There’s a new ad brand in town, called the Account Planners Group (APG) Netherlands, an organization that brings account planners – or strategists, if you will – together. APG is an existing brand that was first coined in London and which now exists in several other countries than the UK, among which Germany, Sweden, and Australia. Gerald Hensel, German, planner at Blast Radius, blogger, and fanatic tweeter, is the initiator and the co-founder of the Dutch APG. In November, the first open invitation meeting kicked off at Strawberry Frog – hosting the event. We were there and judging by the amount of planners that attended, it was a success. We took Gerald out for lunch at Stanislavski to ask him a few questions about his initiative.

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A very nice way of saying that mobile provider Hi ‘Likes’ Facebook. The ad, created by  FHV/BBDO, made us immediately think of The Hangover – though the tiger was replaced by an ostrich. We’re not sure whether this was on purpose, but don’t really mind, cause let’s not pretend as if advertising is art. In the best case it is inspired by art – or in this case a blockbuster. In other words, advertising doesn’t have to be completely original. What’s more, the execution is spot on; the ad was skillfully directed by Jeroen Annokkeé (CZAR). So, all in all, we ‘like’.

We knew that we were getting more and more famous – traffic has been sky rocketing recently! But this really flattered us. British insurer Aviva created a huge billboard for us in Warsaw. They said they wanted to honour us for all the hard work we put in this blog. You can imagine that all these bystanders were thinking, what’s that huge ‘A’ doing here? Well, now they know. Ok, ok, not really. Aviva is an insurer that provides you with ‘personalized care’. Oh no, wait a minute, it has something to do with street children. Aviva insures street children? Mmm. Anyway, since today customized virals are the bomb, they thought why not do something with customized virals! On a microsite you can ‘donate your picture’, which means they give money to street children. And you can use your Facebook profile to go incredibly social with it. On top of that, you can watch people talk about random stuff. We really don’t get it. BUT we did like our personalized tribute. The campaign was created by AMV-BBDO, the website was built by B-Reel, and the technical execution was done by Amsterdam/London based Media Monks – that’s doing quite well these days.

Awesomeness, this new Philips campaign. Tribal DDB Amsterdam went to Longyearbyen, one of the most northerly towns in the Arctic, – where in the winter the sun doesn’t rise – to demonstrate the benefits of the Philips Wake-up light. Though one of our editors immediately called out “Tropicana, BBDO Toronto” (winning a Lion in Cannes this year) we think Tribal did a very nice job here. Last year Tribal woke up a rooster with the wake-up light, but you can imagine that testing this product on real people comes across way more credible. Especially when you make a documentary out of it. And even more so, if you let Dough Pray – who also did Art & Copy – direct it. On a dedicated website you can follow the inhabitants of Longyearbyen and see how they react on Philips’ Wake-up light. We don’t know when the documentary will be released, but having seen the trailer we are sure it will be a qualitative piece of advertising.

Last night Amsterdam won 2 golden design Lions. Amsterdam Worldwide for its Onitsuka Tiger Tansu sneaker (picture) and FHV/BBDO for its black Mars packaging (almost) without the iconic Mars logo. Consumers received a sheet of letter stickers to create their own text on the Mars bar. The jury was charmed by the fact that Mars dared to change its world famous packaging so radically. In Cyber Amsterdam won 2 bronze Lions. Achtung! with ‘Public Polo‘ for Volkswagen and Kong (again) with Stanislav for the Ministry of Justice. The day before yesterday we got 2 silver outdoor Lions. Again, one for MINI Christmas box by UbachsWisbrun/JWT and one for Interbest, created by Y&R Not just film. Indie won bronze in radio for Dance4Life.

Source: Adformatie

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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In the 90’s FHV/BBDO was Amsterdam’s flagship advertising agency – only working for the biggest brands around. Today any kind of client will do, even if it is a sex cinema in the dodgy Red Light District, called Venus. And since retro is still the trend, Venus decided to buy some 8mm vintage porn. FHV came up with this poster to advertise it. For those who long for the ‘good old times’ when porn actresses (or all women, for that matter) were still wearing genital hairdo’s – instead of today’s hairdon’ts. The triangle shaped bush was built up from – et voila – 8mm film. Nice one – the concept, that is, not the hairdo.

This beautiful commercial for Bavaria is created by Selmore, directed by Matthijs van Heijningen (the legendary Dutch film maker) and post produced by 8VFX. It should be no surprise that it immediately made us think of the legendary Noitulove campaign for Guinness by AMV/BBDO (Grand Prix, Cannes 2006) – “Good things come to those who wait”. And if you’re asking yourself why the drop, after its epic journey, is disrespectfully being swallowed by a bull dog, you need to know that Bavaria likes to position itself as a down to earth beer, also meant for the man in the street. So even though Bavaria likes to make big budget productions – especially since it has been working with Selmore – and is the “only beer brewed with pure mineral water”, it also comes to those who accidently catch it.

This weekend ‘Carousel’ for Philips, made by Tribal DDB, won a Film Grand Prix in Cannes! Last week the online case was already awarded with a silver Cyber Lion. According to film jury member Richard Bullock (180 Amsterdam) the jury was unanimous and quick to decide that this was a Grand Prix. David Lubars (BBDO), who presided the film jury, called it mind blowing and said it showed the way forward. True enough; the technique gives an extra (interactive) dimension to film. And when content is fully animated, the viewer can even change the ‘camera’ angle in any desirable way – which we saw earlier this year in the commercial for the game Killzone 2. Other Amsterdam winners in Film: TBWA\Neboko won silver for its Heineken walk-in fridge and bronze for its IDFA films – both commercials won a golden ADCN lamp earlier this year. Amsterdam agencies Indie and Ogilvy also won a bronze Lion for respectively Orange Babies and Sensoor.

Thursday night the Golden and Silver Spin Awards were divided between the best Dutch digital and cross media agencies. For the first time the winners weren’t kept in suspense until the official award night in the Gashouder, because Adformatie (the Dutch ad magazine) by mistake distributed its magazine with the results too early. Of course, the winners couldn’t care less. Lemz was the big winner this year, with two golden awards and the title ‘interactive agency of the year’. The other two golden Spins went to Achtung! (last year elected agency of the year) for Sultana and Red Urban & FHV/BBDO for Hi. Check entire list here. More…