Reel Opinion: Rob van Vijfeijken

Rob van Vijfeijken is in the spotlight for this month's Reel Opinion. We gave the Creative Director at BSUR in Amsterdam five spots that caught our attention over the past month. Here's what he had to say:

Rob van Vijfeijken
Creative Director
BSUR Agency, Amsterdam

Samsung Electronics - 'Unboxed'

Agency: The Viral Factory, London

Production: The Viral Factory, London

Directors: Ben Wheatley and Jake Lunt

Ok, it's a viral! Funny, but it's got nothing to do with the brand Samsung I know so far.

A pile of 'hip' nonsense for a boring international brand that is always 'nearly' a real cool brand. They're all over the place - here and there - nice loose ideas are being ventilated but there's no coherence.

Samsung is throwing away a fortune without really building one strong iconic brand.

They were our client eight years ago, and they are more than welcome to have a good conversation and a cup of coffee with lots of cake in Amsterdam!

Levis 501 Jeans - 'Secrets & Lies'

Agency: BBH, London

Production: Sonny, London

Director: Jeff Labbe

Tasty broad: good face, great eyes, gorgeous body. The guy is not half bad. Good excuses, good lies, I know the story ;-)

But the jeans don't convey that feeling - they just happen to be there - so any jeans will do?!

Jeans are fashion - lifestyle. With this commercial this brand doesn't kick ass, Diesel and G-star do.

Come on Levis! They used to be a true icon...now they're just another brand! And the music is from somewhere before World War II...so is the brand, I guess.

The Sunday Times - 'Bunny'

Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town

Production: Velocity Films, Cape Town

Director: Jeana Theron

This one's simple...

Save the rabbit?

Save the rain forest!

Read the paper online!

Hovis Bread - 'Go On Lad'

Agency: MCBD, London

Production: Rattling Stick, London

Director: Ringan Ledwidge

Advertising can, and should, be entertaining and this commercial is. Nicely shot, good atmosphere, nice young fellow, exciting adventure, life's an amazing journey!

Luckily there are still things that you can hold on to in these hard times...life isn't so bad after all.

I don't know the brand, we don't have it in Holland, please send me a loaf! Thanks!

Environmental Defense - 'Polar Bears'

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New York

Production: Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles

Director: Tim Godsall

Dear mister media planner: What is this brilliant activation idea doing on TV? Come on!

If we would have activated this idea globally in one day it would have ten folded the PR/Roll-out effect!!

Magnificent! One day of global knock down awareness. Think it over!

NewsReel 17/10/08

Apologies to those that eagerly anticipated the arrival of The Reel newsletter into their inboxes on Friday (which should be all of you!) but we were scuppered by a technical hitch. Not wanting to tip you over the edge, after spending the whole weekend pining for your weekly hit of Reel goodness, but this is the penultimate newsletter that will be contributed to by Deputy Editor Sam Bonwick, as he is embarking on new adventures in Melbourne, Australia. In future please send any news and press releases to editor@thereel.net and we will continue to do our best to feature it here.

Happy 60th birthday Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
From the 31st October 150 cinema screens around the country will be screening a short film created especially to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The three-minute film entitled ‘Everybody’, starring a strange combination of Jeremy Irons and floppy haired radio presenter George Lamb, is a part live-action; part animated (by Reel favourites Sweet World) piece based on five illustrations from the children’s picture book ‘We Are All Born Free’ from Amnesty’s publishing division.

The project was funded with the help of the Co-Operative Bank’s ‘Customers Who Care’ scheme. The bank’s Campaigns Manager Melanie Phillips said, ‘The Co-operative Bank is supporting this film as part of its campaign with Amnesty to help people everywhere understand the human rights we should all enjoy. We know it is an issue important to our customers – with 98% supporting our Ethical Policy position on human rights. This film offers a valuable opportunity to take the message out to new audiences and bring the issues to life in a fun and accessible way.’ You can also see ‘Everyone’ online and it will be shown in schools across the country – also look out for it on The Reel in the coming weeks. For more info visit to www.protectthehuman.com.

A Russian Disqo
Post-centric digital production specialists Disqo have added a Russian programming company, InteractiveWorks, to their business. The addition of the Russian company strengthens the creative offering of the division of Golden Square and has helped secure big productions for the likes of DDB, Dare and Sony.

InteractiveWorks specialise in interactive design, application and software development and, with their UK team headed by Ian Bytchek and Konstantin Polozov in London, they will give Disqo access to their full resources in Togliatti, Central Russia. Disqo’s creative director, Ben Leyland, said: “We’re increasingly getting involved in projects where costs and timings have to be kept to a minimum. Rather than relying on several disparate companies, our unique access to wide-ranging facilities and expertise means we can cover the whole production ourselves – everything from directing to post production and programming.

Dennis is a Serious director
Jonathan Dennis, who was previously a multi-award winning director for the BBC and Red Bee Media has signed to Serious Pictures. Jonathan’s recent work includes Specsavers and the Euro 2008 ‘Who will you support?’ spots.

Sarah is Taylor-made for S-W-H
Amsterdam-based creative ad agency S-W-H has announced Sarah Taylor as their new Manager of PR and New Business. Sarah’s move to the independently-owned agency is with immediate effect. The Reel like Sarah very much and we wish her luck with her new job after four years with Wieden + Kennedy.

Addictive do it again
Video remix specialists Addictive TV have just remixed the new Hollywood movie 'Max Payne' for 20th Century Fox (out next month) and are currently in the studio having a go at British comedy ‘Easy Virtue’ starring Colin Firth and Kristin Scott-Thomas.

This month also sees the Amsterdam Dance Event host a special exhibition of Addictive TV's remix work at Concrete Image in the Dutch capital, where the guys will also be playing at the launch of the night on October 25th.