Remember when we used to send digital Christmas cards with a tune inside? Very web 1.0. This is the 3.0 version; a Western Union platform that allows you to perform a virtual duet and produce a personalized music video with Snoop Dogg, Timbaland, Sunidhi Chauhan or K’naan – at the time of writing not all songs are released yet, for that matter. You upload a photo of yourself, pick an artist, and a song. Then you karaoke it – with the lyrics streamed on the screen – and your personal avatar singing the duet is sent to family and loved ones – together with the money, of course. Simple and sweet. Created by 180.
With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epicaawards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…
Last Wednesday the ADCN (Art Director’s Club Nederland) hosted a session in ‘De Kring’ on the Rembrandtplein dubbed ‘XXX Expat’ (XXX is part of the city’s shield), with the noble aim of bringing two parts of the Amsterdam ad industry together; the Dutch and the expats. Some would say these two groups are surely two sides to the same coin, others would say these are separate entities with little or nothing in common other than geography. The somewhat lacking relationship between these two communities has been well documented over the years, yet despite this, nothing has ever quite bridged that gap, except of course – modest as we are – Amsterdam Ad Blog. Lode Schaeffer (ECD at Indie), new chairman to the ADCN is determined to branch out and readdress the balance. The idea was simple; get five speakers from leading agencies in Amsterdam to each give a presentation about the experience of living and working in Amsterdam as an expat.
180 co-founder Alex Melvin passed away peacefully in his Amsterdam home last Friday, August 12. He was 53. Alex, who bravely fought melanoma for three years, was comforted by family and close friends. He leaves behind his wife, Alison Melvin, and three loving children. For more than a decade, Alex played an integral role in the agency’s growth including his work with marquee global client Adidas. In 2007, he and the other two founders Chris Mendola and Guy Hayward launched a U.S. office in Santa Monica, CA. Alex was of enormous importance to the city of Amsterdam; not only did he found an agency that put the city internationally on the map, he also embraced the city as the true representation of his agency. In an interview with us in 2009, during the Boards Conference that he co-hosted with Indie’s Mark Aink, he explained that the resemblance was so strong, because just like 180 the city of Amsterdam has always been a city of talent, ideas and international trade. With a big smile he added: “and I also believe Amsterdam is home to 180 different nationalities, but you’d have to double check that with the chamber of commerce”. In that interview – and all the chats thereafter – we got to know Alex as a modest, good humoured, and overall amiable guy. We’ll miss him. There will be a memorial for Alex on Friday, August 19th at 3 p.m. at De Rode Hoed, Keizersgracht 102, Amsterdam. He will be buried in his native Scotland. His family has set up a Facebook page for people to post memories of Alex.
With 13 shortlist nominations in film and 7 in film craft, Amsterdam should be able to win some more Lions tomorrow night. Of all these nominations 4 go to Nike ‘Write the future’, 3 to Heineken’s ‘The Entrance’, and one to Heineken’s ‘The Date’, which adds up to an impressive 8 film (craft) nominations for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. Write the future also has a nomination for Titanium (integrated), though this case was sent in by Nike. BSUR also does well with 4 nominations for MINI Countryman’s ‘Flow’. Philips’ ‘Wake up the town’ by Tribal DDB has 3 film nominations. Other film nominations go to Volkswagen (DDB), Centraal Beheer (DDB) – we personally liked this more subtle Centraal Beheer film a lot better – De Bijenkorf (Selmore), IDFA X-ray eyes (TBWA) – a very smart film – and the beautiful Sire film ‘Marked for life‘ (180). We’ll keep our fingers crossed!
As from June 180 has a new MD: Stephen Corlett. He worked both on agency and client side, starting his career at Saatchi & Saatchi London with Kevin Dundas, who is now CEO at 180. After Saatchi’s, Corlett moved to Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam where he worked alongside 180 ECD Al Moseley on Vodafone. He then led the team that won and created the global Coca-Cola marketing platform the ‘Coke Side of Life’, including the iconic ‘Happiness Factory’ campaign. His itchy feet then brought him to Anomaly, New York, where he worked as ‘Brand Director’ to lead the pitch-winning team that refocused the Converse brand following its Nike buyout. The sports brand experience then led him to Umbro, on the client side. About joining 180 Corlett says: “I felt a desire to go back into the type of creatively led, highly motivated agency I have always loved; where the power of ideas is paramount and valued. 180 is a perfect fit, the team here has a relentless commitment to world class, transformational creativity.” An impressive mouthful. We wish him all the best at 180.
What a beaut of a commercial. To understand it as a non-Dutch speaker, you need to know that the tattoos say things like: “If you’re gonna visit dad now, you can stay there”, “If you’re taking the house, I’m taking the boys”, and “Don’t you think your dad still wants to see you”. You can guess what the pay-off is: “What you say during divorce, may last forever”. Impressive. We’ve asked ourselves a few times why SIRE (The ‘Ministry’ of underexposed social issues) exists – previously they educated the Dutch about how to react to kind behaviour – but with this film they’ve won back their reason for existence. And ‘chapeau’ for 180. Not just for making this commercial, but also for doing something in Dutch for a change. Oh yeah, there’s also a website (‘children in divorce’) that elaborates on the issue using the same visual style as in the commercial.
180 created a new font, called EcoDIN. The font is designed to use less toner when printed – which gives the impression that ‘Eco’ stands for ‘Economical’. The font was inspired by the Ecofont by Spranq (an ad agency in Utrecht) – using 20% less toner. 180’s font, based on DIN Mittleschrift, goes one step further. While in Spranq’s font holes are punched through the glyphs, 180 did the opposite (a nice case of 180 thinking); it just shows the holes. We would love to recommend 180’s EcoDIN, but instead we’re going to bring this yet another step further; we recommend you to start a paperless office, like ourselves; it uses no ink at all. And what’s really eco about it; it doesn’t require any dead trees.
Good news for 180 Amsterdam; ASICS appointed the agency for its global communications around the London Olympic Games 2012 – after a competitive pitch that started last summer. 180 will also work with ASICS to launch key product ranges through 2011 and 2012. ASICS asked 180 to give emotional meaning to its ethos ‘Sound Mind Sound Body’ (Anima Sana In Corpore Sano) – an inspiring assignment when combining it with the idea behind the Olympics. 180′s big advantage in the pitch was its extensive experience on the Adidas account – 180’s founding client who left the agency in 2010. Next to 180 ASICS also works with Vitro in San Diego. Together with Vitro ASICS very recently developed a global campaign around the proposition ‘Sports releases more than just sweat’ – namely negative energy. It seems ASICS is working hard to capture some market share from Nike and Adidas.
If you want to believe Matt Beaumont’s brilliant novel ‘E’, then advertising is by far the most interesting industry to work in for starting exciting liaisons with colleagues – we’ll never forget the extremely funny ‘elevator scene’. If we may believe 180 Matt Beaumont was right. The agency developed a website that generates rumours. And if you click the site’s refresh button a few times, you get the impression that 180 is one big orgy. The fact that 180 built this Rumour Generator might also give the impression that they have a little too much spare time, but we were told that the agency is very busy and feels the economy picking up again. So, all in all, 180 is definitely the place to be; they work hard and ‘play’ hard.
180 co-founder Alex Melvin passed away peacefully in his Amsterdam home last Friday, August 12. He was 53. Alex, who bravely fought melanoma for three years, was comforted by family and close friends. He leaves behind his wife, Alison Melvin, and three loving children. For more than a decade, Alex played an integral role in the agency’s growth including his work with marquee global client Adidas. In 2007, he and the other two founders Chris Mendola and Guy Hayward launched a U.S. office in Santa Monica, CA. Alex was of enormous importance to the city of Amsterdam; not only did he found an agency that put the city internationally on the map, he also embraced the city as the true representation of his agency. In an interview with us in 2009, during the Boards Conference that he co-hosted with Indie’s Mark Aink, he explained that the resemblance was so strong, because just like 180 the city of Amsterdam has always been a city of talent, ideas and international trade. With a big smile he added: “and I also believe Amsterdam is home to 180 different nationalities, but you’d have to double check that with the chamber of commerce”. In that interview – and all the chats thereafter – we got to know Alex as a modest, good humoured, and overall amiable guy. We’ll miss him. There will be a memorial for Alex on Friday, August 19th at 3 p.m. at De Rode Hoed, Keizersgracht 102, Amsterdam. He will be buried in his native Scotland. His family has set up a Facebook 
As from June 180 has a new MD: Stephen Corlett. He worked both on agency and client side, starting his career at Saatchi & Saatchi London with Kevin Dundas, who is now CEO at 180. After Saatchi’s, Corlett moved to Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam where he worked alongside 180 ECD Al Moseley on Vodafone. He then led the team that won and created the global Coca-Cola marketing platform the ‘Coke Side of Life’, including the iconic ‘Happiness Factory’ campaign. His itchy feet then brought him to Anomaly, New York, where he worked as ‘Brand Director’ to lead the pitch-winning team that refocused the Converse brand following its Nike buyout. The sports brand experience then led him to Umbro, on the client side. About joining 180 Corlett says: “I felt a desire to go back into the type of creatively led, highly motivated agency I have always loved; where the power of ideas is paramount and valued. 180 is a perfect fit, the team here has a relentless commitment to world class, transformational creativity.” An impressive mouthful. We wish him all the best at 180.
