Recently Achtung! created quite an unusual campaign to communicate Vodafone’s fiber internet; in the small town of Roggel (Limburg) a real race track was laid out around the center, where celebrity Jenson Button raced his Formula 1 car against the locals – who were racing in a simulator. The entire town was involved and a documentary was made of the event. The event was to bring Vodafone and its proposition (high speed internet) as close as possible to the user. To learn more about the story behind this campaign we asked Dick Buschman, MD and Head of Strategy of Achtung!, a few questions.

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Brands that beg for Likes – without presenting any Likeable content – don’t really understand how social media work. We usually don’t ‘Like’ these brands, because they just want to spam your Wall. But when every Like begged very smartly represents a condom to support an educational project set up by Stop Aids Now! in Kibagare, Nairobi (Kenia), you can easily earn our sympathy. Even if the content (in Dutch) is not necessarily very likeable; Nicolette Kluijver – who presents a TV program about sex and drugs – asks for your condom (read: Like) in a few different short films. Apparently we’re not the only ones that find this campaign sympathetic, cause the target of 20.000 condoms was met in merely 2 days. The target has now been raised to 40.000. Created by Achtung!

Roggel is a rustic town with only 4100 inhabitants. And this short film, directed by Andreas Pasvantis (328 Stories), wonders whether they are ready for Vodafone’s speed. Normally, you would relate this question to the speed of Vodafone’s network, but when you ask Achtung! to come up with something entertaining, you end up measuring the speed of a race car. Why? First of all, because Vodafone sponsors the McLaren team and secondly because the speed of a race car is easier to comprehend for the average consumer than the speed of a mobile network – we’d guess. So they asked Jens Button to battle against the fastest person of Roggel. A race car versus a race simulator. And to find the fastest person of Roggel, Achtung! set up some small competitions with a very local feel to subtly illustrate how Vodafone’s speed can even be experienced in the country. The Grand Prix of Roggel was ‘aired’ yesterday on RTL’s Grand Prix microsite, which today heralds “Jens Button beaten in the Grand Prix of Roggel”. You can say about it what you like, but original it is.

This is good stuff. Brad and Kelly, two personal beer trainers from LA, show how to get into shape with Bavaria 0.0%. Achtung! created three lessons on Facebook that teach you how to ‘roll’, ‘poor’, and ‘swirl’ a Bavaria 0.0% bottle in such an engaging way that you easily sit out the entire training. And when Facebook asks you after the first lesson if Bavaria is allowed to connect to your personal details you say ‘yes’ without giving it a second thought. And though you could say that it’s really easy to sell a brand with a few hard bodies – Axe (or Lynx) is entirely built on those – the success comes down to the perfect execution. That’s what the Swedish director Henrik Kindgren (It’s Showtime) did; he used all the cliches in a subtle enough and credible way – you’d almost believe it. And yes, we know, it has been done before for Amstel Lite – by Hallelujah and MacGyver. That is a pity. The big difference though is that Brad and Kelly actually make Bavaria 0.0% look cool.

Last Friday the digital Podge was held in Amsterdam. The podge (meaning ‘small belly’) was founded in 1994 by Phil Jones (right in picture). What started out as an informal dinner between design professionals has now branched out into sports and digital. The digital podge now travels through Europe. When Achtung! visited the event last year in Stockholm they liked it so much that they decided to invite the event to Amsterdam. Together with Bert Hagendoorn (left in photo) Achtung! invited about 100 CD’s and MD’s from the best digital agencies from the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, Germany and Sweden. The day started with a reception at Herengracht 502, the official residence of the mayor of Amsterdam, clearly breathing the wealth of the Dutch 17th century and creating a nice contrast with the modern, mobile addicted, casual scene. The podgers were welcomed by Achtung!’s Dick Buschman (second left in photo) and Caroline Gehrels – responsible within the municipality for selling Amsterdam to the world – together with jenever (Dutch gin), haring (herring), and kroketten (meat croquettes). The creme de la creme of digital was then taken on a ‘rondvaart’ boat to view Amsterdam from the water – though the presence of an abundance of cold Heinies and interesting conversation partners made sightseeing a little difficult. We were then taken for a late lunch to ‘De Goudfazant’, a restaurant on the Northern, industrial, hip and happening shore of the IJ river. After a rich lunch there was time for coffee and ping pong. Through the rain – to remind everyone to be in Holland – the online professionals were finally taken to café Nol, a bar in the Jordaan that used to be visited by true Amsterdammers. Unfortunately Amsterdam Ad Blog didn’t make this, because the intense conversations about the future of digital in combination with a considerate amount of alcohol persuaded us to call it a day – a wonderful day! A visual impression can be found here.

Yet another car activation by Achtung! for Pon, the biggest Dutch Volkswagen (group) distributor in the Netherlands. This time for the Skoda Yeti. The concept, dubbed ‘Yeti Night Catch‘ resembles Achtung!’s successful ‘Catch the Polo’ from 2009, since the consumer has to catch a moving Yeti. The difference though is that the Yeti is not driven by a consumer, but moved secretly overnight to a new location. The consumer can follow the Yeti’s route on Google Maps and set a trap along its (predicted) route. Every time you catch it, you earn points and the overall winner wins a trip to South Africa. South Africa?! Doesn’t the legendary Yeti live in the Himalaya? Mmm. Maybe it’s a global warming thing.

Here’s yet another brand that uses social media statistics to show how cool (or not cool) you are – yesterday we wrote about Hi using Facebook stastistics. This concept for Volkswagen, called ‘LinkedUit’, not only uses your LinkedIn data, it also allows you to battle your LinkedIn network, to see – among other things – who has more contacts, a longer resume, and more recommendations. If you win, you’re ‘In’ and if you loose you’re ‘Out’. The animation that comes with the battle also allows you to stick your profile photo on your animated avatar. For those of you who wonder what the strategic fit is with the new Volkswagen Passat; the campaign question is ‘How full are you of yourself?’ And since the Volkswagen Passat comes with many special features, it’s full of itself too – a bit of a stretch. Created by Achtung! The digital agency works for Volskwagen for years now and has already built an impressive list of dedicated production introduction websites.

Write the future did what most of us expected, it won big last night at the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) Awards: the Standing bulb (read: Grand Prix) and three golden bulbs (Integrated, Film, and Print/Magazine). Massive Music also won an award for the music in this commercial. Overall, TBWA\Neboko won most awards, taking home 2 golden (in Film for Pearle and in Print for Heineken’s Social Networks) and 4 silver bulbs. Live Interactive billboard (n=5) won gold in Outdoor. Bavaria’s DutchDress (Selmore) – causing such a big stir at the World Championship football last summer – also received a very deserved golden bulb in Activation. Christian Borstlap’s posters for the overview exhibition of Dutch advertising classics won gold in Graphic Design. In Interactive there was no gold. This could mean that digital creatives are still mostly tech driven, rather than aiming for the big idea. It could also mean that the ‘traditional’ creatives (the largest part of the Jury) are not able to fully appreciate digital innovations. Or it might be a bit of both. In any case, there were three silver bulbs in Interactive for Philips ‘Wake up the town‘ (Tribal DDB), Live Interactive Billboard (see above – a big digital idea, created by a ‘traditional’ agency), and Vodafone’s Madame TreSesti (Achtung!). Our very favourite film ‘Drama Queen‘ for the Young Director Award (TBWA Helsinki, directed by Rogier Hesp) got a bulb in the category Young Directors, but unfortunately not gold.

The Digital Podge is a get together of ECD’s and MD’s that work in digital. It was founded in 1994 by Phil Jones. The idea is to get the creative digital leaders together in an informal way to talk about their business. When Achtung! visited Podge last year in Stockholm, the agency successfully picked up the idea to take the event to Amsterdam. The theme of this year’s podge is ‘Kopstoot. The wrong side of Amsterdam’. A ‘kopstoot’ is a traditional Dutch drink: a beer with a jenever (Dutch gin) on the side. The attendants will also visit some other Dutch classics, like the Red Light District (no shit?), FEBO (eating out of a wall), and *tada* a coffeeshop. Sounds like things are going to be very informal. The Amsterdam Podge will be held on June 10th. If you would like to attend, you can visit the website to register – make sure to turn off your sound when you do so.

Achtung! enters the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA), a network of the leading digital agency’s, like B-Reel, Profero and Perfect Fools. The society conducts research, shares knowledge, and exchanges professionals in order to professionalize the digital marketing and communications industry. Achtung! was invited to join SoDA because of its innovative work over the past years for clients like Volkswagen, O’Neill and Vodafone.