Amsterdam Ad Blog

Live with it!

AAB — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:15:23 +0000

One Big Agency created this handy ‘Live with it!’ app. But as you quickly find out, it’s not made in collaboration with Shell, but with Friends of the Earth (or: Milieudefensie). In fact, it’s not even an app; the URL at the end leads you to ‘Worse than bad.’ The locals of the Niger Delta can use the fictional app to earn Shell points (that can be exchanged for “helpful survival gear”) by being the first to spot oil spills. The same goes for reporting contaminated water. The app also indicates where the locals can find alternative water sources and it maps gas flares and pipelines. It will be interesting to see what Shell will do against this spoof. Will they act against it – “David Ruse is not our Chief Facade Officer – we have someone else for that!” Or will they sit still until the storm is over? Probably (and wisely) the latter. In any case, the spoof made us think of Chevron’s ‘We Agree’ campaign that was hijacked in 2010; immediately after the release ‘The Yes Men’ launched their own ‘We Agree’ campaign. Their spoof used phrases like “Oil companies should clean up their messes,” instead of Chevron’s copy saying “The world needs more than oil.” One Big Agency’s app also reminded us of this column on Amsterdam Ad Blog (“Shell and clean don’t match in advertising”). It’s good to see that oil companies cannot get away anymore with trying to come across as environmentally constructive – let alone friendly.

Jaffa’s heritage brought to life

AAB — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:34:42 +0000

PostPanic and director Mischa Rozema never fail to impress us. Take this beaut of a TV commercial for the Finnish soft drink Jaffa – commissioned by Finnish agency Sek - using a blend of 2D and 3D animated graphics, vintage stock footage, and a live action shoot at the studio of the 85-year old graphic designer Erik Bruun – an institution in Finland. Bruun has been responsible for Jaffa’s iconic logos and posters since the 50s – the brand was founded in 1949. Jaffa – nowadays owned by Heineken – is still in the top 3 of most popular soft drinks in Finland. Rozema about the project: “The story needed to be told using the actual posters of Erik Bruun. This meant we had to create an imaginary landscape to allow us to move from one poster to another. I was particularly inspired by the simplicity and retro feeling of Bruun’s designs, which actually reminded me of Saul Bass’ work. Bruun’s work has that same contemporary feeling and use of textures that makes it stand out and feel very tactile.”

Anomaly hires Gaston Serpenti

AAB — Mon, 14 May 2012 07:26:39 +0000

Anomaly – opening its Amsterdam office at the end of last year – has hired Gaston Serpenti as Digital Creative Officer. Serpenti is coming from Boondoggle Amsterdam, the agency he founded about 5 years ago with Tom de Bruyne – who left Boondoggle last year to found Sue Amsterdam with Astrid Groenewegen. The hire has been made partly possible by both Nike and Converse, recently appointing Anomaly to handle local business initiatives. Serpenti has an impressive track record, winning Spins, Webbies, and Lions. His most successful cases were Take Mokum for Nike and KLM Surprise. These cases also helped to make Boondoggle Digital Agency of the Year in 2011. Hazelle Klonhammer, MD at Anomaly about Serpenti’s hire: “Exceptional digital talent is rare in this industry. That’s why we feel very fortunate to have him onboard.” We’ll be looking forward to see his work for Anomaly.

Want to join the Panic Room?

AAB — Fri, 11 May 2012 07:08:24 +0000

Just announced; hybrid production agency Post Panic is organising the next long-awaited, 5th edition of Panic Room on the 7th of June. Panic Room is an evening during which Post Panic invites international names to come and share their current inspirations with a relatively small creative crowd, primarily made up from Amsterdam’s agencies. Past speakers have included Shynola, Si Scott, Dvein, Pleix, Lucy McRae and Niels Shoe Meulman. The next edition is featuring Belgian photographer and film maker Vincent Fournier, Eindhoven design duo HeyHeyHey (it wouldn’t surprise us if Mini Melvin makes an appearance) and LA-based director Andrew Huang, who has been causing a sensation with his short film Solipsist. Unfortunately the Panic Room is invite only, but we’ve managed to get our hands on 5 tickets to give away. We thought it might be nice to give them to some younger creatives who haven never been to a Panic Room – it’s usually the senior creatives ending up on the guest list. If you fancy going then please send us an email with your age and reason why you deserve a ticket. We hope to see you at the whiskey bar on the night.

I Like Mama

AAB — Thu, 10 May 2012 07:21:48 +0000

Mobile telco provider Hi embraced Facebook over the past years and especially the ‘Like’ icon. And since in Hi’s most recent commercial the brand shows how we sometimes neglect our moms, it introduced this Mother’s Day tattoo, created by Morrison Schiffmacher (the daughter of the famous tattooist Henk Schiffmacher) to make ‘mama’ feel special. It is an app that allows you to create a virtual tattoo through your webcam. You can scale it, turn it, blur it, etc. to make sure it looks like a real tattoo. And then, of course, you can make it your profile picture or – better even – send it to your mom to freak her out and make her love you at the same time. What a great idea. On top of this, you can even win the tattoo in real ink, if you give Hi a good reason for wanting it – and not have much taste, for that matter. Created by FHV/BBDO.

Secret Passage

AAB — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:47:31 +0000

Weird, but with mileage is how we judged this concept for Autodrop (‘car liquorice’) in October 2010. Last week we came accross this one; ‘secret passage.’ Compared to the first one it feels slightly more accessible. And we like it. Created by DDB Amsterdam and directed by Hans Knaapen (Electric Zoo).

What design can do

AAB — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:19:26 +0000

Tomorrow and Friday the second annual What Design Can Do conference explores the positive and negative sides of a connected world and looks into the role of the designer as a connector. The conference, initiated by Dutch designers such as David Snellenberg (founder of Dawn), Gerard van der Werf (founder of W+K Amsterdam), and Richard van der Laken (co-founder of De Designpolitie), takes place at Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam. It is not your usual sit down and listen conference; visitors can be active participants during discussions, workshops and brainstorm sessions. All resulting in a book at the end of the two day program: a call to action to find “real solutions for real problems”.

Anything but Dutch

AAB — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:02:16 +0000

Heineken has a history of launching premiums – to be obtained through a crate of beer – before the European and World Championship of football. The last 4 tournaments Heineken’s agency TBWA created all sorts of hats that enabled the audience to make some noise during the matches – last time, in South Africa, it was the Pletterpet. This spring – getting ready for Euro2012 – Heineken (and TBWA) not only exchanged the hat for a shirt, it also changed the tone of the commercial around the event. The advertising now feels weirdly incongruent; it starts with three guys that seem to have walked out of a bad Italian car commercial. And then it continues with ‘international’ shots. Even the ‘drinking-with-mates-in-a-bar’ shot is anything but Dutch – with fake bar and exotic models. The only thing that is really Dutch about the commercial is the KLM plane wearing an orange shirt and the ‘haha’ joke with ex international Ronald Koeman at the end. It feels as if the Dutch beer brewer was in a split between being the global, cosmopolitan brand and a chauvinistic football friend that wants to sell as much beer as possible in the supermarket. Well, in our opinion, it’s none of the above and stuck in the middle. And when you ask yourself what’s up with the numbers, you have to guess, cause the voice-over only speaks of supporting Orange with ‘your legendary deed.’ Oh well, whatever, we’ll probably drink a few Heinies during Euro2012 anyway.

Looking forward to the past

AAB — Mon, 07 May 2012 07:51:16 +0000

Quite a flashy film. It is an activation by the Dutch Openluchtmuseum (‘open air museum’), a museum that displays the last 200 years of life in the Netherlands. Since the Openluchtmuseum exists 100 years it decided – together with interactive agency SuperHeroes – to select ten iconic objects that should be preserved and exhibited for the next 100 years. The crowd can come up with things like … a toilet brush. SuperHeroes made a high quality film to promote the contest – we especially like the styling – but we wondered if it’s not overselling the product a little. Maybe the museum should have first spent some money on a new website.

The tongue mightier than the sword?

AAB — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:49:12 +0000

It always feels a bit awkward when a government is trying to speak youthful – or worse, with a ‘rappy’ tone of voice – to teenagers. Especially when communicating that you shouldn’t use a knife in personal conflicts, but your voice; ‘spreekwapens’ (speaking weapons) instead of ‘steekwapens’ (pointed weapons) – making a good pun in Dutch. A bit of a Catch22 from a communication perspective; if the target is willing to engage, it’s probably not the target. And those who are the target are probably not willing to engage – they just see it as a rap video, at best. The reason why we posted it anyway, is that we like the technique that is being used for the 360° video; you can actually turn your viewpoint around with your pointer and see Sticks and Rico (from Opgezwolle and Fakkelbrigade) rap into the camera and skateboarders and BMX’ers perform tricks in a skate park – a form of navigation that we all know from gaming, but is not yet very often used in advertising. On the YouTube site the target can upload a self-made ‘spreekwapen’ (read: video). Created by JWT Amsterdam and produced by Electric Zoo.