Our work for Lurpak has been shortlisted for the APG Creative Strategy Awards. Matt Boffey’s ‘beguilingly seductive’ paper (this may well be the first time the words ‘Matt Boffey’ and ‘beguilingly seductive’ have been used in a sentence together) is said to show how ‘classic planning combined with new thinking at the brand level can result in highly effective and mouth-watering work’.

Wieden +Kennedy Amsterdam is shortlisted three times for the same APG awards with their work for Coke & Nike (both Air Max 360 and Women).

Meanwhile, the team at Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam has also triumphed at this year’s Euro Effie awards and taken the Grand Prix and the Gold for the Nike Women’s ‘Tell me I’m not an Athlete’ campaign.

On Wednesday night Dave Cobban, Eliza Esquivel, Jasmina Peri, Jenny Howard and Nike client Adrianna Pereira headed to Brussels with high hopes for the selected finalist. This is the first year that the Amsterdam office has delved into the effectiveness awards and to receive such acclaim so soon is really inspiring. The jury’s decision is based on the original concept, the execution and the overall effectiveness of the campaign so congratulations go right across the board. Alvaro, Sue, Elissa, Patricia, Jasmina and Dave should all feel suitably proud of themselves for creating a body of work that not only looks great but that also offers cultural relevance and real insight. Thanks also go to everybody involved in building a case study that obviously showed the work off to its full advantage.

On accepting the award, Adrianna Pereira commented, "winning this award is a real testament to the effectiveness of such a long term partnership between Nike and Wieden+Kennedy. Because of that relationship, we were able to build a campaign were the creative work is so strong, pushes boundaries and really connects with the consumer".

Congratulations guys!

At Wieden + Kennedy we’re all for a bit of relevant and appropriate provocation. But there’s provocative and then there’s…dumb. And in the latter category, I venture to suggest, is the new Alexander McQueen campaign advertising their autumn collection for the street-fighting urban warrior.

Now, I realise that these aren’t grubby, oppressed, contemporary rioters. This is an image of chic, intellectual French rioters from the 1960s.

"Sacre bleu, Jean-Paul, but you cannot possibly wear those pantalons to man the barricades, they are so annee derniere."

But when I look at these pictures they make me think of  Basra. Or Belfast. Pas bon, hein?

Fashion toys with cheap shock tactics as a matter of course. There were the famous Benetton and poster FCUK campaigns. More recently there have been the Gucci beaver shot and even the very silly D&G ‘knife’ ads:

It’s all daft and entertaining, like fashion itself. But this latest appropriation of ‘shocking’ imagery seems tasteless, irrelevant and unlikely to build any positive assocations for the brand. Of course, it’s possible that I’m just so out of touch with youth rebellion that I should start reading the Daily Mail. But it’s not as if McQueen’s clothes are worn by teenagers, is it? Here’s their own explanation of the campaign from www.m-c-q.com

"Galen, I’m worried by all this talk of a ‘gorilla uprising’."

Clearly a lot of nonsense and a sign that if you’re going to peddle flim-flam you should never make the mistake of ‘explaining’ it. Meanwhile, I intend to use the phrase ‘feeling the force of anarchy on the left bank’ in my next meeting with a client procurement department.