October 25, 2010

Adverts with Dutch model Laura Stone banned

Filed under: Fashion,Photography by Orangemaster @ 1:32 pm

Major Australian cities have decided to ban some Calvin Klein jeans adverts because they are “suggestive of violence and rape”. The sexy pic, shot by British based fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, show Dutch model Lara Stone “fooling around with a group of half naked guys in what looks like a public basketball court.”

No, no wait. Stop. That’s not what I saw. I saw a painfully orchestrated yet very unplausible photo of a girl that’s getting way too much attention due to her choice of (and lack of) jeans. The guy on the left is bored with the entire deal, too busy looking like James Dean, the one holding her head is not pinning her down or anything and the guy giving Lara some attention looks almost too young and inexperienced to be doing so. Granted, it looks like the light version of a gang bang where everybody looks nice and friendly, and it could be provocative to adults if you were living in a cave and missed out on Madonna’s book ‘Sex’ and oh so many other things. If it was a Jean Paul Gaultier perfume advert with just men, would people have said anything? Or all women? Or women tearing up some young guy’s shirt? Hm?

Granted, young children won’t get this and it is risqué, but this kind of advertising is not going away any time soon. Selling jeans hasn’t been about actually seeing jeans for about 15 years. If you want to protect your kids, educate them, methinks.

(Link: dutchdailynews)

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June 29, 2010

Cheese ad misses the mark on ethnic stereotypes

Filed under: Food & Drink,General by Orangemaster @ 11:10 am

There is a lot of cheese adverts in the Netherlands, but this cheese brand usually has beautiful Caucasian/Dutch people frolicking in the fields, with glimpses of breasts.

Here’s how this advert goes:

“In an ideal world, the Netherlands would be one big village.”
– ‘Morning!
– ‘Morning!
Then it goes on to say what farmers and farm girls would look like, emphasising they’d of course be young and have hair, not be old and balding. And eat said cheese brand.

Then we see farm girls, then we name the girls (typical farm region names), then Fatima. The narrator says “Fatima? Ooh, that’s good too!” implying that because she’s pretty, it’s OK. A giggle ensues.

In a time of political backlash against anything not perceived as being traditionally Dutch or Frisian with blond hair and blue eyes, this brand does a good job of throwing in ‘Fatima’ for good measure. The problem is, since the Dutch stereotype is highly exaggerated, throwing in a normal looking, non-exaggerated Fatima just doesn’t work and makes her an anomaly.

In many other Western countries, it’s downright normal for people of different cultures to be lumped in to the identity of a country. I’ve seen Spanish adverts with blonds, Italian ads with redheads and Asian-looking people in adverts of all kinds . They all belong there, but in this case, Fatima just doesn’t.

The message here is that Fatima was put there ‘as a joke’ and doesn’t belong there. Had they exaggerated her, it might have worked. Fatima is an oddball that unfortunately reinforces the Dutch stereotype of what is Dutch and what is not. Remember: 20% of the 16.5 million people in this country just voted for a right-wing, racist and anti-Muslim party in the last national elections.

In my ideal Netherlands, everybody counts, young or old, cheese or not, Fatima or not.

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June 14, 2010

Poking more fun at the Germans

Filed under: Sports by Branko Collin @ 11:01 pm

Dutch World Cup ads continue to rib the Germans. Paint manufacturer Histor came up with a ‘paint whisperer’ who can tell how happy a room is:

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June 2, 2010

Anti-German sentiments in World Cup commercials

Filed under: History,Sports by Branko Collin @ 10:16 am

Among the tidal wave of World Cup themed commercials, a disturbing trend emerges. Several Dutch companies have come out with TV ads that prominently feature German bad guys.

Heineken’s ad is perhaps the mildest, featuring a representative of the German football association proudly presenting earplugs to counter the noise of the Pletterpet, an orange cap. It paints Germans as rather dull folk, not quite the traditional stereotype over here.

Supermarket C1000 on the other hand goes the full nine yards, as it has a Cruella de Ville look-alike announce that she has to take one for the German team. Utilities company Nuon lets a ‘typical’ arrogant German fan get his comeuppance when his T-shirt turn orange, the Dutch national colour, while standing among his fellow fans.

Both Germany and the Netherlands participate in the upcoming World Cup in South Africa. Anti-German sentiments were alive in the Netherlands from World War II onwards to well into the 1990s, but kids these days just don’t seem to see the point. Which makes it even odder that these ads are so blatantly anti-German.

Something I heard a lot this year, now that Dutch coach Louis van Gaal and Dutch players Mark van Bommel and Arjan Robben have had such a successful year at Bayern Munich: “I never thought I would say this, but I am actually supporting the German side.”

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March 9, 2010

Fast food chain exploits Dutch stereotype

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 10:39 am

I saw this on Dutch commercial television, which more often than not features American series and subtitled or dubbed American advertising ‘like you never left the US’.

Translation:
Guy: Hey, you owe me money.
Girl: …
Guy: For the burger.

Voice-over: So very Dutch! Our new (product name), etc.

Guy: Yep, right amount.

Voice-over: It can’t get any more Dutch.

The adjective ‘Hollands’ meaning Dutch has this reference to the olden days when the Netherlands was just North Holland and South Holland. It can be used in a neutral manner, derogatory or positive manner, depending on the context. In this case it denotes comfort food (brown bread and cheese being a classic here), which is positive.

The negative part remains the stereotype that the Dutch are cheap, which is a gross generalisation, but sometimes where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The Dutch are traditionally thrifty and save a lot of money and don’t run rampant with credit cards, not so much cheap. Oh, and all the Dutch television shows with people about to lose their homes due to overspending kill this stereotype, with the Dutch calling their situation ‘an American one’.

‘Going Dutch’ means paying your own way in English, which in American dating land is surely not a given. And of course, anyone who only wants to pay half the bill at a fast food chain while on a date could easily be labelled poor, not cheap.

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February 16, 2010

Good morning Vancouver!

Filed under: General,Music,Sports by Orangemaster @ 4:20 pm
538-Canada

There I was, just popping over to the Turkish shop across the street when I noticed that the billboard on the corner had changed adverts.

And there I was trying to find a link between Vancouver and The Netherlands!

I know that this advert would never be accepted anywhere in Canada and that it’s no big deal here and simply funny. There’s a cultural difference right there. No freaked out parents claming this traumatises youth. It’s a nice change from the usually photoshopped tits and ass featuring underaged girls for useless products. As if the men’s speed skating outfits weren’t revealing enough.

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January 5, 2010

Smoking advert along motorway causes panic

Filed under: Automobiles,General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:11 pm

The fire brigade got tipped twice that smoke had been spotted along motorway A4 in Hoofddorp, North Holland and both times, it was just a smoking advert. Car insurance company Ditzo had a big billboard advert with a time-clock giving off a lot of smoke, as if the Audi in the advert had car trouble. Motorists called 112 (the Dutch emergency number), as apparently the ‘joke’ was not very obvious. The marketing people probably thought this was brillant and it is a cool idea, except when in actual practice it fails and causes problems.

Allow me to show you what it looks like when you do this right, and by right I mean without causing panic and maybe even up for yet another award. Cossette Communications in Canada had a steam machine built into a bus shelter giving off periodic burts to announce that coffee was ready, which you can read straight away and which doesn’t make you want to call 911 (North American emergency number). I file this one under ‘zo kan het ook’, which means ‘it can also be done this way’.

(Link: webregio.nl)

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September 12, 2009

First national footgolf championship held in Nijmegen

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Branko Collin @ 8:30 am

Argyle socks and knee-length shorts, those are apparently part of the dresscode for footgolf, a sport invented by advertising agency Nothing.

Last weekend professional football player Theo Janssen won the first national footgolf championship at the Rijk van Nijmegen golf course, beating his fellow FC Twente attacking midfielder Kenneth Perez. Other participants included PSV striker Danny Koevermans, local boy Roy “the phantom” Makaay and Pierre “Pi-Air” van Hooijdonk.

A wary press, realising the joke might be on them (the jury is still out) covered the event, including public broadcaster NOS:

The sport is just like golf, with the exception that you play a football instead of a golf ball, and you use your feet to play it.

Apropos ‘Nothing,’ the company’s website explains that the name describes the space where ideas come from, but I cannot help but notice that it also neatly covers the emperor’s wardrobe.

(Photo: Roy Makaay teeing off, source NFGB.)

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September 7, 2009

Hotel offers baby bonus to attract tourists

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:56 am
coins1

According to a press release issued by the Westin Resort on the island of Aruba (part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), the hotel is offering couples a 210 euro cheque (300 USD) for conceiving babies at their establishment.

“Couples who were inspired by Aruba’s coral mating ritual during their fall getaway (September 1 – December 19, 2009), and can prove they conceived during their stay [by way of a doctor’s note], will receive a $300 ‘Conception Credit’ towards a return visit to the resort in 2010. With all the stress of preparing for a new arrival, the expecting parents will surely be in need of a pre-baby Caribbean retreat.”

Just remember that Dutchman Joran van der Sloot, the guy who allegedly kidnapped and killed American Natalee Holloway pretty much ruined any kind of tourism on the island for a very long time. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.

(Links: bizz, frommers)

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August 13, 2009

Belgian telecom advert offends the Dutch and Flemish

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:36 am
tele2_cheap_340_20857611

There is no lack of references about Belgians in the Netherlands, often referred to as ‘our southern neighbours’ by the media. When they do something stupid or brilliant, the media is on the front lines either poking fun at them or praising them for their ingenuity. However, poking fun at people’s lesser national traits, albeit a top sport in Europe, is not always appreciated.

The Belgian organisation for ethical advertising (JEP) has reprimanded the new Belgian mobile phone company Vikings because of their questionable slogans. “Gratis is voor Hollanders” (“Free is for Dutch people” – ‘Hollanders’ is a pet name for the Dutch in Flanders) has the press buzzing. The company’s French-language slogan “Gratuit, c’est pour les Flamands” (“Free is for the Flemish”) plays on the stereotype of the Flemish being cheap and is not going over well either.

AustralianSwedish telecom provider Tele2 (shown here) has had adverts in the Netherlands for months using the concept of cheapness. The idea here is two-fold: the sheep are a reference to ‘being cheap’ (the ads in the Netherlands are all in English and subtitled in Dutch) and point out the similarity of the words ‘sheep’ and ‘cheap’ with a talking black sheep standing out from the herd. Although boring to look at more than twice on telly, Tele2 is doing it right, while the southern neighbours are doing it wrong.

Why the cheap jokes? The Dutch have a reputation (deserved or not) of going on vacation to France driving through Belgium with their caravans and bringing all their own food to save on costs. The goal is to enjoy the weather.

The Flemish part of Belgium used to be poor and frugal I would imagine. Today the Flemish part of Belgium (including Brussels or not, technically a governmental no man’s land) is the most dynamic part and the Walloon part has many economic problems.

(Link: zibb.nl, Photo: pleasecopyme.blogg.se)

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