Last June Comedy Central released a new series of commercials in which clowns harass Comedy Central’s headquarters for its “anti-clown policy”. It goes without saying that the attack by the “children’s party entertainment veteran” clearly spoofs the breaking news item on the Iraqi journalist throwing his shoes at George W in 2008 – this time a size 68 is being dodged. The commercial, created by Nothing and directed by Jonathan David, very smartly shows what kind of humour Comedy Central is made of – the format is the message, so to say; funny it is.

What we like best about this commercial for Comedy Central is the copy. Starting your commercial with “Comedy is serious business” does grab people’s attention. And ending the commercial with “Bunch of clowns” shows you know how to top things of in a subtle but catchy way. The metaphor of clowns attacking the Comedy Central head quarters is maybe a little too obvious and (in our opinion) not funny, but on the other hand; it does communicate a clear message: “Only seriously good comedy”. So all in all, Nothing and director Jonathan David did a good job in selling Comedy Central. Here’s another commercial that did make us smile.

There’s not many ad agencies that open a second office in the same city – especially when you live in the village called Amsterdam. Agency Nothing did though. And not just at some random location, but at IKEA. When we asked Nothing, is this a PR stunt or is there something else you’d like to share with us, Michael Jansen, partner at Nothing, answered; “Our office at Spaces [their current office building, AAB] is not very spacious. Maybe it’s good PR, but it’s especially the great m2 price, compared to the €250 per m2 we pay at the Herengracht, that lured us to this new location“. O.k., we get your point, a sense of humour it is.

Dutch Fashion brand G-Star appointed Nothing Amsterdam to run its international account. Joris Aperghis, CMO G-Star said Nothing understands the brand and the challenges that lay ahead to help it with its international growth.  G-Star was founded in 1989 (originally called Gap Star). Today the brand has over a 1000 employees and 250 shops in 69 countries. This is G-Star’s first agency, which is quite surprising given the fact that already for quite a while the brand has launched international ad campaigns – most recently with photographer Anton Corbijn.

Amsterdam Worldwide hired ‘Director of Strategy’ Uli Kurtenbach to support the agency with (among other brands) the brand new tequila account Olmeca and to help it develop new products and services – which sounds interesting and a bit vague at the same time. Kurtenbach lives in Amsterdam already for 14 years. He worked at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam (together with his new agency’s ECD, Richard Gorodecky), 2008 (today SSSS & Orchestra), and most recently at Naked, where he was managing partner.

This very pretty girl doesn’t seem as smart as the phone she is hypnotized by. But fortunately you only need MTV Mobile to get her into bed. We couldn’t decide whether this commercial is weird or attractive. So it’s probably both. And that makes it typically MTV. The only thing that annoys us a little is the over the top Dutch-American voice-over – though this might proof that we’re not the target group the commercial is aiming for. Created by Nothing and directed by Elwin Bles.

It is the digital special effects and – more specifically – the person behind them, that makes this commercial worth watching. 24 year old Tim Smit is (with respect) your typical ‘computer nerd’ who has found his way up the steep bit of the long tail, through his attic production ‘What’s in the box?’ that he posted on YouTube last March. After an item on the Dutch (NOS) news, an appearance in a popular talk show, a call from Hollywood (“who is this guy?!”) and 1.7 million hits on YouTube, Tim was approached by Amsterdam agency Nothing to direct this commercial – with the pay-off “This is a job for Werkspot.nl”. Werkspot is the eBay for small jobs around the house, like painting, plumbing and gardening. So in the unlikely event your house is ever attacked by aliens…who you gonna ‘call’?!

Beginning of this year Nothing introduced ‘Nothing ventured’, a brand offering full business concepts – instead of just advertising. The entrepreneurial brand’s first fruits are the introduction of a new sport; FootGolf. As the name suggests, it combines football (= soccer) and golf. Our first reaction: jezus, why haven’t we thought of that before?! It should have quick growing potential, since (retired) football players love the game of golf. In fact, it was Willem Korsten (partner Bas Korsten’s brother), an ex professional football player, who is the driving force behind this new game. Things have been taken seriously, since there’s already an International FootGolf Association – based in Geneva. Requests from other countries to adopt the game have already been submitted. And in September the first Dutch Open will be held, broadcasted by RTL7. Looks like FootGolf will become more successful than DiscGolf – a sport Lipton tried to introduce in the Netherlands in 2006.

Our last Shoptalk reported about a brand new Amsterdam agency: Nothing. In last week’s Adformatie the founders, Bas Korsten and Michael Jansen, announced yet another label; Nothing Ventured. With this parallel proposition they want to introduce new products and services for existing and potential clients, to prove that the essence of their added value is creative power. The idea is not entirely new; agency John Doe already introduced ‘From The Supermarket’ products (“Buy it and it’s yours”) and Rotterdam agency ARA Cardinal Condoms (“The safest way to heaven”). However, Jansen assured us that it’s not about quasi humoristic one-offs, but about serious, relevant product propositions. We like the idea very much and suspect it could even be a future trend in the world of advertising. After all, online is dramatically changing the way many companies do business; the medium is their product, which makes it harder to seperate business development from advertising.

Adformatie reported last week that according to research conducted by Synovate 63% of the Dutch advertisers believe that the added value of advertising agencies will diminish. The reason is that more and more advertisers obtain agency expertise in-house. The same research clearly shows that agencies are pessimistic about the future – no news really, when you look at the worldwide stock markets. For TBWA it is business as usual though; this week it announced a new online agency: \Neboko Flow. Floris Hülsmann and Stephan Gonnissen (previously working as a team at JWT) will form the creative management. Another new agency, Nothing, was recently founded by Bas Korsten and Michael Jansen (ex Selmore, ex DDB). Although the agency’s name is not very promising, the team itself is ranked within the top 10 most (Dutch, not international) awarded creatives. At the same time Lowe Amsterdam is struggling; MD Ed Stibbe is leaving the agency. He is the fourth and last member of the management to leave the agency within one year. It wouldn’t surprise us if the agency merges with Draftfcb (also part of Interpublic) in the near future.