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.

Yesterday was a good day. Not just because it was our first day in Cannes and we enjoyed soaking up all its extremes – Le Palais, the sun, the beach, ‘le canard au miel’, and lots of drinks – check out our photo’s here. It was also a good day for Amsterdam, because it won 5 Lions! Two silver lions went to outdoor; Interbest ‘mail stripper’ and the Go Fast water-bike, both to Y&R Not Just Film. At the time, we weren’t too positive about the unattractive stripper, because we doubted its effectiveness. You could say the silver lion has proved us wrong. Two bronze lions went to the radio commercial ‘sexual harassment’ (Publicis) and an Allsecur outdoor ad (Ogilvy). In Media Muse and Starcom won Silver for their 3D Samsung projection. Earlier, on Monday Amsterdam won two meager bronze lions; the Dutch dress for Bavaria in promo – which definitely deserves more in our opinion – and bronze for Boondoggle’s KLM Suprise in PR – in Holland this won a golden Spin (read: cyber) award. Hopefully we’ll be able to celebrate some gold later this week.

A commercial that feels like a warm bath, that’s how we experienced this. Cynics might say the concept is a little too easy, but in our opinion it’s just perfect; on strategy (Bavaria = a beer without bullshit), well written, and well executed. It helps of course if you can afford Hugh Hefner and his sexy entourage, but there are enough agencies out there that would be able to fuck it up. Not Selmore and director Jonathan Herman (Bonkers). But it’s not just Selmore doing a good job. A great agency needs a great client. And if there’s one brand out there that understands marketing and – more importantly – dares to stick its neck out, it’s Bavaria. It started with a complete new visual identity in 2009 (by Brandnew Design), with powerful blue instead of faded green. Then it created a series of commercials with aspirational production value – e.g. the epic journey of a drop and, about a year ago, Mickey Rourke, selling alcohol free beer. But the jewel in the crown of Bavaria’s marketing efforts was the DutchDress, a premium targeted at women instead of men and used as ambush marketing tool during last year’s World Championships football in South Africa and causing priceless amounts of PR. It’s no coincidence that Bavaria was awarded ‘Advertiser of the year’ by the SAN (organization of advertisers) last week. The biggest award for Bavaria (and Selmore) though is that it turned itself in an indisputable A brand within 2 years time.

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.

Octopus Paul has become world famous with his ability to predict World Cup matches. For the same reason he became a national enemy when he predicted Spain to win the final – probably because the poor animal simply likes the colour yellow. Selmore communicated this collective emotion through fried squid – introducing a special edition Bavaria can that honours ‘Oranje’. The copy reads: “Thanks, Oranje. And Octopus Paul too”. The print ad is a strong sociological translation of the superstitious Dutch during the tournament. All of a sudden people had rituals to influence the matches. They always say the Dutch are down to earth. Well, if so, not during the World Cup of Football we’ve learned.

While the Pletterpet has not been the most successful premium Heineken ever launched – at the supermarket you’ll still find big piles of  Pletterpet boxes – Heineken yesterday made a big come back during the national team’s canal parade. Heineken’s agency TBWA\Neboko – also responsible for the Pletterpet – came up with the idea to spoof  the well known Heineken pay-off Biertje? (Beer?) – not in use anymore, for that matter. By leaving the ‘i’ out, it spells ‘Bertje!’, referring to the Dutch football coach Bert van Marwijk. During the last days of the tournament the Amsterdam brewer spread Bertje! t-shirts and flags through supermarket Albert Heijn and its own bars. By the time the Dutch team was hounoured with a canal parade – as if they had become world champion – it was impossible to miss ‘Bertje!’ Picture: the Heineken Brewery Museum; fan waiting for the Canal Parade; newspaper ad; and Dutch top scorer Sneijder holding a Bertje! flag. Though we are very impressed by the amount of (free) publicity this must have generated, we still preferred to look at the Bavaria Dutch dress girls.

World Cup: Bavaria’s Dutch Dress babes arrested in South Africa
It almost sounds like a hoax, but through the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant, we learned that a group of girls showing off their Bavaria Dutch Dress (created by Selmore) were arrested from their hotel in Johannesburg last night. Since Budweiser is the exclusive WC sponsor, no other beer brands are allowed in the stadium. The girls (getting paid by Bavaria) were disguised as Danish supporters when entering the stadium to see Holland-Denmark play. Once they were in, they revealed their sexy dresses and started to draw attention from the crowd. Ambush marketing in its purest form! And ironically, thanks to the arrest this news will travel the world!

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Thanks to Bavaria’s sexy ‘Dutch Dress’ the steward in this film will finally enjoy watching the audience when the Dutch lions score an important goal during the World Cup of Football in South Africa next month. A relatively stylish premium, created by Selmore and made solely for women, in close collaboration with Supertrash – “a girl label for independent women with great sense for fashion and style”. When you realize that most sales boosting premiums – free with a multi-pack of beer – make you look like a moron, this one will fashionably stand out in the orange-premium craze that accompanies the World Cup. It thus fits well in Bavaria’s strategy to become a more premium – no pun intended – lager. And, amazingly, it will make both men and women run to the supermarket to buy Bavaria beer.

This commercial for Bavaria 0% featuring Mickey Rourke, took us a while to appreciate. It was probably because we had to get over the joke at the end – shocking alright, but not very tasteful. The film was created by Selmore and directed by Jonathan Herman. Conceptually it does make sense of course; thanks to Bavaria 0% Rourke only throws his minibar out of the window of the prestigious Waldorf Astoria…phew. Well (type) casted. And we don’t know what it costs these days to hire Rourke for an ‘European’ commercial, but asking him buys you a guaranteed amount of exposure. It makes even more sense if you know that Bavaria has a tradition of using Hollywood stars to sell its non-alcoholic beer. This one for example with Don Johnson – who at the time had just finished his successful Miami Vice career and drinking habit – made the brand instantly famous in the Netherlands. The big difference between Johnson at the time and Rourke today, is that Rourke has reached some sort of a cult status – for a big part thanks to his brilliant role in The Wrestler. Maybe that’s the reason why we like the commercial after all.

This is a screenshot from a carnival hit conceived by Kumpany for Bavaria. Maybe not many people know this, but carnival is quite big in the Netherlands. That is, if you live ‘below the rivers’ (read: in the south). Every year in January/February some odd carnival hits seep through to the North. This year there was this hit called ‘Zachte G, Harde L’. Translated ‘Soft G’ – referring to the accent in the south – and ‘Hard L’ – referring to the male reproduction organ. The hit already has 1.5 million hits on YouTube, which – for Dutch standards – is quite impressive. What’s more, the song was played intensively on 538. And Jos van Oss, the singer, performed the song throughout the Netherlands in local bars and clubs. Only after the song became a hit, Jos van Oss revealed (on SBS Show News) it was a viral for Bavaria. In the YouTube video Jos only subtly holds a can of Bavaria in his hand. In hindsight it’s clear that the video is advertising for Bavaria – Jos for instance pees against the Heineken brewery. For some it will only generate big question marks, but if you understand Dutch culture, it is a hit – both literally and figuratively.