Finally, Amsterdam wins its first golden Lion – in cyber. Nike’s ‘Write the future’, created by Wieden+Kennedy has already won a truckload of prizes, but winning in Cannes, is the cherry on top, of course. The campaign won in cyber, because it used social media very effectively; the film received 40 million online views. And since the film is so impressive, we expect it to win (at least) a golden film Lion this Saturday. Two virals were rewarded with a bronze Cyber lion. The first one: TomTom’s special edition StarWars voices – created by Pool Worldwide and directed by Willem Gerritsen (CZAR). This film will surely also win another Lion at the end of the week. The other viral, was Liquid Mountaineering for Hi-Tec by CCCP – a brilliantly executed mockumentary. Interesting detail; this second viral was also directed by Willem Gerritsen. In design two silver Lions were won. One by Amsterdam agency BrandBase for its pallet project, a unique working environment, built entirely from pallets by Most Design. The other silver design Lion went to Heineken’s STR bottle, a bottle that lights up in the dark thanks to its UV-sensitive ink – created by dBOD and Iris.

Last January Heineken released the vibrant “The Entrance” introducing a complete new advertising property. Today Heineken releases the sequel; The Date – shot in London at Le Meridien Hotel and the Rivoli Ballroom. Just like the previous commercial, the James Bond-like look and fool (leading your date through a restaurant kitchen is so 007) is to charge the brand further with an aspirational, cosmopolitan personality. The film was created by the same team of Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam and again directed by Frederik Bond (Sonny). That’s why if feels so similar. It is nice to see that there are still brands that believe that continuity builds strong brands. The soundtrack (even catchier than the soundtrack in the first commercial) is the 1960’s Bollywood track “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” from the 1965 movie Gumnaam – originally performed by Mohammed Rafi and playbacked here. W+K also released some bonus material; The making of. Not your standard ‘making of’ though, 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. O.k., that’s it, and now we’re thirsty.

Write the future did what most of us expected, it won big last night at the Dutch Art Director’s Club (ADCN) Awards: the Standing bulb (read: Grand Prix) and three golden bulbs (Integrated, Film, and Print/Magazine). Massive Music also won an award for the music in this commercial. Overall, TBWA\Neboko won most awards, taking home 2 golden (in Film for Pearle and in Print for Heineken’s Social Networks) and 4 silver bulbs. Live Interactive billboard (n=5) won gold in Outdoor. Bavaria’s DutchDress (Selmore) – causing such a big stir at the World Championship football last summer – also received a very deserved golden bulb in Activation. Christian Borstlap’s posters for the overview exhibition of Dutch advertising classics won gold in Graphic Design. In Interactive there was no gold. This could mean that digital creatives are still mostly tech driven, rather than aiming for the big idea. It could also mean that the ‘traditional’ creatives (the largest part of the Jury) are not able to fully appreciate digital innovations. Or it might be a bit of both. In any case, there were three silver bulbs in Interactive for Philips ‘Wake up the town‘ (Tribal DDB), Live Interactive Billboard (see above – a big digital idea, created by a ‘traditional’ agency), and Vodafone’s Madame TreSesti (Achtung!). Our very favourite film ‘Drama Queen‘ for the Young Director Award (TBWA Helsinki, directed by Rogier Hesp) got a bulb in the category Young Directors, but unfortunately not gold.

Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam hired Adrien Bindi and Rick Herrera, two top creatives coming from San Francisco. Bindi previously spent three years as art director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, producing the award-winning ‘Battle for Milkquarious’, a bizar 70’s inspired and over-the-top 20-minute rock opera for Got Milk? Before GS&P Bindi worked at Taxi, Fallon and Leo Burnett. Herrera, copywriter, joins W+K Amsterdam from twofifteen – formerly known as TAG/San Francisco. One of the latest projects he worked on was Xbox ‘The Life’, according to the press release, one of the “most awarded pieces of TV work of 2010”. He also worked on the famous Halo 3 ‘Believe’ campaign – winning two (!) Cannes Grand Prix in 2008. Clearly a strong reinforcement for W+K. Make our city shine, guys.

Success has not been Nokia’s trade lately – in fact, since the company has chosen Windows as its new operating system, success might be further away then ever. So that’s why we found it a little ironic that this commercial, created by Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, is about success. That is, only the copy is about ‘Success is what you make it‘. The film itself – directed by Brent Harris and musically dressed up by the band Lovvers – explains what one can do with a smart phone. With the Nokia E7 you can send e-mails, watch police car chases (on your wall, if you have a beamer), and befriend the people you’ve shared a (Finish?) sauna with (nice cameo by the way for creatives Toby Morris and Ebba Hult on the Facebook wall of “Bernard Guiot”). Oh, and yes, it also has a map that enables you to see where you are. So for all the people that still don’t know what the advantages of a smart phone are; watch this film and you know what you’re missing.

The catchy song Can you feel it in this new Coca Cola commercial ‘Walls’ was written by the band One Night Only. The song – that reminds us of the band Novastar – is as sweet as a bottle of Coke, but maybe that’s why it’s so hard not to like it. And since Coca Cola is all about opening ‘happiness’, Amsterdam agency Wieden+Kennedy has worked well on brief. According to the press release the commercial, that was produced by Biscuit Filmworks and CG’d by The Mill, is supposed to depict “the sacred teenage ritual of grabbing a Coke, cranking up the stereo and enjoying a moment of release through music at the end of their day”. You could ask yourself whether the target finds it ‘cool’ enough, but at least their parents will love it – and Coca Cola knows they always fill up the fridge. There’s also a very similar music video, which could spread the brand message more subtly if it becomes a hit – similar to what W+K tried to do with Heineken’s Entrance, we believe. Since “teenagers want to be part of the conversation” (press release talk), the campaign also allows them to film and upload their own footage on a dedicated website to be integrated in a crowdsourced videoclip. The whole thing made us think of the Hilltop commercial (“I’d like to teach the world to sing“) from 1971. And when comparing it to that hippie feeling, you could say that Coca Cola has evolved in a very consistent way.

After Wieden+Kennedy’s very successful ‘Write the future’ campaign for Nike (the commercial ended 11th in The Gunn Report) and more recently its striking work for Heineken (AAB’s ‘Ad of the month’ in January), the agency is on a roll and expanding its creative floor with no less than 7 international creatives. From left to right: Rosie Bardales joins the Amsterdam agency as CD, coming from BBH London. Also coming from London are Australian team Selena McKenzie and Toby Moore. Previously they worked at Fallon and before that at Publicis Mojo Melbourne – where they worked on Nike. The South African team Mike Bond and Bern Hunter – with their distinctive outfit – are joining from AMV BBDO London. Apparently a team with itchy feet; before AMV they worked at Publicis and Mother in New York and TBWA Paris. Finally, Dan Maxwell and Ivan Cash come from Venables Bell & Partners San Francisco. Welcome to Amsterdam, guys. We hope it will be everything you expected – and more.

Internationally Heineken has always been a cosmopolitan brand with a high level of sophistication. The green iconic ‘export’ bottle even made James Bond every now and then skip his Martini. But in the past years it seemed like the brand lost its mojo somewhat. After all, sponsoring the Champion’s League proves you have a big bag of money, but doesn’t give you personality – if any, a corporate one. So when we saw this new commercial ‘The Entrance’ – preleased online – we thought; yes Heineken is back! The rich film saturated with cinematographic production value does make an entrance. And agency Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam must have thought, while we’re at it, we might as well shoot some more. On Heineken’s Facebook fanpage, behind the tab ‘The Entrance’ there are 13 different short films that elaborate on the different characters you see in the commercial – here (‘Big in wonderland’) and here (‘The man with the eyepatch’) two examples. These extra’s make no sense at all, but are clearly made with a sense of humour and therefore fun to watch; branded content in optima forma. And there’s a smart catch; you can only watch the short films after having ‘Liked’ the fanpage, which makes the videos spread quickly – and allows Heineken to spam your wall, for that matter. But there’s more; by collaborating with the Danish band Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Heineken is hoping that the song The Golden Age will become an international hit. We can easily imagine it will. And if that happens there will be yet another medium pushing the campaign. Hats off, not just for Wieden, but also for Heineken, letting its agency go wild and use its full creative potential. The commercial was directed by Frederik Bon (Sonny London).

Here’s yet another agency that converted its creativity into a special Christmas concept. Last week Wieden + Kennedy organised a Virtual Holiday Dinner via Skype. It allowed the many expats ‘living’ at Wieden to enjoy their Christmas dinner with their relatives overseas. The software was quite ingenious, allowing the Skypers to move their own virtual doll by turning their heads left and right in front of their webcam to face the other people at the virtual table and have a real conversation – that is, as ‘real’ as the paper turkey, of course. Traditional and innovative at the same time. Now we think of it, a little more tweaking and W+K might be able to do all its international conference calls like this.

Amsterdam won two Grand Prix in Film and Design at Eurobest in Hamburg, last Wednesday. Wieden+Kennedy was awarded the prestigious award for its epic Nike ‘Write the future’ commercial – alledgedly the most expensive commercial ever made. And for the same film it won bronze in Film Craft. Amsterdam Worldwide earned a Grand Prix in the category Design for the Onitsuka Tiger ‘Tansu sneaker’. Other than that Amsterdam did not do extremely well, we have to admit. In interactive Pool Worldwide won silver for its brilliant StarWars branded TomTom viral. In the same category 180 Amsterdam won bronze for Adidas’ Match Tracker and NRG3 won bronze for an interactive banner for the EA game Need for Speed Shift. N=5 was awarded silver in the category Media with a ‘Live interactive billboad’ – an aggression awareness campaign. BSUR got bronze in Film for MINI’s Flow, Publics won bronze in Print for KIKA, and JWT bronze in Promo and Outdoor with the MINI Christmas box.