A rather meagre last day for Amsterdam in Cannes, last Saturday – the most prestigious day of the festival. Publicis did not manage to win Titanium for their ALS ad, but with Silver in Integrated the agency still did very well with the impressive campaign, winning 3 Lions in total. Out of the six Amsterdam nominations in Film only one commercial was awarded; Wieden+Kennedy’s Making of the Date won Silver. The Grand Prix for Film Craft did not go to Amsterdam, but at least the wonderful spot Bear, by BETC Paris for Canal+, was directed by Dutchman Matthijs van Heijningen jr. In the same category We Are Pi won Bronze for Human Arabesque. In our opinion it deserved more. So, all in all, after winning the Grand Prix and in total 22 Lions last year, rainy Amsterdam could this year welcome back only 17 Lions. Hopefully we’ll do better again next year.

With only one shortlisted case in Mobile, Amsterdam disappointed us a little this week. Fortunately the only nomination in this growing category was awarded with Silver last night. Yune and XS2TheWorld created an app for the Dutch Railways (NS); an app that allows you to see the Royal waiting rooms of three train stations in 3D – not really a big idea, but a rich visual experience that shows where mobile is going. In Media there were two awards, Silver and Bronze for ALS ‘I have already died’ by Publicis – also winning already in Direct – and ‘Save an orchestra’ for the Dutch Metropole Orchestra (MO) by EuroRSCG, respectively. The latter was a multi-media campaign creating, among other things, a popular number 1 hit by the MO effectively persuading the Dutch government to keep the MO subsidized. In Outdoor the only shortlist nominee, Dominos ‘Safe sound‘  by Indie – an electric scooter making the artificial sound ‘Mmmm,’ didn’t get awarded. To our surprise. It is one of the more truly original ideas coming from Amsterdam this year.

Amsterdam scores well in the first three Cannes categories. Three golden Lions went to LG Thief, stealing the thinnest TV ever on a security cam, by Y&R (Promo/Best use of social media), ALS ‘I have already died’ by Publicis (Direct/Charity), and Hema mega push-up bra by Doom & Dickson (PR). The push-up bra – a male model showing how the bra makes something out of nothing – also won Silver in Promo/Product Launch. Lemz won Silver with their firework task-force. Bronze went to Kumpany for ‘Britt’s telephone’ for Microsoft – a concept that allowed the crowd to browse through a Dutch celeb’s entire phone online.

What a great way to advertise yourself in Cannes. A custom made bicycle – with dedicated website – designed by Juri Zaech for Arnold Amsterdam. And it actually works.

Everybody knows by know that MassiveMusic throws the best party in Cannes every year. What’s unique this year, is that they’ve teamed up with MediaMonks, resulting in the “World’s Biggest Agency;” MM&MM. For one night, that is. If you are one of the lucky people that is being invited to the infamous ‘Massive Wednesday’ party at Bâoli Beach Club on June 20th, we’ll be seeing you there. Until then you can take a look at this teaser in which 24 MM&MM staff members were asked to “photocopy a body part” to promote the party. The film was developed by MM&MM and The Stone Twins and filmed from inside the XXXerox copier by Rogier Schalken from MediaMonks.

Picture: ECD’s W+K Amsterdam Mark Bernath (left) and Eric Quennoy (middle), mainly responsible for Wieden+Kennedy’s huge success in Cannes and Enrico Balleri from Nike, just after the award ceremony last Saturday.

What a great closing night for the Amsterdam agency it was. Nike’s ‘Write the future‘ scored seven more Lions – earlier in the week it already won gold in Cyber. At the most important award night the Amsterdam agency first of all won the prestigious Grand Prix in film. It was a very close finish with Puma’s ‘After hours athlete’ as jury chair Tony Granger (CCO Y&R) explained at the press conference. After a lengthy discussion he asked the jury to put all the rational arguments aside and vote from the heart. This gave Nike the final push. Nike also won five Lions in Film craft: two Gold (Editing and Script), two Silver (Production and Sound), and one bronze (CG). And the seventh Lion, Gold in Integrated, proved that the campaign didn’t just have a pretty face. And then Heineken; for this other power brand W+K won five Lions in Film and Film craft. Four for The Entrance: Film: Gold and Bronze (interactive). Film craft: Gold and Silver (Direction and Sound Design). One Lion went to The Date – more or less the sequel of The Entrance. It won bronze in Film. This brought the grand total for Wieden+Kennedy to 13 (!) Lions. Together with all the Lions that Portland won for Old Spice, W+K must easily be the most awarded independent network in the world. Two more Amsterdam Lions went to MINI ‘Flow‘ (Silver in Film craft) by BSUR and one to Volkswagen’s ‘Old Lady’ (Bronze in Film) by DDB. All in all Amsterdam (officially) won 25 Lions, 8 (!) more than last year.

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.

Our first day in Cannes! We’re going to keep a photolog this week, so any tips on interesting (preferably Amsterdam related) activities are welcome – like winning a Lion for example. We look forward seeing you and (maybe) getting a little tipsy together!

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!

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