Paul Lavoie, Taxi, talking about the power of doubt at the Tomorrow Awards

Yesterday we were at the Tomorrow Awards, the award show that is to inspire the industry to innovate faster, as Ignacio Oreamuno explained in his welcome speech. It proved quite a long afternoon – at some point turning into a night – if you take into account that only 5 awards were given away. It helped that the event, held at Pakhuis de Zwijger along IJ river, was sponsored by Absolut and some other hard liquor brands and was hosted by the hyper active Haley Mancini of Boom Chicago. There was also some improvisational, interactive theater by some actors who perform occasionally at Boom Chicago to keep the crowd going, but only at the end of the evening this seemed to pick up – when the bottles on the tables started to empty. The most interesting part of the show were the four speakers leading some of the best agencies in the world; Paul Lavoie (Taxi), talking about doubt as an essential ingredient for great work and showing an 8 minute film he just made about the last two days of Vincent van Gogh’s life; Nick Bailey (AKQA) talking intelligently about AKQA’s many ‘human platforms’; Carl Johnson (Anomaly), announcing his new office in Amsterdam and wisely stating that the digital era needs more collaboration and less ego; and finally Jean-François Bouchard who very entertaingly and convincingly showed how at Sid Lee underwear is the preferred dress and crazyness key. There was one thing that all the speakers seemed to agree on; we live in exciting times. You’d almost forget that there were also some awards to give away. The winners were: Skype in the Classroom, Made by Many (UK); Halo Reach, AKQA (USA); What Do You Love, Big Spaceship and Google Creative Lab (USA); HypoSurface, Mark Goulthorpe (inventor) USA; Les Paul, Google Doodle Team & Google Creative Lab (USA). All cases were, as Oreamuno promised at the beginning of the show, digitally advanced. It was a pity though that there were only Anglo-saxon winners. But since this is only the second year of the Tomorrow Awards, it probably just needs some more time to get discovered by the rest of the world. In any case, we definitely agree with Oreamuno; less awards is more.

Adidas is moving its digital account from 180’s Riot to Sid Lee. A worrying move for 180, since it makes Sid Lee, already working for Adidas Originals,  own yet another piece of the advertising pie. Through the grapevine we also heard that Boston based Arnold will be opening an Amsterdam office at the end of this year to service its international client Volvo. This sounds like an efficient move since Volvo’s international digital agency EuroRSCG 4D is already based in Amsterdam.

This trailer promotes the March issue of Boards Magazine dedicated to Innovation. The Canadian magazine on international commercial production asked Theo Watson and Emily Gobeille of Nexus Productions to develop an interactive cover to articulate this month’s theme. The result is Rise and Fall; an augmented reality (AR) webcam experience. By holding the magazine cover up and down in front of your webcam, a story unfolds that rises with the birds or falls down into the ocean with the fishes respectively, accompanied by little cryptic text cues. Amsterdam based MOST was responsible for the sound effects – that clearly contribute to the arty interactive experience. The technique of using the webcam for AR advertising is becoming more and more popular. Recently we saw an impressive AR Adidas Originals sneaker ad, made by Sid Lee Montreal/Amsterdam – here’s the teaser. For those of you that don’t have this month’s Boards issue, here’s a demonstration by Theo Watson himself. And if you want to see a live demonstration, and a peak behind the scenes, you should visit the upcoming Boards Summit Europe in the Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam on March 24.

How Amsterdam Became the Industry’s ‘Talent Trap’ is the title of an article by Rupal Parekh of Advertising Age, published this weekend – the term ‘talent trap’ is actually quoted from Philippe Meunier, chief creative officer at Sid Lee. An interesting article about Amsterdam as magnet for agencies and creative talent. Paul Lavoie for example, explains how his Canadian agency Taxi was courted by Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen and chose to open its headquarters here – above London or Paris. And W+K’s global COO, Dave Luhr, is quoted saying that “Creative recruitment into Amsterdam is pretty damn easy. There is no other city is the world so art-directed”. 180’s Managing Partner Alex Melvin also elaborates on his love for Amsterdam: “My commute to work is six minutes on a bicycle. We have 150 people here and only one car owner amongst us all. We all work in a stressful industry, but when you leave the front door at work there’s a beautiful canal and an hour and a half in the plane and you’re in the south of France.” And – let’s be honest – Amsterdam Ad Blog is proud to be quoted as well: “Amsterdam’s lenient laws that tolerate prostitution and marijuana don’t hurt either. That kind of liberal attitude is appealing to creative thinkers of all disciplines, including musicians, dancers and photographers.”

September, last, we reported about the Canadian agency Taxi that considered either Amsterdam or London as their first European hub. Last week Taxi announced that Amsterdam won the pitch – the unconfirmed rumour goes that it was mayor Job Cohen riding a unicycle for PICNIC 2007 that gave Amsterdam that last push. Anyway, we’re glad to have the second Canadian agency on board – Sid Lee was first. And we’re especially happy with Paul Lavoie, founder of Taxi, who announced that the agency will place itself in between the Dutch Amsterdam agencies and the international ones. A welcome positioning, since Amsterdam is roughly divided between agencies that make typical Dutch advertising (unintelligible for foreigners) and the international expat agencies – like Wieden+Kennedy, 180 and Amsterdam WW – where English is the spoken tongue and campaigns are clearly made for the worldwide market. It would be great if Taxi can bring together these two worlds.

Montreal based agency, Sid Lee, last week opened its new Amsterdam office in the creative neighborhood ‘de Pijp’. You could call it a hotshop, but the Canadian agency of the year prefers to call it a ‘gallery-boutique-atelier’. No wonder; besides selling advertising that goes beyond the 30 second spot, the Amsterdam office is also home to a gallery, a café and a shop selling designer products from different parts of Canada. Harm Sas (ex Usual Suspects) is creative director and Niels van de Walle (previously working as digital director at Nike) managing partner. Sid Lee – in Canada known for its fully integrated work – this summer won the global Adidas Originals account. Its first campaign for Originals (‘83 original ways to successfully waste your time’) specifically promoted the clothing line designed together with Diesel.