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.

Last Wednesday the ADCN (Art Director’s Club Nederland) hosted a session in ‘De Kring’ on the Rembrandtplein dubbed ‘XXX Expat’ (XXX is part of the city’s shield), with the noble aim of bringing two parts of the Amsterdam ad industry together; the Dutch and the expats. Some would say these two groups are surely two sides to the same coin, others would say these are separate entities with little or nothing in common other than geography. The somewhat lacking relationship between these two communities has been well documented over the years, yet despite this, nothing has ever quite bridged that gap, except of course – modest as we are – Amsterdam Ad Blog. Lode Schaeffer (ECD at Indie), new chairman to the ADCN is determined to branch out and readdress the balance. The idea was simple; get five speakers from leading agencies in Amsterdam to each give a presentation about the experience of living and working in Amsterdam as an expat.

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Yesterday we visited the opening day of the Eurobest festival in Amsterdam. The first seminar we attended was given by Paul Lavoie from Taxi Europe. He talked about ‘trust’ and explained that ideas can only grow big if people give them trust – from the creative director to the client. To illustrate this, he invited a Dakar Rally driver, a female porn producer and a knife thrower. They all had to trust the people around them or the other way around. We very much liked the unconventional character of his presentation – especially the circus-like show with the knife thrower was spectacular! – and the fact that Lavoie put his ego aside to let other people talk about his subject.

After Lavoie, Jeff Kling from Wieden+Kennedy took the stage and started his talk by making sure that everybody understood he was not responsible for the slight change in the title of his talk: ‘Show me the ad, you motherfucker’. It had been changed in (…) Motherf*****. He loved the word ‘fuckin’ and used it several times to make this point.

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Last Tuesday the VEA (Dutch Association of Advertising Agencies) and VCP (Dutch Association of Commercial Producers) organized ‘Creative Lounge’ – an initiative that brings the creative advertising scene together. The theme was ‘Two worlds of advertising’, referring to the clear distinction in Amsterdam between the typical Dutch agencies that make typical Dutch advertising and the international expat scene mainly working for international clients. One important difference between the Dutch professionals and the expats, as talent recruiter Keith White of Wieden+Kennedy explained, is the fact that the Dutch are used to work from 9 till 6, while the Wieden+Kennedy’s of this world live in a parallel world and often start their day when the Dutch go to bed. There’s  a different work ethic. It helps of course that for expats social life is for the biggest part happening within their working environment. When the question was raised why the international agencies never work with Dutch production agencies, Clair Finn of U-Turn (180) said it was partly due to the lacking service level of the Dutch. White added to this that it’s not just within the agencies, but in general; Dutch restaurants, shops, the service is overall quite poor. Paul Lovoie (Taxi) suggested that you should do your advertising in Amsterdam, while outsourcing the service to the French. We’re not sure whether that’s a wise idea, but without a doubt learned that Amsterdam has to raise its service level.

Source: Adformatie

Telfort this week announced N=5 will be its new agency after having pitched the account between Etcetera, Selmore and N=5. The telco worked with Etcetera since 2005, but wanted to change its positioning – at AAB we don’t know what the positioning was, so maybe a wise decision. Taxi Europe will do the ‘below the line’ work. We were surprised to hear this, since we thought Taxi was a full service agency. O’kennedy, former MD Wieden+Kennedy and at the moment non-executive director at Indie and Perfect Fools Stockholm, will become CEO of D&AD. Sounds like O’Kennedy is living the life! Finally some sad news; Cayenne has not been able to overcome the loss of Canon Europe – the Japanese consumer electronic producer left Amsterdam suburb Amstelveen. Unless Japanese agency Dentsu - owning the majority of the stocks – decides Amsterdam is an important hub for Cayenne, the agency will disappear.

Agency of the year 2007, S-W-H, changed its name into Indie. Makes sense; we never really understood why so many agencies in an industry that calls itself ‘creative’, weren’t able to come up with a better name than simply the first letters of the founders. But there’s more to it, of course. Lode Schaeffer (the S) is the only founding partner still on board. And after several unsatisfactory talks with different agencies (among them Taxi) about being taken over, current partners Lode Schaeffer and Mark Aink realized that staying independent is more important for them than an early retirement in the south of France. Et voila, a new brand was born. Tim O’Kennedy (ex MD W+K) helped the agency shape its new positioning and The Stone Twins created the new brand identiy. That’s typically S-W-H (or Indie from now on); the agency likes to involve ‘outside’ expertise with a different background to keep it fresh and far away from its comfort zone. Actually, that’s more or less the definition of creativity; bringing together different ideas and merge them into new ones. Good luck, guys!

Taxi – only a few months in town – has grown big time instantly by buying 22-person digital agency Ottonico last week. Taxi chairman Paul Lavoie; “We chose Amsterdam because it is a creative and multi-cultural hub, and we chose Ottonico because they embody the future of integrated communications.” Ottonico was founded in 2008 by Eric Verhage and Maarten van Huijstee. At Amsterdam Ad Blog we’ve never heard of the agency, but we trust Taxi to have chosen its prey wisely.

Last Thursday Boards Magazine organized their first European creative ‘workshop’ in Amsterdam. The theme of the day was ‘The New Age of Storytelling’. Alex Melvin (founder of 180 Amsterdam) and Mark Aink (general manager of S-W-H) co-hosted the day and invited an interesting mix of international and Dutch speakers with different creative backgrounds and inspiring angles on storytelling.

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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.

The heavily awarded Canadian advertising agency Taxi – already very well represented on the North American continent – is jumping the big pond. Taxi’s founder, Paul Lavoie, is still not sure though where his first European office will be based. Both London and Amsterdam are in the race. It might be a photo finish, since both cities have their own obvious advantages. London is bigger and more cosmopolitan. While Amsterdam is a friendly village where you can ride your bike to work. And – not to forget – smoke idea-inducing herbs. The local government is taking the race seriously, since they invited Lovoie to experience the city himself – a bicycle trip was part of the program. Even the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, had a little chat with Lavoie. If that won’t be enough to convince Lavoie, hopefully this promotional ‘I Amsterdam’ film will.