This film reminded us of the animation quite recently created by CCCP for the Scheepvaart museum. Both are similar styled, both promote a museum, and both use the same voice-over. Apart from that the film is of course making the museum look quite attractive. And we didn’t know that Naturalis owns one of the world largest collections of organisms; 37 million items! The animation also gives us a peak in the future; who needs to visit a physical museum, when you can make edcuational films like this – which is kind of ironic. Created by Plus One Amsterdam.

Beginning of this month we wrote about a viral – if we may – for the Amsterdam Maritime (‘Scheepvaart’) museum; “No Facebook without the Dutch” it was dubbed. Apparently – and wisely – all of the museum’s budget goes towards online, cause last week we encountered yet another great piece of digital advertising; a site take-over – again a collaboration between One Big Agency, CCCP, and SuperHeroes. When you pull the plug to let the water run away, the Netherlands all of a sudden has become part of Spain and the Dutch news site ‘Nu’ changes into ‘Ahora’. History changes and the news accordingly; queen Beatrix is merely a sculptor now, Dutch brand Philips is called Philips II (after the ruler of Spain in the 16th century), a separatist organization claims to stick to Dutch (a cameo for CCCP’s copywriter and art director); Wesley Sneijder (“Esnaider”) scores for Spain, and Jan Smit (“Juan Smit”) with mustache releases a new album. This time the message is: “Without shipping no Orange” (the royal colour) and again the Scheepvaart museum teaches us how important the maritime history has been for the Netherlands. Usually we ignore banners or – when they obscure a site – search for the ‘delete’ button straight away, but not with this banner that entertained us for almost 10 minutes. It could be a lesson for those advertisers who think that buying banner positions is the same as making an impact – it is not.

This animated trailer promotes a beautifully made interactive new website, created by SuperHeroes, tells the story of Yakult. If we wouldn’t be skeptical about probiotics, we’d start loving Yakult right away – according to evidenced based science probiotics do more or less the same as normal yoghurt, which is probably why the word Yakult is derived from the Japanese word for yoghurt. Never mind though, it’s always good to see an agency being able to show off its skills. What makes things especially crafty is the fact that SuperHeroes used a scaled model that represents the Kyoto area to create the film – here’s the making of. The only pity about that – and we really hate to mention it – is the fact that Amsterdam Worldwide did more or less the same for Onitsuka Tiger (also a Japanese brand) in 2009. Fortunately the consumer couldn’t care less. SuperHeroes worked together with One Big Agency, CCCP, C-41 (Live action production), Magic Bullet (Interactive production), and Lullatone (for the happy sound).

We don’t like brands telling complicated stories – complicated is usually born out of a bad idea. The exception to the rule, though, is complicated as a concept in itself. When for example complicated is an excuse to create something that should go viral, it might just work. Take this nicely executed online film “No Facebook without the Dutch” for the Dutch Maritime (‘Scheepvaart’) Museum that links the rich Dutch maritime history with Mark Zuckerberg to announce the new museum’s Facebook fan page. Clearly not watertight, but easily enjoyable enough to forward online. Created by One Big Agency, CCCP, and Super Heroes.

Finally, Amsterdam wins its first golden Lion – in cyber. Nike’s ‘Write the future’, created by Wieden+Kennedy has already won a truckload of prizes, but winning in Cannes, is the cherry on top, of course. The campaign won in cyber, because it used social media very effectively; the film received 40 million online views. And since the film is so impressive, we expect it to win (at least) a golden film Lion this Saturday. Two virals were rewarded with a bronze Cyber lion. The first one: TomTom’s special edition StarWars voices – created by Pool Worldwide and directed by Willem Gerritsen (CZAR). This film will surely also win another Lion at the end of the week. The other viral, was Liquid Mountaineering for Hi-Tec by CCCP – a brilliantly executed mockumentary. Interesting detail; this second viral was also directed by Willem Gerritsen. In design two silver Lions were won. One by Amsterdam agency BrandBase for its pallet project, a unique working environment, built entirely from pallets by Most Design. The other silver design Lion went to Heineken’s STR bottle, a bottle that lights up in the dark thanks to its UV-sensitive ink – created by dBOD and Iris.

The Liquid Mountaineering viral for Hi-Tec, conceived by CCCP is already legendary. So what’s next? The Hi-Tec “Infinity Run“, a game also conceived by CCCP and built by Soepel. The game lets you run on water and also has an in-game shop, which is apparently fairly unique. Once you enter the game, you only need to choose your character, your Hi-Tec gear, and the city in which you would like to hit the water – of course we chose Amsterdam. We were crap at it, but that’s actually a good thing, since each week a very ugly pair of trainers is being given away to the highest score.

Last Thursday the Spinawards were divided between the top digital agencies in the Netherlands and Belgium. In ‘Online’ there were two golden awards; ‘Philips wake up the town’ (A fantastic concept by Tribal DDB) and ‘Hi-Tec Liquid Mountaineering’ (a very strongly executed viral by CCCP – judged as the best mockumentary of 2010 by Adage). There was one silver in Online; KLM Surprise (see embedded case film) – this also won gold in ‘Cross Media’. KLM Surprise winning two Spins was indeed a surprise. The concept is quite thin; passengers at Schiphol airport using Twitter or Foursquare were given a special gifts that matched their travel plans – seeding the shaky film footage online didn’t make it a stronger concept. In our opinion the only fair award for this surprise would have been in ‘Social Media’. Speaking of social media, in this category Boondoggle won silver for ‘Take Mokum’ – “a great way to activate your audience” is how we judged it back in September. The three awards for Boondoggle made it digital agency of the year – regardless the surprise a fair decision. KLM – also winning a second golden award for iFly Magazine in ‘Content’, created by Born 05 – became digital advertiser of the year. Considering the amount of innovative stuff KLM has created in the past year, their award was entirely deserved. Muse & Ice Mobile won gold in ‘Innovation’ for their app ‘Appie’. Indeed one of the more innovative concepts we’ve seen last year. Another gold went to the addictive game ‘Noisia Infection’, created by Flavour – “playful branding”. A very strong Spinaward (gold) went to the Blurshirt for Beachmasters (party holidays for teenagers), in the category ‘Young Talent’. It was  created by Nik Sluijs and Nanette Visser of de Willem de Kooning Acadamy. The shirt has a shotcode underneath the collar so that, when embarrassing pictures are uploaded on social media, the face above the collar automatically gets blurred. Now there’s a concept that taps into a serious target group need.

We were hoping to get some quiet days around Christmas, but our inbox is overflowing with X-mas cards. Fortunately though, most of them are made to show off creativity and skill. This one for example, created by production agency 328 Stories – formerly known as Christel Palace. It was conceived by Jan-Willem de Man and Frenkel Schönfeld (CCCP) and directed by 328’s Andreas Pasvantis. What we like about it the most is that the scary start makes the happy end taste as sweet as caramel-chocolate Christmas pudding. And, yes, you see the clue coming from miles ahead, but that doesn’t matter, cause that’s what Christmas is all about.

Just when we thought that virals were a bit passé, we came across this fellow, made by CCCP. It’s a mockumentary about ‘liquid mountaineering’. The video tries to sell waterproof trainers from Hi-Tec, a British sports brand. It has been viewed 4.5 million times in one month. The Sunday Times – for what it’s worth – called it one of the best hoaxes of this year. We’re not sure if we concur, cause you can hardly call it a hoax – unless you believe that Jesus could do the same. But we like it. The fact that you know it’s fake doesn’t really matter, since the execution is subtle enough to be able to enjoy it – it was directed by Gerrit Willemsen from CZAR. And unlike many other virals, it even conveys a message; If you go Jesus hiking, Hi-Tec is your brand.

Smart idea by CCCP. They’re building the world’s largest website for Natuurmonumenten (‘nature monuments’). It is called ‘make a meter’. Natuurmonumenten is an organization that privately buys pieces of land in the Netherlands to let nature (more or less) take its own course and prevent it from being built on. A very sympathetic organization. As a ‘consumer’ you can claim an online square meter (scale 1 on 1) of land on the site, by choosing one out of six different kinds of (typical Dutch) nature and leaving your personal details. CCCP calls it ‘user generated nature’. Since the sounds are as tranquil as the displayed nature, it is quite nice to wonder around and snap out your hectic life for a minute.