New in town
Joe Public brings affordable advertising
There is a new agency in town, called Joe Public, a sibling of Joe Public in South Africa. The Dutch office is founded by ECD’s Bart Oostindie and Antoine Houtsma (ex Doom & Dickson and Etcetera) and Strategy Director Jeroen van Eck (ex-Unilever and Doom & Dickson). Joe Public operates under a special formula called ‘Take-away advertising’, which means it’s cheap, quick, and transparent, like in a take-away restaurant. Apart from your regular commercial they also offer things like ‘Quattro Stagioni’ (four different routes), ‘All you can eat’ (integrated campaign), and a ‘surprise meal’ (media-neutral). The key to Joe Public’s formula is set prices, short delivery times, no long-term contracts, and no pitches. A distinctive proposition that asks for some elaboration. We met with Antoine Houtsma (picture below) at Joe Public’s temporary office in Amsterdam Oost.
APG Netherlands; a forum for planners
There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.
P&S brings us closeness to talent
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.
The FREEforce; Finding the best freelancers for free
In Cannes, last June, we were invited to a pool party organised by production agency 100% Halal and the FREEforce, a new online platform that connects freelancers and agencies. And as you do at pool parties in Cannes, you don’t just get tipsy at the edge of a pool (and at some point in the pool), you also get to know lots of new people. So that’s how we met Taco Zuidema, Pascal Boogaert, and Tim Voors, founders of the FREEforce. Since the editors of Amsterdam Ad Blog are all freelancers and since this new concept sounds very promising, we decided to meet up with Taco Zuidema after Cannes to ask him how things are going now.
