Photo: Maurice Mikkers
The biggest winner last night at the ADCN (Dutch Art Director’s Club) awards was Lemz. All the ‘bulbs’ – of which one was a Grand Prix (the very best integrated work) – went to their Fireworks campaign. Our very favourite campaign of the year Domino’s Pizza Pepperoni by Indie won one Golden and two Silver bulbs (TV, internet and activation) – in our opinion it was at least as good as Lemz’ work. Wieden also won one Gold and two Silver for Heineken’s ‘The making of The Date’ (internet, TV, and activation). Selmore won Gold for Bavaria and Hugh Heffner – so we can be sure that Charlie Sheen will also win Gold next year. We were a bit surprised that N=5 won Gold for Telfort – not really our taste. Y&R won one Gold and two Silver for LG’s ‘smart thief‘ (internet, TV, and viral). A bit strange that alle these films are winning different prizes for the different channels through which they are broadcasted – does the channel matter? Another one of our favourites was Hema’s with a push-up bra in print, promoted by a male model, going viral big time – by Doom & Dickson. It won Gold and Silver. Note: Hema is one of the most down to earth department stores in the Netherlands. TBWA won Gold with its print campaign for DIY chain Gamma; free Lego – “Just like dad.” In Interactive Tribal DDB won Gold and Silver for ‘Obsessed with Sound’ for Philips. One of the most impactful commercials of the year by Publicis for ALS won Silver – “I have died by now.” Special bulbs went to Mischa Rozema (for directing OFFF), Christian Borstlap (art direction and illustration, for LV and Mr Porter), and Simon Warner (photgraphy, for Octopus).

We were invited to Digital Dinner at Rainarai, an Aglerian restaurant in Amsterdam. Though the food was wonderful, the portions were a bit meager. And since there was plenty of alcohol, we’re writing this piece a bit hungover. But the good news is that the evening was packed. Achtung!’s Dick Buschman did the introduction, explaining that Emerce initiated the event to connect with the Dutch creative industry. The organization (Achtung!, Bert Hagendoorn, and Pop The Campaign) then asked Creative Social to select some interesting speakers. Marc Chalmers (Perfect Fools), founder of Creative Social explained how members of Creative Social have to introduce theirselves; they have to show what they are working on and finish their presentation with the words “That’s me that is.” So we had the honor to witness the introduction of the 10 new Creative Social members.

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With a track record like Tribal DDB it’s hardly a surprise that they became interactive agency of the year at Eurobest this year. Throughout the year they’ve been making great and award winning work for KLM and Philips. The climax of their award victory march has been Eurobest this week; out of the 12 nominations they won 9 awards – for Philips Obsessed with Sound 4, for ‘Wake up the town‘ 2, and for KLM Tile & Inspire 3. What really took us by surprise was ‘The Legendary Making of The Date’ for Heineken by Wieden+Kennedy winning a Grand Prix in film. We already noticed that every big budget commercial nowadays gets a making of to create some relatively cheap content – and PR for the agency, for that matter. But actually winning a Grand Prix with the side project of a campaign is quite something. Back then we said: “Not your standard ‘making of’, but one made with ‘joie de vivre’ and lots of CG jokes. If we weren’t already, this would want to make us work in advertising”. The commercial itself, ‘The Date’, also won silver in film, and ‘The Entrance’ won gold. We were told that AKQA’s London office sent in the work of AKQA Amsterdam, so you could say that the Grand Prix and Gold in Mobile for Heineken Star Player (social betting on football matches), also went to Amsterdam. DBB and 180 won silver in film for ‘Old Lady’ (Volkswagen) and ‘Marked for Life’ respectively. We also had the Epica awards last week. W+K won 5 Epica’s plus a Grand Prix for ‘The Entrance’ and ‘The Date’ combined. Again W+K won an award (gold) for the ‘extra’s’ – some extra mini scripts around ‘The Entrance’. 180’s Marked for Life won gold and silver. Finally Lemz did well with 2 silver and 2 bronze for IKEA 365, KLM Live Reply, and ‘Children see things differently‘. In total Amsterdam won 22 Epica awards. One final note to Eurobest and Epica; can you guys please merge? There’s no reason to have two identical continental award shows – except making lots of money, of course…

Last month we wrote about Tribal DDB’s campaign for Philips ‘Make me a morning person’, which asked real people to share their Wake-up Light experiences. Here’s the result; Iris works at Artis and is very grumpy in the morning, but as you can see she has totally changed thanks to the Wake-Up Light. Here‘s another one with Wernke. A new light, A new dawn, so to say. We like the look and feel of this film; the stop motion effects and playful edits make sure Philips doesn’t take itself too seriously – after all we’re talking about an alarm clock here – and give the product the needed emotional touch. Nicely done by Revolver Media.

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.

The impressive series of interactive ads created by Tribal DDB Amsterdam in the past year has found the right award show to get fully appreciated; The Lovie Awards. Named after Ada Lovelace, an English writer who lived in the 19th Century and – believe it or not – wrote the first algorithm. That’s how the Lovie Awards should represent “European innovation and creative ingenuity”. Tribal won three golden awards (out of a total of 40) for Philips with ‘Wake up the town’ (featured in this post) and ‘Obsessed with sound’ – and a handful of others. KLM’s ‘Tile & Inspire‘ won two silver and one bronze. Other awarded Amsterdam agencies were LBi Lostboys (Anne Frank), Pool Worldwide (TomTom and Sound Circus – great website!) and Blast Radius (Hugo Boss).

Philips is obsessed with sound. At least, that’s what they try to communicate through this ingeniously made, interactive website that allows you to single out any of the 51 members of the Metropole Orchestra – known for its non-traditional attitude towards music – and ‘hear every detail’. On top of that you can also read about each musician’s musical preferences and find out more about them on their personal blogs and Twitter. Since every digital campaign nowadays requires an activational element, Philips also launched a competition in which its target audience is to submit home made compositions – in the jury: Steve Lillywhit (ex producer Talking Heads) and Benjamin Herman (New Cool Collective). The winner will see his composition played and recorded by the Metropolitan, which sounds like a serious incentive to us. Created by Tribal DDB.

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!

In September last year Philips launched an online series, called Nigel & Victoria. We then judged it “a fairly watchable boy-meets-girl comedy.” When we saw this teaser for Season 2, which started last week, we were even more impressed. It not only confirms once more that Philips has a modern look on advertising (allocating its ad budget to production, rather than buying media) and doesn’t mind experimenting a little, it also shows how an ad property can grow – if you only give it some time. In the first episode Philips brand manager Nigel (actor Ben Willbond) was creating a series of product demonstrations with the stubborn, but sexy Victoria (Koblenko). Now that they’ve fallen in love and want to separate their work from their relationship, the second episode ‘The search for the new Victoria’ is about Nigel traveling around the world to find someone that can replace his girlfriend. And, tada, there’s your consumer engagement and branded content; attractive girls from all over the world demonstrating Philips gear – though we’re not sure how honest the selection process went. The episodes are released on a dedicated Facebook page. Created by Tribal DDB and production agency Wenneker.

Write the future did what most of us expected, it won big last night at the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) Awards: the Standing bulb (read: Grand Prix) and three golden bulbs (Integrated, Film, and Print/Magazine). Massive Music also won an award for the music in this commercial. Overall, TBWA\Neboko won most awards, taking home 2 golden (in Film for Pearle and in Print for Heineken’s Social Networks) and 4 silver bulbs. Live Interactive billboard (n=5) won gold in Outdoor. Bavaria’s DutchDress (Selmore) – causing such a big stir at the World Championship football last summer – also received a very deserved golden bulb in Activation. Christian Borstlap’s posters for the overview exhibition of Dutch advertising classics won gold in Graphic Design. In Interactive there was no gold. This could mean that digital creatives are still mostly tech driven, rather than aiming for the big idea. It could also mean that the ‘traditional’ creatives (the largest part of the Jury) are not able to fully appreciate digital innovations. Or it might be a bit of both. In any case, there were three silver bulbs in Interactive for Philips ‘Wake up the town‘ (Tribal DDB), Live Interactive Billboard (see above – a big digital idea, created by a ‘traditional’ agency), and Vodafone’s Madame TreSesti (Achtung!). Our very favourite film ‘Drama Queen‘ for the Young Director Award (TBWA Helsinki, directed by Rogier Hesp) got a bulb in the category Young Directors, but unfortunately not gold.