Bob Anderson died on January, 1st – aged 89. He was an English Olympic fencer and renowned film (sword) fight choreographer. He also worked as Darth Vader’s stunt double in several of his many light-saber battles. Hence this tribute (click = full picture), created by David Bergmans, CD at Doorn & Roos.

Happy New Year to you all. To stay in the right mood, we present to you this film about Champagne. A nice slow motion of a bottle of Champagne being uncorked – in reverse. Not the most original idea ever, but pleasant to watch with Vivaldi in the background and likely to make the viewer thirsty. What makes less sense is that the film was made for Lidl, known as one of the cheaper supermarket chains – and recently in the news again for treating its personnel like rubbish, for that matter. Promoting a cheap Champagne (with ditto label and price) for a cheap supermarket in a relatively stylish way feels like a contradiction. But that’s the whole idea – recently we also saw Zeeman being promoted on the catwalk. The film is part of a more integrated campaign with a print ad featuring a Dutch chef, Ramon Beuk, promoting the Champagne in Dutch glossy Linda; “The best tasting Champagne for an incredibly low price. Where to get it?!” With a QR code in the Linda readers were directed to a dedicated page showing the film and revealing the source (see case film here). The concept was created by THEY – who launched their own Champagne brand Zarb a few years ago – and the Champagne film was directed by Bill Tanaka (328 Stories).

To be honest, we find this concept for the KNGF (royal Dutch guide dog federation), KNGF Maps a little thin. The reason why we’re featuring it anyway is that we like the insight supporting it; a guide dog for the blind sheds light in the darkness. You fill out your directions in Google Maps and a layer on top of it ‘illuminates’ your route. We can imagine that the KNGF’s ad budget didn’t allow for a more elaborate concept. Created by Selmore.

The last day of the year, a good day for reflection. What did 2011 bring Amsterdam Ad Blog. A redesign implemented in the beginning of this year. A lot more traffic and followers on Twitter and Facebook. The traffic came from 168 countries – in total – this year. Roughly 50% of our visitors came from the Netherlands, 10% from the States, 6% from the UK, and the same percentage from Germany and France combined. The top 10 is completed by Italy, Canada, India, Brazil, and Australia, respectively. The list of countries is closed by one single visit from Mayotte, a small island that we’ve never heard of – located between Mozambique and Madagascar. Next year we’re going to introduce some new features. Among them ‘Interiors’; photos of the interiors of Amsterdam advertising agencies. Also ‘Inspiration’; what inspires Amsterdam ad creatives. We are also talking about a collaboration with another ad platform and we’re happy to announce that we found two new columnists who will be writing for AAB on a regular basis. And, finally, as always we’re open for new, interesting content from our readers. So if you have any ideas, let us know. Thanks for reading us and have a great 2012!

Wow, what a great print ad (click pic = full ad) to explain that you sell “extra strong garlic sauce”. It instantly shows how Heinz’ new sauce scares away all the personal ads in the newspaper: no date guaranteed! Though when you think about it; is the repllent quality of garlic an attribute you’d want to blow up? Mmm. Probably not. Then again, if we’re talking about single mindedly conveying a message loud and clear, this ad is a winner! Created by N=5.

Shirt porn, that’s what we thought when seeing this promo for the new black jersey of the Sacramento Kings. Though some people will tell you that black is not a colour at all, the copy written by Lemon Scented Tea will tell you that black is more than a colour; it’s an honour worn by Kings. It will be released during Christmas, at the beginning of the season when the Kings play the LA Lakers.

Yet another cool online activational piece of advertising by KLM, created by Ice Mobile; the KLM Passport app, an app that turns traveller’s journeys into movies. This film, developed by Muse, shows more or less how it works: you choose a theme (adventure, around the world, island hopping, in the snow, etc.), select the best pictures and videos on your iPhone taken during your trip, and the app creates a need little movie. It all looks very smooth. The only downside of the concept is that most people still use a camera instead of their phone to collect travel memories, so the question is how many people will actually use it seriously. Nevertheless it shows once again that KLM understands that travelling is more than just buying a plane ticket.

For some brands gathering Likes on Facebook is simply a way to be able to spam your wall, we once said. For other brands it’s a smart way of creating customer intimacy. The latter actually try to have a conversation and – if they are smart – give something back every now and then. For example, last February we saw Heineken (physically) liking its customers back (in a bar). Dutch booming fashion brand Scotch & Soda is doing the same now, but digitally. That is, physically digitally; on a digital window display in its flagship store in Amsterdam the Facebook fans’ names will be animated (as from today) in a handwritten style across black and white Scotch & Soda images selected from the current season’s collections.  A sympathetic gesture of S&S – and its agency Perfect Fools. Though the image displayed here does make you wonder whether Willemijn Valk will be happy to be portrayed as a man. If we may shoot from the hip; why not ask Willemijn (and some other fans) to wear the new collection, do a photo shoot, and then display her in your store. We know, way more expensive, but then you will make her really happy and on top of that even create something that her friends will most definitely like on Facebook.

When it comes to location based – i.e. geo-tagged – shopping there are roughly two kind of benefits (apart from telling people where you are); either you can proudly tell the world you’ve become the virtual mayor somewhere or you get an instant discount – or both. Now there’s a new web app, created by THEY, that tells you through live data where you don’t want to be shopping. The app that sources Foursquare check-ins and tweets is built to avoid the crazy X-mas shopping crowds. Since it only services a few areas in Amsterdam (like ‘Centrum’ and the ’9 Straatjes’) and most people don’t have the luxury to go shopping when nobody else does (unless they shop online), it seems more of a PR builder than an ambituous project that is to conquer the world. But whatever you think of it; it does show that THEY is thinking forward and likes to experiment.

What a great clip, showing the grand opening of Massive Music’s fifth office in London – after Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles and Shanghai – which will be run by Paul Reynolds and Nico Steiger. The clip was directed by Oscar Verpoort (Bananaz) and the song is ‘Sleeping Dogs’ by Big Smoky (a ‘Massive Talent’).