Quite an integrated campaign this new work ‘See what light can do’ by Tribal DDB and DDB Amsterdam for Philips. A ‘lightover’ team – based on the successful home make-overs – visits 29 homes in 8 countries around the world to show how the right lighting can transform your house into a much more atmospheric environment – the insight behind it; light changes your mood. The results are presented online. This content is not exactly our kind of content, since we’re not big fans of home make-over TV, but we can easily imagine it will persuade enough consumers to start thinking about LED and – more importantly – see Philips as the thought leader in this field. Part of the platform is a ‘3D Home Lighting Designer’ app that helps consumers to choose between different lighting options and advises them on which (Philips) products to buy. There’s also a Facebook page where you get in contact with the experts on ‘light design’. To generate mass attention Tribal/DDB also created a (bit of a corporate) commercial in which Philips presents its platform as the future of lighting. Together with the recent Wake-up Light campaigns, Philips is firmly reclaiming its strong heritage of being the lighting expert.

In advertising beer brands are the most desirable accounts to obtain. So we can imagine Alfred has been popping some… um… Grolsch ‘beugeltjes’ when they found out they won one of the more sophisticated beer brands in the Netherlands. Grolsch, the past 7 years handled by DDB, is a beer for someone who prefers quality and good taste, rather than getting brainlessly drunk with friends. At least, that’s what it was always about. The best pay-off to illustrate that was: “One day you’ll stop drinking beer and start drinking Grolsch” (JWT). Sadly in the past years we haven’t seen any advertising with much aspiration anymore. The last one we can remember was ‘Everlasting love‘ – with the pay-off “Beer, the Grolsch way” (DDB). A few years ago Grolsch started to claim creativity in combination with music stars. Though a good idea in itself, the advertising was probably too complicated and therefore not picked up by the consumer. We can imagine that this made Grolsch go more mainstream, moving towards the other beer brands and away from its once unique positioning. The climax was the last commercial – shown above – celebrating the ‘pop’ sound, It felt so average that the pay-off “Beer that grabs you” sounded completely incredible. So, time for a change. We hope Grolsch allows Alfred to give the iconic brand back its exclusiveness. We wish them luck!

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 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.

With 13 shortlist nominations in film and 7 in film craft, Amsterdam should be able to win some more Lions tomorrow night. Of all these nominations 4 go to Nike ‘Write the future’, 3 to Heineken’s ‘The Entrance’, and one to Heineken’s ‘The Date’, which adds up to an impressive 8 film (craft) nominations for Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. Write the future also has a nomination for Titanium (integrated), though this case was sent in by Nike. BSUR also does well with 4 nominations for MINI Countryman’s ‘Flow’. Philips’ ‘Wake up the town’ by Tribal DDB has 3 film nominations. Other film nominations go to Volkswagen (DDB), Centraal Beheer (DDB) – we personally liked this more subtle Centraal Beheer film a lot better – De Bijenkorf (Selmore), IDFA X-ray eyes (TBWA) – a very smart film – and the beautiful Sire film ‘Marked for life‘ (180). We’ll keep our fingers crossed!

Quite insightful and originally translated into a commercial this ad for cable provider Ziggo – created by DDB and directed by Diederik van Rooijen. “O.k., o.k., I’ll fix it” is what the man of the house says annoyed, after the entire family has subtly conveyed what a nuisance slow internet is. The ‘joking’ chairs at end are also a nuisance (“Ted, we already have fast internet”), but you know how it goes; in the briefing under ‘mandatories’ it said: “use the chairs”. Cause once you’ve chosen an advertising property, you need to keep using it for continuous brand identification. Well, if we may give Ziggo (and DDB) an advice; ditch the stupid chairs – one joke per commercial is enough. But, all in all, not a bad commercial for a cable provider.

“Not every granny is reliable. Fortunately every Golf is”. This feel good commercial, built around classic advertising humour, doesn’t require much elaboration. The message is clear. And except for the music – that makes the Golf sound a little too cheap – and the overacting dad, we like it. Even if you don’t, the ad is as reliable as a Volkswagen Golf. It was created by DDB and directed by Bart Timmer (CZAR). The commercial was launched through YouTube and Dumpert (a Dutch site with funny, shocking, etc. video’s) and according to DDB generated 1 million views within one week. Who needs television?

This commercial for Autodrop (Liquorice in the shape of cars) is quite weird. Skittles-weird, but in an uncomfortable way. Is it the audience laughing in the background or the unattractive office folk? We don’t really know. In any case, we do believe this concept has mileage and might – that is, might – grow on you. Here’s another one. Created by DDB – that just won the account and introduced this new ad property – and directed by Jeroen Annokkeé (CZAR).

StrawberryFrog NY/Amsterdam won the pitch for the Downtown Dubai account, owned by Developer Emaar Properties (PJSC) – it was a three-way pitch with Saatchi & Saatchi London and Y&R London. Strawberry Frog Amsterdam can be happy with this second global account win since re-opening offices in Amsterdam. In july the agency won Emirates, another company from the Middle East, and one of the reasons they were invited to the pitch. Downtown Dubai has a total project (not just advertising) budget of $20 billion (!). Part of Downtown Dubai are the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, and the Dubai Mall, the biggest shopping/entertainment mall in the world. 180 Amsterdam also won. Not an account though, but a new creative director; Galen Graham. Before he worked at DDB Chicago, where he worked on clients like Bud, McDonald’s and Dell. His most famous piece of ad is Bud Light’s ‘Swear Jar‘, a huge hit on YouTube, and the first non-broadcast ad winning an Emmy Award. Before DDB Chicago Graham worked as an art director at Cramer-Krasselt. He started his career in 1998 at Fallon. Sean Thompson, who was ECD at 180 Amsterdam since January 2006, became global creative director for the brand new Team Volvo. They probably found him through all the awards he won for Honda – especially with ‘Grrr’ – at W+K London.

Source: Adformatie

Good news for Amsterdam. Team Volvo brings together “the best people” from EuroRSCG 4D (Amsterdam), Arnold (Boston) and SapientNitro (Shanghai) to work dedicated on Volvo. All agencies have been working for Volvo before. The unit will start in September with 30 people. Jorian Murray (ex Dye Holloway Murray and ex DDB London) will be leading the pack. The joint agency is going to direct the three most important markets in the world; North America, China and Europe. Murray built up a reputation for building car brands when working for Volkswagen from 1992 till 2007 – allegedly it doubled VW’s market share. Murray said Amsterdam was the city of choice, because it is the creative capital of Europe. Sven de Smet, since June director of global marcom at Volvo, added that Amsterdam attracts international creative talent, has an Anglosaxon focus and is well connected (thanks to Schiphol airport, AAB). We wish Team Volvo the best of luck!

Source: Adformatie

Already for quite a few years Grolsch claims to be the beer brand for original individuals – which makes it beloved in the advertising scene, for that matter. Quite a unique positioning, since most of the other big beer brands make their advertising for Joe Sixpack – or at least they create very similar advertising. So Grolsch easily stands out as the sophisticated brand for unique individuals. That’s what made the brand decide to come up with an unorthodox piece of advertising; the sponsored magazine, titled Eigen.Zinnig. This translates more or less into original, authentic. It was created by G+J Publishers and freelance editor-in-chief Rob van Bracht. With its 148 pages and thorough articles, the magazine luxuriously feels more like a glossy (costs: €5) than a sponsored magazine. Together with the magazine Grolsch launched a commercial – created by DDB Amsterdam – that toasts “op” originality in different ways. Though the content and pay-off (“As authentic as Grolsch”) match well with the magazine, we were really surprised that the magazine title Eigen.Zinnig is never being used. In other words, there’s no obvious link between the commercial and the magazine. And that lack of synergy, automatically means a waste of money. In any case, it’s very refreshing – or eigenzinnig, if you will – to see a different kind of beer ad for once.