Christian Borstlap proudly presents 5 (out of 7) bulbs to the press – photo by Matthijs Immink. 

Unfortunately it took us half a week to recover from the ADCN (Art Director Club Netherlands) awards (read: the party afterwards). Which is why only now we’re able to do a write up. Anyway, unlike last year the venue (Gashouder, instead of Concertgebouw) and James Bond-inspired opening show were quite impressive; sexy girls, wearing tight latex suits (apparently a special desire of Etcetera’s Peter van Leeuwen), entered a box-ring stage accompanied by pumping music and a light show. It even made us feel a little proud about our industry: “Yeah, we work in advertising, baby!” The English-speaking presenter, Juan Señor, who also does the awards in Cannes, made the chitchat-interviews on stage with the different Jury presidents – just like last year – feel somewhat bipolar. Though we very well understand that the ADCN wants to include the international agencies, most Dutchies were either hard to follow, because of their not so fluent English, or simply doing their speeches in Dutch. But enough about form, let’s talk about the awards. Then again, form won Big last Wednesday. More…

Last Thursday the SpinAwards were awarded to the most digital clients, agencies, and ideas. Achtung! was the big winner with one Gold (Das Interland for Volkswagen) and three Silver (‘Tour dus Sofa’ for Skoda – an interactive game around the Tour de France). On top of that Achtung! became agency of the year – for the third time. KLM also won one Gold (Meet & Seat by Tribal DDB) and three Silver (Meet & Seat and Must see map by Code d’Azur), and became client of the year. Apart from these winners, our favourite cases were: Tweetphony (create your own 140-character symphony) by Havas – two Silvers – and the Twitter-directed film Under Control by Woedend!, winning Gold and Silver. Both ideas are simple, but at the same time quite innovative, using Twitter in a smart and unorthodox way. Finally, we were charmed by FHV/BBDO’s Holland’s Next Octopus Paul, winning Silver. You can find the complete list here.

Guus ter Beek, Alwin Lanting, and Pim van Bommel, three graduates of the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam used SEO to influence Google’s organic Image search results, thus creating a fictisious ad for Volkswagen. When searching in Images for the “ultimate business car” four Volkswagen images ended on top; a Passat, together with the text “Like. A boss.” Organic instead of paid search. The downside of the concept is the fact that most people probably won’t use ‘ultimate’ when searching for a business car – while getting the same results with just ‘business car’ is much more difficult – and, secondly, organic search results change constantly – the current search result, as depicted above, is “Boss. Like a.” However, even if useless, applying new (or, as in this case, existing) techniques in advertising for the first time always generates exposure. So, whatever you think of this, Ter Beek, Lanting, and Van Bommel have at least handed out their business cards.

Another very fine piece of advertising by DDB for Volkswagen. A dog mimicking a Volkswagen. Nothing more, nothing less. But with viral potential galore. They better makes some space on their award shelves… Directed by Mattias Schut (CZAR), shot by Mark Bliss, sound by The Ambassadors, and music by Sizzer.

This is product placement 2.0. A second screen app that turns product placement into a game. Developed by Achtung! for the new RTL drama series Divorce, about three guys who share an appartment, because they are all in the middle of a divorce. The game is simple; whenever you see Volkswagen car keys on TV (the protagonists all drive Volkwagen), you got to tap a virtual hand on your second screen. If timed right, the key appears in the virtual hand. This way you can collect them to win a Volkswagen Beetle. In the first three episodes – with an average of 1.6 million viewers – 20,000 viewers played the game. Smart innovation. Technical execution by B-Lex.

And the winners are… Doom & Dickson, Publicis, and Lemz won Gold at Eurobest this year. Our very favourite Hema push-up bra won gold in PR (which should have been Gold for making a sound casefilm, really), and Silver in Promo & Activation. ALS’ ‘I’ve already died’ by Publicis won gold in PR, Silver in Direct, and Bronze in Promo & Activation. The third gold, in Promo & Activation went to KLM Live Reply by Lemz. In Interactive Tribal won Silver for KLM’s ‘Be my guest’ and Volkswagen’s ‘Hitchhike with a like.’ In the same category Achtung! won Silver for the Volkwagen Fanwagen. EuroRSCG (today Havas) won Silver in PR with ‘Save an orchestra‘ for the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. In Film Craft Wieden won bronze for Coca Cola’s Sitelets. The Wieden break-away We Are Pi was awarded with Bronze for the Human Arabesque for TEDx summit in Doha. In Design Arnold won Bronze for its Arnold bike. And, finally, Wieden also got Bronze in Promo & Activation for Live Serenade.

Volkswagen – ‘mobility sponsor’ of the Dutch Olympic team – created this modified Volkswagen Up together with Achtung! and B-Lex. Just to translate the pun; the title of this campaign is a variation on Hup Holland Hup, which more or less translates as ‘Go Holland Go’. The car is propelled by decibels; the louder you shout, the faster it drives. You can submit yourself as a team in your hometown through a dedicated website and when selected you need to drive the 100 meters sprint as fast as possible. The winner wins a trip to the London Olympics. We’re not quite sure what this tells us about the car (is it loud, but fast?), but awareness and sympathy it will definitely gain.

Tribal DDB did well last night in the Cyber category, winning four (!) Lions for Obsessed with Sound: Gold (sound), Silver (website), and two Bronze (integrated and user interface). The interactive website Tribal created for Philips made it possible to very smartly single out any of the 51 members of the Dutch Metropole Orchestra. Y&R won Silver for its LG thief. This online video of a thief stealing a very thin TV on a security cam went viral instantly and already won Gold in promo – and many Dutch awards, for that matter. Achtung! won Silver for its sexy Fanwagen; a real Volkswagen van customized into a Facebook fangwagen. In Press 72andSunny won a Grand Prix. That is, the Amsterdam based agency didn’t officially receive the credits – these went to the Italian agency Fabrica – but the agency was partly responsible for the Unhate print campaign for Benetton that made world leaders, like Obama and the Venezuelan Chavez kiss with each other. In Radio and Design Amsterdam didn’t win anything.

For those of you who don’t know who the characters in this picture are; Frank Rijkaard and Rudi Völler. The only reason we can think of for choosing them as the icons of this Euro2012 penalty kick app (both on mobile and Facebook), is that Rijkaard spit Völler in the hair during the World Cup 1990 – which was, to say the least, not very chique. In other words, for some, they are the epitome of Dutch-German football rivalry. The app allows the Dutch and Germans to take penalties against each other. For every shoot out, a Dutch player is linked to a German player – via a complicated back-end that ensures a similar experience as playing with your Playstation Network. Quite impressively 45,000 players already played 210,000 penalty shoot-outs. So far Holland is leading with 115,000 against 105,000. Oh, and not for forget, you can also win a Volkswagen Up, somehow. Created by Achtung! and built by Superhero Cheesecake.

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.