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 weren’t physically there when last night no less than 30 ‘Spins’ (rings, either gold or silver) were awarded to the best digital work of the Benelux at the SpinAwards. Instead, we were mingling with the lesser gods at the NewWork Pre-Party. After ten, though, when the SpinAwards opened their doors for the after party, we were able to congratulate all the winners in person. First of all, Tribal DDB. The big winner with three golden awards; two for Obsessed with sound and one for KLM Tile & Inspire. On top of that Tribal won the agency of the year award. Lemz also won big with five Spins. Three Silver Spins went to Taskforce Tracing Bomb makers, targeted at teenagers making their own bombs around New Years and showing the impact proudly on YouTube. The Taskforce downloaded the videos and re-uploaded them with a warning to the bomb makers. Lemz also won two silver spins with KLM Live Reply. And – not much of a surprise – KLM became advertiser of the year. Buutvrij For Life won two awards with their ‘Pass it on day’ – they asked all their Facbook friends to form a line through Amsterdam to pass on their office interior when they were moving offices. Unofficially they also won a third award together with Cote d’Azur for ‘Everything smells like chocolate.’ Boondoggle won two awards with ‘Cordeals’ for Cordaid and with Medi-Plaza.nl for the government. The latter case is slightly similar to the Taskforce concept; consumers who were buying medicines online were led to Medi-Plaza, when about to make the transaction they were confronted with the message that buying medicines online is a dangerous affair. Red Urban won two awards with the Russian Roulette app for Duyves and their ‘Like’ campaign for KPN. Click on picture to see the entire list of winners.

This graphically inviting game called ‘Hitchhike with a like’ was created by Tribal DDB and Facebook. It let’s you hitch rides through Europe to different destinations with different Volkswagen Beetles. Though the copy teaches us that it’s about the journey and not the destination, the game doesn’t really show the journey. It simply tells you how many points you’ve earned after you’ve reached your different destinations. If you travel long enough, you can win a Beetle trip across Europe. Oh, and there’s also a ‘mojo’ meter that slowly runs on empty. Only by sharing your trips on Facebook you can recharge it. And that’s where Volkswagen’s briefing peeks around the corner: “Wir wollen Facebook Likes, und schnell!” As usual we weren’t patient enough to sit out the entire game, but we’re sure that if you do there’s champagne and fireworks – and if you’re lucky a grand prize. The game was produced by B-Reel, the 3D animations built by Prime Focus, and the different tunes accompanying each trip created by Massive Music.

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.

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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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).

Last year we were much impressed by Tribal DDB’s work for the Philips Wake-up Light. The agency made an entire village in the Arctic use a Wake-up Light and share their experiences – they even made a documentary about it. This year Philips and Tribal DDB chose to go for the masses; everyone can test the product (for free). That is, not everyone, but a ‘selected’ group of consumers that ‘Like’ the Wake-up Light Facebook fan page. This group can download an app (on iPhone) to register the ease of waking up on a daily basis. You can also simply do a quiz to find out whether you are a “Morning person” – or a ‘zombie’, ‘grump’, ‘early bird’, etc. Apparently the proof of this product is really in the eating. But it fascinates us that even though this product feels scientifically sound, it is so hard for Philips to make everyone use it. That is, we’ve never come across one except in Tribal DDB’s campaigns. Is it the price of the product (around €100)? The appearance maybe? Or are consumers simply conservative by nature? Probably a bit of each. Anyway, compared to the Wake-up light itself, Tribal DDB has done everything possible to make things look attractive. The film was produced by Mini Vegas and Revolver Media. The animations were done by Keytoon Animation Studio and the website was built by MediaMonks.