For some brands gathering Likes on Facebook is simply a way to be able to spam your wall, we once said. For other brands it’s a smart way of creating customer intimacy. The latter actually try to have a conversation and – if they are smart – give something back every now and then. For example, last February we saw Heineken (physically) liking its customers back (in a bar). Dutch booming fashion brand Scotch & Soda is doing the same now, but digitally. That is, physically digitally; on a digital window display in its flagship store in Amsterdam the Facebook fans’ names will be animated (as from today) in a handwritten style across black and white Scotch & Soda images selected from the current season’s collections.  A sympathetic gesture of S&S – and its agency Perfect Fools. Though the image displayed here does make you wonder whether Willemijn Valk will be happy to be portrayed as a man. If we may shoot from the hip; why not ask Willemijn (and some other fans) to wear the new collection, do a photo shoot, and then display her in your store. We know, way more expensive, but then you will make her really happy and on top of that even create something that her friends will most definitely like on Facebook.

This Citroën DS5 Twitter Race is the first race ever (as far as we know) via Twitter. The concept is quite simple; you can navigate the DS5 towards yourself via Twitter and win it. We’ve seen a similar concept by Volkswagen and Achtung!, but using Twitter as the navigation tool is new. On the dedicated Facebook page Citroën constantly gives the Twitter crowd a choice (e.g. left or right) and the ‘wisdom’ of crowds decides where it should go. A count down clock decides when the race is over and (this feels as a bit of an anti-climax) when the time is up, the car pulls over and a sign is held up with a message. The first person to tweet this message wins the DS5. At the time of publishing this post there’s about half an hour to go and the car is near Bussum – if you live there start looking out for it. We always wonder what kind of people have time to be engaged in a game that consumes most of your day, but since it’s trending on Twitter (NL) it does get the needed exposure. It was created by EuroRSCG and Perfect Fools.

Since the Coolpix AW100 is shock, water and freeze proof and has a camouflage look, having someone in a bear suit doing outdoor sports and thus going ‘Into the wild’ is maybe a little obvious. But we have to admit that this film clearly conveys the camera’s USP and makes it look extremely cool – to the extend that we all felt like checking out the camera’s specs. The sportsmen that play the ‘Cameo Bear’ are French freestyle skier Julien Lange, champion Portuguese BMXer Daniel Americo, and Lisbon-based surfer Miguel Fortes. The film was created by Perfect Fools Stockholm-Amsterdam.

We hope that by posting this case film Perfect Fools‘ PR machine will stop sending us e-mails. And though we’re always a bit wary about posting case films – they often have nothing to do with reality – this shoe-machine does look pretty cool. It is made with craftsmanship and love for creativity. So maybe we should say that we’ve posted it, despite Perfect Fools’ persistent PR pressure. Anyway, it is called ‘The Canvas Experiment’ and made for Converse. Apparently the classic Chuck Taylor basketball shoe is the perfect shoe for being experimental (read: hip) and/or playing the drums. More info can be found in our previous post on the teaser that was released in May.

Indeed, quite a mouthful: ‘Chuck Taylor All Star’ – a long name for one of the most popular sneakers in the world. The Converse video, created by Perfect Fools Stockholm/Amsterdam, feels a bit l’art pour l’art. Apparently though the canvas, reacting on the drummer, allows the consumer to physically render any picture, image or photograph on the canvas and even run animations, play video games, and watch films. We suspect that the huge shoe-pixels make things a little hard to watch, but from a tech point of view it’s an impressive installation that weighs 400 kg, comprises 500 sneakers and 480 motors. The commercial is to tease us for more to come. We’ll be looking forward to it.

Stockholm/New York/Amsterdam based agency Perfect Fools created a whole new, unexpected and daring campaign for McDonald’s in the Nordic countries. The most striking thing about it, is that the campaign doesn’t revolve around bad burgers and salty fries, but around 60 minutes of “satire”. The story, written and directed by Jens Jonsson, was created together with TV production company Happy Fiction and is told over seven episodes on the  website Dreaming In Mono. It is also broadcasted on four Nordic TV networks. The story is about a rivalry between two ski legends of which one wants to break a ski record on a monoski – this topic proofs how McDonald’s always thinks global but acts local. The first episode definitely made us curious to see more. Since the only link to McDonald’s is that the fictional characters buy their food there, we can easily imagine that this campaign will change the McDonald’s brand into a more exclusive brand – or at least less mainstream. And if McDonald’s would simultaneously upgrade its food, we can even imagine ourselves eating there! All in all, a beautiful example of branded content.

G2 Amsterdam, together with Perfect Fools, created a website (this is an English demo, in Dutch the site is called ‘fragrances from nature’) for Ambi Pur that tickles almost all your senses – unfortunately not smell. The site, beautifully made with a combination of photography and animation, shows where Ambi Pur’s new ‘National Geographic’ fragrances ‘Japan Tatami’ and ‘Nevada Desert Flower’, come from. The joint promotion together with National Geograhpic (NG) feels a little stretched. Certainly NG is the specialist in showing remote and wonderful sceneries, but what has that got to do with smell? On the other hand, NG is a very strong brand that will certainly give credibility to the sceneries shown. Unconsciously the consumer might very well believe that Ambi Pur’s fragrances are therefore more exclusive, natural and special than those of the competition. Let’s see if both brands can think big and produce the first mass market scent DVD: ‘a fragrant journey into nature’ – or something along those lines.

This website for Under Armour reminds us of the K-Swiss website we talked about last April; online video’s of sportsmen talking about their love for the game. No coincidence here, since both websites were built by Perfect Fools. The difference between K-Swiss and Under Armour, though, is that Under Armour is apparently only worn by ‘pro-amateurs’ (a beautiful contradictory euphemism). At least, that’s what this campaign suggests. A tricky strategy for introducing an unknown brand in a strong competitive market where the consumer is spammed with famous football stars showing off their sexy Nike and Adidas football shoes. Another question mark that popped up in our minds, is the fact that (according to the press release) the US brand is specialized in “moisture-wicking synthetic fabrications”. So even if you know the brand a little bit, football shoes don’t seem to be a natural product extension. But we probably just don’t know enough about the brand to properly judge it. In any case, the video’s are quite well made and inviting enough to linger around on the website for a while.

Beautiful website made by Perfect Fools for K-Swiss. Maybe it gives us a peek into the near future of navigation. It’s a bit of a (rudimentary) crossover between 2D and 3D navigation. And together with the video content, it’s typically a site that makes you want to hang around for a while. One thing that feels a bit awkward though, is the fact that it combines sports with fashion. We know that Nike and Adidas do both too, but always in separate advertising. And that makes sense, since the consumer psychology for choosing a sports brand is completely different from selecting a clubbing outfit.

Last week thenetworkone and Campaign magazine chose the 16 leading independent agencies in the world. We were happy to discover that three of them (19%!) have an office in Amsterdam; Amsterdam Worldwide, Perfect Fools and Modernista! The selection was based on “creative achievement, spirit of curiosity, open-mindedness and collaborative approaches to solving clients’ communications problems”. Although it’s a bit of a subjective choice and not entirely independent, we are of course happy to hear this. What we like best about the election is that it comes with essays, written by the executives from each agency. Here’s the essay from two ‘Perfect Fools’; Patrick Gardner and Mark Chalmers – the latter set up the Amsterdam office last year. Their digital approach: “if you can think it, then it’s real”. We like the sound of that. And here the essay by Richard Gorodecky, executive creative director of Amsterdam Worldwide. We selected this quote from him to share with you: “The only constant we can look forward to will be continual change”. We agree. As Darwin already taught us; “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”