Fltr: Carl Johnson, Hazelle Klønhammer, Marika Zijp, Colin Lamberton, and Seyoan Vela.

New York and London based agency Anomaly – in 2010 ‘Agency of the Year’ according to Adweek – has just opened a third office in Amsterdam. Carl Johnson, who also spoke at the Tomorrow Awards last week, says the agency opens a second European office so close to London, because “London is not as instinctively continental as Amsterdam.” Hazelle Klønhammer will be managing the Amsterdam office. Before, Klønhammer was group account director at W+K Amsterdam and most recently MD at Grey. At Grey she worked with ECD’s Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela. Lamberton and Vela recently left to Team Volvo and JWT Dubai, respectively. They are followed up by Marika Zijp, who previously worked at MRM and McCann Amsterdam, among other agencies. Zijp will work at Grey along strategy director Paul Sijtsma, digital director Peter Hoekstra, and managing director Patrick Joore.

Grey bought – or “integrated”, if you will – digital agency Blutarsky. Blutarsky is following its former MD Patrick Joore in the slipstream. Joore, previously MD at Blutarsky, started at Grey last month. Blutarsky’s eight-strong team will move to the Grey Amsterdam office. According to Wikipedia ‘Blutarsky’ is slang for a 0.0 quarterback rating in American Football, the lowest possible rating – it was derived from the movie National Lampoon’s Animal House in which John ‘Bluto’ Blutarsky (picture), played by John Belushi, scored 0.0. We’re not sure why the agency was inspired by this character, but hope the two agencies will ‘kick some ass’ – to stay in the verbal realm of football.

As from March Patrick Joore will be the new MD of Grey, replacing Hazelle Klønhammer. Joore comes from Blutarsky. Before that he was head of account at Lowe and CSD at JWT Amsterdam. Klønhammer joined Grey in 2009 – after having worked for W+K, TBWA, 180. Together with ECD’s Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela her task was to turn Grey Amsterdam in an international creative hotspot. Our question then was: “Here Today. Where Tomorrow?” Well, here are we now: it seems that by hiring Joore Grey decided that the international focus has no priority anymore. Lamberton and Vela will stay on board – though the question is, for how long.

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam/London won gold at the London International Awards (LIA) for Nike’s ‘Write The Future‘ – in the category film. The campaign also won three bronze awards in the categories print, poster, and music adapation – the latter went to Massive Music for updating Focus’ hit ‘Hocus Pocus’. Grey Amsterdam won silver in print for Pink Ribbon Magazine’s happy breasts. 180 Amsterdam won bronze for ‘The Match Tracker’ for Adidas.

Source: Adformatie

This commercial advertises the Pink Ribbon Magazine that is published once a year to raise awareness and, more importantly, money for the battle against breast cancer – all profits made by publisher Sanoma are donated to the cancer charity. The commercial, created by Grey Amsterdam, clearly tries to create a sense of community among women and it does so in quite an arty way – partly due to director Johan Kramer and musician Junkie XL, who composed the music. Last year’s campaign, that won quite a few awards, was more friendly – a poem about two breast living happily together their entire live – and maybe therefore a little easier to digest. It raised € 1 million, which is quite decent for Dutch standards. Let’s see if this commercial can lift the bar a little higher.

A new Amsterdam city guide, called Zero20 – the Amsterdam area code – was launched this week. The online platform  helps tourists and expats to spend their spare time by showing what’s on in Music, Film, Art, Food and Shop(ping). The navigation works fairly intuitive through a calendar that primarily shows big pictures of the events. It was conceived by Italian-born Stefano Xotta and created by Grey Amsterdam. Though there are already quite a few similar initiatives, this one might be more successful due to its catchy look.

Beautiful Esmee and Raoul keep the Netherlands clean. They look very slick, except for the subtle trash accessory. Pay-off: “With the same ease” [you throw it in a bin]. It took us a while to figure out what this poster is trying to tell us. First we thought that these handsome people couldn’t find a bin to throw their trash in. Why otherwise would you ruin your pristine look. But then we read the pay-off saying that it is very easy to throw your trash in the bin. So after a lengthy discussion, we decided that these people actually picked up (instead of ‘threw away’) a new trend; the smooth look with rough edge. Not really for us. But hey, we’re not that well shaped, nor dressed. Created by Grey Amsterdam.

Holland won 18 Epica awards – four times gold – last week in Belgrade. It ended fifth after Germany, France, Sweden and the UK.  Our favourite gold went to Kit Kat Jesus. Kit Kat pretended as if Jesus had been spotted in a Kit Kat bar and this news spread as quick as only internet can spread news. We didn’t just like it because we are atheists (or at least agnostic), but more so because we love simple (but great) ideas that generate tons of free publicity. We found it a little odd that this was in the category ‘technique’, but apparently their was no better category available – the category ‘big idea’ would have been more to the point. It was done by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. Heineken’s Walk-in fridge also won gold in ‘film’ – it was submitted by TBWA’s production company CZAR. 180 won gold for Adidas with ‘Every team needs the spark’. And Grey won gold in print for Pink Ribbon.

Source: Adformatie

‘Your vagina is vulnerable’ is a good way to grab everyone’s attention, right from the start! The commercial continues: “In your life you wear 4790 strings, use 69723 meters of toilet paper and 130 liters of shaving foam, you produce 1700 liters of sweat, have sex 3760 times and your period 2920 times”. En it ends with “Lactacyd helps to protect the natural balance of your vagina”. Although it only makes sense to use the ‘v’ word when you’re advertising ‘feminine intimate care’ products, there are not many FMCG manufacturers that would dare to do so. So our compliments go to GSK for being direct and speaking a language we understand. And even more compliments go to Grey Amsterdam for the stylish execution – it even makes the Lactacyd bottle look old fashioned. Interesting detail: beginning of this year Grey made a similar ad for Lactacyd with the ‘subtle’ difference that the commercial was filmed from within the vagina! GSK had it recalled, because some consumers complained about it at the Advertising Standards Authority.

Though a lot of advertising is based on the principle that sex sells, ads never explicitly show frontal nudity. If you’re selling breast cancer awareness, however, it only makes sense to show the ‘product’ at hand. Grey Amsterdam created this ad with lots of stopping power for Pink Ribbon Magazine, a charity glossy from which all profits are directly donated to the Pink Ribbon Foundation. The work was shot by Rankin and executed with differently aged models – we chose the middle aged model. A very sweet poem about the breasts as a pair of friends, with names, is written across the body (the print ad we’re showing is a translation). And there is also a TV commercial (in Dutch), directed by Chris Palmer (Gorgeous). Interesting detail: a call was put out throughout the Netherlands, asking for volunteers of any age. More than 1000 women, aged 16-72, volunteered to be part of the shoot and show their breasts. Apparently in today’s world it is also charity that sells.