – both ex Wieden+Kennedy – at the beginning of this year. We already wrote about WE ARE Pi last April when they organized a fundraiser for the victims of the tsunami that hit Japan. A clear case of “practice what you preach” we said then, since the agency’s mission statement is to create ‘shared value’. In the first half year of its existence WE ARE Pi was in beta; Bennet Grant and Kim experimented with their proposition. As of last month, creative team Rick Chant (copy) and Barney Hobson (art), with whom Bennett Grant and Kim worked at Wieden, filled up the still missing positions. Now they are officially a full service agency. Enough reason to have a chat.

Why did you guys leave Wieden?
Alex Bennet Grant (ABG): We left, because we wanted to start WE ARE Pi. We wanted to be able to implement our view on advertising into our own shop. Starting your own business is one of the most exciting things you can do – in advertising, that is.

Jamie Kim (JK): At Wieden you can feel sheltered. And after a while, things become somewhat familiar – even when you don’t know exactly what’s coming. We wanted to have our feet closer to the ground again, meaning getting our hands dirty and getting knee deep in the unpredictable.

And you, Rick and Barney, why did you leave Wieden?
Rick Chant (RC): We wanted Change and Opportunity. We’ve worked as a team at Wieden for 7 years and then things start to itch.
Barney Hobson (BH): On top of that we wanted to work with these guys very much. Sort of a dream coming true.

Since Chant and Hobson have joined, you’re an ‘official’ Wieden breakaway, what does that say about WE ARE Pi?
ABG: We all loved working at Wieden; you work with the best people, on exciting projects, and on multinational clients. It is the best experience you can have; it assures you of an impressive track record, which always opens doors. At WE ARE Pi though we’re nimble, which means we are able to collaborate closely with clients on strategy, even product and service development. We also focus more on interactive and activation, so we can offer fully integrated solutions.

Where does the name ‘WE ARE Pi’ come from?
RC: Pi is infinite, open ended.
ABG; It is somewhat of a mystery and should communicate we’re in constant pursuit of the answer.

You’re brand proposition is about generating ‘shared value’. What does that mean?
ABG: Finding shared interests with customers. Being useful. It’s not about simply bursting into mass media, but about creating something for the longer term, giving people something to play with.

[JK, who has been typing on her laptop in the same room, all of a sudden walks to the window and starts waving at someone who is staying at a hotel on the other side of the canal. It is Rutger Hauer, we learn. She was chatting with him.]

How do you know Rutger Hauer?!
JK: We met him at TEDx Amsterdam, last year. And we’ve become friends I guess you could say.

[While JK walks out of the room to Skype with Hauer, we teach ABG how to pronounce Rutger Hauer in Dutch – he says 'rootger']

You recently created work for Deloitte, an accountant. How did they become your client?
ABG: We met them through TEDx Amsterdam, Deloittte is a sponsor. They were ready to launch in the online market, but needed a relevant proposition to get them noticed. We took a data driven angle. Among other things we created Data at the Races, the world’s first data derby.

RC: Mario Kart meets Bloomberg.

[JK is now leaving to meet with Rutger Hauer. BH tags along to see if he would pose for a 'Thumb Portrait']

Do you have enough business?
ABG: It’s going well. At the moment we’re conceptually translating the TEDx Amsterdam slogan ‘Ideas worth doing’ into a launch campaign. An exciting project we are working with an orgy of different partners. This week we’re meeting with the National Ballet and the mayor of Amsterdam. We’re also working on a super cool project for Lego. It’s for a new product launch. They asked us to help on a strategic level.

[BH now returns with Rutger Hauer’s 'Thumb Portrait']

A pretty special portrait. And a pretty special bunch of folk. We’ll be following them closely.

Edu Pou, CD at W+K, has found a new creative partner in Stuart Harricks (left in picture), after his former partner, Joakim Borgström, left for San Francisco to join Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Harricks joins W+K after leaving Y&R New York where he was Global CD for LG worldwide among other brands alongside Andrew McKechnie. Recent work for LG included the award-winning ‘Something Lurking’ film, created with Psyop. Before Y&R, Harricks worked as an Integrated ACD at Modernista!, Boston. And before that he spent four years at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore. 24 year old Zabeti (right in picture) was born in Paris to parents of Persian origin and grew up in Germany. After graduating from the Miami Ad School in Hamburg, he received the ADC’s Student of the Year Award. In 2007 Siavosh joined DDB Paris and created the famous Tropicana billboard (powered by oranges), among other striking work. During his four years at DDB he impressively won 4 Cannes Lions, a ONE Show Pencil, 2 WEBBY awards, several Young Guns awards, and 2 D&AD nominations. We wish both Harricks and Zabeti all the best in Amsterdam!

There’s a new kid in town; Kingsday, a EuroRSCG 4D break away, founded by Sander Volten, Bram de Rooij, Sicco Beerda, and Eric Ytsma (in the photo – taken by Jasper Zwartjes – from left to right). The name is inspired by Queensday, a day that turns Amsterdam into one big party and during which “openness, spontaneity, and entrepreneurship meet”. Since these guys always look ahead – digital is incorporated in their DNA – they are anticipating the succession of the Royal throne by Willem Alexander, who will be taking over from his mother, Queen Beatrix. Hence, Kingsday. The agency wants to merge advertising, PR, and digital, which does sound like the ultimate mix. After all, advertising is mainly good in building a strong message, digital mainly in using state of the art techniques, and PR mainly in seeding. Not many agencies master all of these qualities at the same time. Kingsday’s ambition is to work for both Dutch and international clients and to start playing ‘Champion’s League’ straight away. Though there’s not one big founding client, the agency is talking with many different potential clients, so we trust these talented admen to be back on the pitch soon enough. We wish them all the best!