Although not everyone that writes for this blog will support the Dutch this summer at the World Cup Football in South Africa, the second ‘Bleed Orange’ commercial for Nike, made by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, does get us properly excited. It introduces an un-Dutch ‘Just do it’ swagger to the Dutch team. An attitude the orange lions will need, since ‘a beautiful loss, is still a loss’ – as the copy reads insightfully. As in the first bleed orange commercial (the Dam square take-over) the tape art is used as a distintive style element to glue all the campaign assets together. The film – featuring Van Nistelrooy, Van Bronckhorst and Van der Vaart – is shot on 8mm and 16mm by Johan Kramer to create a voyeuristic look behind the scenes. And the persuasive music by Junkie XL finishes it off nicely. If anything will persuade the Dutch to bleed orange this summer, it will be this kind of advertising.
Posts Tagged ‘W+K’
Nike persuades the Dutch to bleed orange
Friday, March 5th, 2010Blindfolded keepie uppie challenge
Friday, December 18th, 2009We already knew that Ronaldinho was kind of alien, but now we know for sure he is from another planet! Even blindfolded he can see the ball and keepie the ball uppie 44 times! Or did the hole in the blindfold – that you see at the end – help him a little bit? The video is made by Wieden+Kennedy for the EA Sports game FIFA 10. It challenges football fans and gamers to beat Ronaldinho and upload the result on the dedicated YouTube channel.
Nike already claims WC’s title for the Dutch
Monday, December 7th, 2009What a smart way to use last Friday’s draw for this summer’s World Championship football in South Africa as an opportunity to make some great guerrilla advertising for Nike – the orange team’s clothing sponsor. It was made overnight by Wieden+Kennedy on Amsterdam’s Dam Square and directed by Johan Kramer. The word ‘BEZET’ means ‘taken’ and is inspired by Queen’s Day (April, 30) when the Amsterdammers claim their street market stall space the nights before the actual event by taping off an area and writing ‘bezet’. The words ‘bloed oranje’ ask the Dutch to ‘bleed orange’ for their country. Usually the ‘orange’ advertising around big football (soccer) tournaments is overwhelming and not very subtle, which makes it difficult for an advertiser to stand out. This video – distributed through Nike’s websites – is therefore well timed and with its grassrooty character (reinforced by the catchy music by Dutch electro band ‘Daily Bread’) more sympathetic than your regular over-obvious ‘orange painting’. For those of you not interested in (Dutch) football; the guy at the end is Frank de Boer – assistant coach of the Dutch team.
Shoptalk: Moseley and Dundas joining 180
Friday, November 13th, 2009
Al Moseley, partner and executive creative director at Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer (HMDG), has quit to join 180 Amsterdam. Though Mosley is responsible for the ‘M’ in HMDG, the agency won’t be changing it’s name. He will become part of the management of 180 together with Kevin Dundas, who’ll become managing partner. Before HMDG, Moseley worked at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and before that he worked for Mother. Dundas (ex Saatchi & Saatchi) was president and chief executive at Sapient Nitro and only joined the agency last January. Moseley and Dundas will work alongside 180 chief executive, Chris Mendola, and the chief creative officer, Andy Fackrell. Alex Melvin continues in his role as Chairman focusing on key clients and agency expansion.
Creative Lounge: Two worlds of advertising
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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
Interview: John Norman
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
John Norman is art director and ECD at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. He grew up in Texas and as a kid his first creative moments were ‘playing war’. Unlike George W. Bush, John got over it and nowadays he is fascinated by design and nano science. Apart from that, he is inspired by Michelangelo’s stubbornness for his own believes and by Terrence Malick for the sparseness of his dialog. John moved to Amsterdam after following up Jelly Helm’s advice to check out the city. And now he loves it so much that he wouldn’t change a thing about it, if he had the chance. Outside work, John loves racing bikes and is a sucker for a field full of bunnies. To read the entire interview, click here.
FIFA Earth connects on and offline football
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
Earlier we talked about FIFA 10, the new EA Sports game that was released beginning of October. Together with the game Wieden + Kennedy also created a new online platform, called FIFA Earth. This platform uses live data from the FIFA games that are being played around the world and translates these into a virtual globe. For example you can see how many games have been played (40 million when we took this screenshot!), which virtual clubs are hot and how they rank. The site also links to Twitter and shows football related tweets on the FIFA Buzz section – together with their geo location. We were told that there are plans already to enrich FIFA Earth with more data and functionalities that will blur the borders between the on and offline world of football even further. And it thus sounds like a very promising new Nike+like brand utility.
FIFA 10: How big can football get?
Monday, September 28th, 2009That’s a good question when you see this impressive ad for Electronic Arts, made by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. The combination of poetic copy (“More hugs than a forest full of bears”) and rich art direction make it a treat to look at. The main insight of the campaign is that about 2 million FIFA games per day are played. And that’s a whole bunch of gamers trying to imitate the Rooney’s, Benzema’s and Xavi’s of this world.
Rooney screams (again) for Nike
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
We already saw Wayne Rooney scream in Advertising before; in fact, it was in a Nike ad (by W+K London) to fire up the English fans for the World Championship in 2006. Most church groups weren’t too happy about it – they thought he was depicted as the reincarnation of Christ – but we loved the print ad for its powerful simplicity. In this commercial by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, titled ‘Make the difference’, Nike announces the new Premier League season. We didn’t really understand the ad. Even the voice over – by Brian Cox – didn’t help. But when we saw the other video’s on the Nike Football website – with players like Walcott, Ribery and Arshavin, we got the picture. We like the one with Ribery best – because it actually makes a point and because of its wonderful surrealistic feel.
Marketing Tribune: Dutch ad agency survey
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Marketing Tribune just published its yearly Dutch ad agency survey, conducted by Intormart GFK. And because 180 Amsterdam scored so well, co-founder Chris Mendola (right) and Andy Fackrell were asked a few questions about the success of their agency. The results of the survey came from 865 advertisers, who answered questions about the awareness, preference and image of the Dutch agencies.
We were happy to learn that the respondents judged ‘coming up with original ideas’ as the most important feature of an ad agency. This basically means that if creativity is not leading in your agency, you have to change your proposition or your job. On this characteristic 180 Amsterdam scored best with 52% – which proofs that having 32 nationalities on board does induce creativity. The agency strongly climbed on the image ladder; last year it scored only 14% on this characteristic. On ‘enthusiasm’ (would that be hugging the client before selling your ideas?) 180 also scored best. Wieden+Kennedy, another very cosmopolitan agency, is the most trustworthy agency – The People’s Valley and McCann were second and third.
Advertisers with a one-million-plus budget, put DDB, N=5 and TBWA, respectively, on their shortlist for an above the line campaign. Not a preferable position when you realize that the interactive agencies (LBi Lost Boys, Clockwork, Achtung! and The People’s Valley) are gaining territory fast – this of course was already announced by the strongly shifting media budgets. And ironically Saatchi & Saatchi and Ogilvy have a very strong brain position – amazingly still profiting from the brand position they built up in the 90’s.
To us the most striking conclusion of the survey is the image leap made by 180 and Wieden+Kennedy among Dutch advertisers. Hopefully it means they will finally become an integrated part of the Amsterdam ad community. We know from the interview that 180 is working hard on it; the agency is looking for a Dutch new business director, who can build its local business.