The first commercial ever in which Nike and Adidas live peacefully in co-existence, we thought. Nope, not true. It is Greenpeace that wants to educate us about these love brands. It’s a good thing that Marco Della Coletta and Zoe D’Amaroclearly (Godmother) can show off their skills while helping Greenpeace in its fight for a better world. But we don’t really get it. That is, we do get that Nike and Adidas are playing with toxic polluters. But why create a brand film – with breakdancers, a Snoop Dog look alike, and a logo that communicates water in Chinese – that makes Nike and Adidas look über cool, if you want to make these same brands look uncool? The e-mail accompanying this “cross media campaign” explained it wasn’t made with the help of any big agency. Well, it’s good to see that the good old advertising agencies can still have added value in getting an apt message across.
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.
Amsterdam won two Grand Prix in Film and Design at Eurobest in Hamburg, last Wednesday. Wieden+Kennedy was awarded the prestigious award for its epic Nike ‘Write the future’ commercial – alledgedly the most expensive commercial ever made. And for the same film it won bronze in Film Craft. Amsterdam Worldwide earned a Grand Prix in the category Design for the Onitsuka Tiger ‘Tansu sneaker’. Other than that Amsterdam did not do extremely well, we have to admit. In interactive Pool Worldwide won silver for its brilliant StarWars branded TomTom viral. In the same category 180 Amsterdam won bronze for Adidas’ Match Tracker and NRG3 won bronze for an interactive banner for the EA game Need for Speed Shift. N=5 was awarded silver in the category Media with a ‘Live interactive billboad’ – an aggression awareness campaign. BSUR got bronze in Film for MINI’s Flow, Publics won bronze in Print for KIKA, and JWT bronze in Promo and Outdoor with the MINI Christmas box.
Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam/London won gold at the London International Awards (LIA) for Nike’s ‘Write The Future‘ – in the category film. The campaign also won three bronze awards in the categories print, poster, and music adapation – the latter went to Massive Music for updating Focus’ hit ‘Hocus Pocus’. Grey Amsterdam won silver in print for Pink Ribbon Magazine’s happy breasts. 180 Amsterdam won bronze for ‘The Match Tracker’ for Adidas.
This commercial kicks off an online Adidas game that allows you to play against random people on Facebook. You choose a city (from a team that plays the Champion’s League), then a part of your city, and then a move you would like to make against your opponent. It’s like rock-paper-scissors (where have we seen that before?), so everybody can play it. If you win, a part of the city becomes your team’s colour. Created by 180 Amsterdam.
Quite spectacular this outdoor ad for the Adidas F50 Adizero. Not only did Adidas change the tram stop benches, the real boots were also incorporated in the outdoor furniture. Created by 180, TBWA\BEC and JC Decaux.
Adidas is moving its digital account from 180’s Riot to Sid Lee. A worrying move for 180, since it makes Sid Lee, already working for Adidas Originals, own yet another piece of the advertising pie. Through the grapevine we also heard that Boston based Arnold will be opening an Amsterdam office at the end of this year to service its international client Volvo. This sounds like an efficient move since Volvo’s international digital agency EuroRSCG 4D is already based in Amsterdam.
On Saturday the last Cannes Lions were awarded to Amsterdam agencies in the categories Film and Film Craft. Silver went to the intelligent commercials made by TBWA\Neboko for IDFA – international documentary festival Amsterdam. Though we liked the previous concept a little better, the one showed in this post brings the message ‘You can’t make up reality’ in a similarly convincing way. 180 Amsterdam won silver in the ‘Film Craft’ category for their Adidas film ‘Every team needs the spark’. Indeed, a lot of craftsmanship. XXS and N=5 won bronze for their Dierenbescherming (animal protection) and Live Interactive Billboard ads respectively. The latter is an aggression awareness campaign that shows a billboard with ambulance personal being harassed. Bystanders that watch the billboard are being filmed and integrated in the film – so they watch their selves being inactive. Quite smart, though in our opinion this case would have been better of winning in Outdoor or Cyber. Like last year Philips won a Grand Prix (this time in ‘Film Craft’) for The Gift, “a sci-fi thriller in a dystopian future” that shows quite some skills being brought together. It was created by DDB London in assocation with RSA Films. We mention it, cause Tribal DDB Amsterdam was responsible for the overarching Parallel Lines campaign that included the 5 short films – of which The Gift was one. O.k., enough chest pounding already. Let’s get back to work!
“And so this journey brings me here…”. The extensive journey started about a year ago with Messi as the Spark and the mysterious voice-over of Zidane explaining what was going on. To us the whole concept was a bit over-complicated. We never really understood what Zidane was trying to tell us – not only because of his poor English. But we forgave Adidas and its agency 180 Amsterdam easily, cause it was all so richly executed and therefore not a punishment to watch. Especially the previous commercial – “inspred by Sin City” – was a very pleasant orgy of special effects. So now the long journey has brought Zidane to South Africa. And to celebrate this, you can join the Adidas “Match-Up experience” on Facebook. Again, quite a bombastic ad. But if we understand correctly, you can pick a favourite player out of the 32 Adidas heroes from the different countries (Messi from Argentina, Gerard from England, Pienaar from South Africa, etc.) and then predict who will win when they’re playing each other. The winners get free Adidas gear. So to put it banally, it’s betting on matches, sponsored by Adidas. And so the journey must end.
With this rich, Sin City inspired ad, it looks like 180 Amsterdam wanted to display how easily it integrates so many different creative disciplines into one single piece of advertising. But just like the previous ad with Leonal Messi as The Spark and Zinédine Zidane as the voice over, the commercial is made primarily to sell the Adidas F50 football boot – this time as the the lightest and fastest. What we didn’t know yet, is that there’s two kinds of fast; there’s the spark and the blaze – the latter respresented by David Villa. While the spark needs a ball to be fast, the blaze simply is a consuming inferno of speed. To be honest, we don’t really care, we simply love to watch it – over and over again.
