This BMW ad adverises the new 8-Speed automatic transmission – “comes standard with the 1, 3, and 5 series”. It looks amazingly sexy and feels instantly right. What a great insight; BMW brings out the little boy in us. No further explanation required. And that makes it easily Cannes material. By the way, in this ad you see its full size; the Matchbox version times 43! Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.
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!
This film, asking people to wish for a brighter future of Japan, is launched a little late of course. The disaster that hit Japan on March 11th, has already disappeared from the news radar – JWT will probably argue that that’s exactly the reason for launching it 100 days after the Tsunami. Anyway, it’s a good cause and done by JWT International – based in Amsterdam, among other cities – and production agency Bang from London; reason enough to share it with you. Colin Firth lent his voice to this project and the Pixies their (existing) music. There’s also a website (bit clunky) built by De Franse Kamer that lists all the charities and institutions that take donations – a huge list.
A nice concept to indirectly ask the visitors of a museum what the definition of art is – made us think of Banksy’s work smuggled into famous museums around the world. But we immediately thought, why on earth would KitKat want to expose its ‘art’ in a Museum in Twenthe – of all places? The only comparison between KitKat and abstract American art is…um… nothing. But of course it’s not about the people in the museum. They are just part of the candid camera show. The target lives on the internet and is so busy with checking their Facebook a zillion times a day, hoping to be entertained by random content shared by their friends and wannabee friends, that every now and then they might need a little break. Or even better, for most people the break is checking their Facebook. Tada; we have a match! Have a break, Have a KitKat – or ‘Have a Breakism’ as the ad was dubbed. We hope it’ll go as viral as KitKat Jesus – though we’re afraid our hope might not prove strong enough. Created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT.
Amsterdam won two Grand Prix in Film and Design at Eurobest in Hamburg, last Wednesday. Wieden+Kennedy was awarded the prestigious award for its epic Nike ‘Write the future’ commercial – alledgedly the most expensive commercial ever made. And for the same film it won bronze in Film Craft. Amsterdam Worldwide earned a Grand Prix in the category Design for the Onitsuka Tiger ‘Tansu sneaker’. Other than that Amsterdam did not do extremely well, we have to admit. In interactive Pool Worldwide won silver for its brilliant StarWars branded TomTom viral. In the same category 180 Amsterdam won bronze for Adidas’ Match Tracker and NRG3 won bronze for an interactive banner for the EA game Need for Speed Shift. N=5 was awarded silver in the category Media with a ‘Live interactive billboad’ – an aggression awareness campaign. BSUR got bronze in Film for MINI’s Flow, Publics won bronze in Print for KIKA, and JWT bronze in Promo and Outdoor with the MINI Christmas box.
Amsterdam won 5 silver Lions in Cannes yesterday. Big winner was Kong with 3 silver Lions for Stanislav – 2 for Promo & Activation and 1 for PR. Not really a surprise, since the online viral, that used people’s photo’s from social network site Hyves in an online film, already won several national and international prizes – though Cannes, of course, is the Wimbledon of the Grand Prix shows. Salient detail, according to Adformatie, Zwier Veldhoen, ECD at THEY and part of the P&O jury, said the case probably would have won gold, if submitted better. DDB also won silver in Promo & Activation for Centraal Beheer (CB), the insurer, known for its pay-off ‘Just call us’, created 3D outdoor spectaculars with typical accidents. The consumer could photograph itself in the accident and upload it on a dedicated website. The best ones – judged by the online audience – were used in a (2D) outdoor campaign. The fifth silver Lion went to MINI’s Christmas Box (see picture), by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. The message; only €99 per month. That is what we call, a big idea.
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!
Wim Ubachs and Ralph Wisbrun (chairmen of the VEA, the Association of Ad Agencies) met each other in court last Friday, we learned from Adformatie. The two founded UbachsWisbrun, one of the most successful independent Dutch ad agencies in history. The agency merged with JWT in 2007 to become UbachsWisbrun/JWT. JWT (formerly known as PPGH/JWT) was huge in the 80’s and 90’s, but lost its mojo in the 00’s. It thus needed the merger to buy fresh, creative blood and regain its dominant position – Amsterdam was regarded as a flagship city within the international JWT network. Though recently the agency finally found its way up again, by winning several big accounts, the first few years of the merger were unsuccessful. The agency shrank from 188 employees to 50. For Wim Ubachs it was tempting to leave the agency to pursue a career in music at that point. Since officially he was still partner, he only needed to make a proper settlement. Instead of a friendly deal he got fired on the spot. The official reason: he was not putting enough energy in the agency anymore and was too much preoccupied with his own sidelines. That is very said news. But maybe a good moment to change UbachsWisbrun/JWT into JWT Amsterdam.
Update (June 10th): The judge ruled that JWT didn’t have enough reason to fire Ubachs. Both parties now have to come to an agreement on the payment of Ubachs’ managment fee and the call-option on Ubachs’ shares (20%). If not, they have to go to court again.
Last week the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) awards, or simply the ‘Lamps,’ were divided between the most creative Dutch agencies. DDB was the big winner, with 3 silver Lamps – and 29 nominations, out of 204 nominations. DDB’s best silver Lamp went to its commercial made for Ziggo. DDB’s digital sister, Tribal won two times gold with Carousel for Philips, which is no surprise after having won already so many international prizes. Indie won 2 golden and one silver Lamp; all for Domino’s pizza. Indie’s golden awards both went to ‘Delivery Point‘ (outdoor and activation), silver went to ‘Builders‘. Kong won 2 golden lamps for Stanislav (interaction and activation). Out of the 7 golden and 15 silver Lamps, our most favourite Lamp (gold) went to Kit Kat Jesus by Ubachs Wisbrun/JWT. It’s brilliant in its simplicity and shows you don’t need an incredibly big budget to come up with a great idea.
These three different styled websites all try to sell the same ‘lots-of-cash-in-no-time’ job. At the employment agencies ‘BigBigBucks‘, ‘SnellePegels‘ and ‘Vlugge Flappen’, students are persuaded to subscribe for the most easy job in the world; it makes on average € 250 for half an hour work! They only need a little work experience (a simple student job is enough), they can work at home, and start today! When you click through the website, you enter the website of the Belastingdienst (National Tax Collector). Though the Netherlands is one of the countries with the highest taxes in the world, students often receive money back. The only thing they need to do is fill out an online tax return form. The Belastingdienst must have thought; once they’re in the system… The campaign, hyped through banners and radio, was created by UbachsWisbrun/JWT. Of course it’s not the most difficult thing to sell a product that virtually gives away money, but if you consider the target, the look and feel and tone of voice are spot on.
