I could only stay half the day at Eurobest seminar today (did hold an lecture my self at anther place). The day did start of with what I would say was the most intellectual speaker for the day, Julian Wade, Design Director, 180 Amsterdam. This agency is really interesting. The level of work they do is impressive (not al are world-class but few agencies has so many word-class cases to show off with). Julian did point out that working together with a common goal is the key to create success for brands today. More ore less did al the speakers today talk about the point in stop fighting about how owns the client and the ”big idea.” He did mention that today’s brands need soul and I could see that they for the Adidas campaign had a lot of soul but for the BMW did not (in my opinion). Think he was meaning that soul keeps it real. Sometimes it was more conceptual communication art than advertising like for the Amstel (but that can create a lots of emotional buzz). I think today’s advertising is develops around finding “profiled touch points” and agencies as 180 Amsterdam is damn good in finding them. Julian did deliver one-liners as: “Be ready for a new world, because it is a new world.” I guess Adidas was ready for that new world and nothing else.

Watch this Adidas commercial, – Impossible is nothing. It is building on going from nothing to what you can create in your life. Created by 180 Amsterdam.

Did also go to the workshop: Creative Social. Basically the workshop was about how to bring advertising into social media. There was a lot of digital talent and ambitions. Sadly this talented people were lacking the business dimensions of why and how social media builds bottom line for clients. But they will learn does steps when clients demand more out of social media. MySpace.com did show a lot of good dimensions of how to tap into social media (I do hope they stop to develop what they are doing, so I don’t need to update the books I am writing on…).

My one lecture and workshop today was full of soul, it was real (not smiling faces only – but real discussion about being real for doing business in the future as well as today). Thanks for being real (you know how you are).