Creative Criminals

2009 was a very special year for Creative Criminals, as it was our first one. We started out on the 27th of March and since then we’ve posted over 700 posts (approximately 3 per day)!
It didn’t took long or many advertising lovers found Creative Criminals on the web and followed us daily. Over the past 9 months we’ve received many positive comments which made our motivation even stronger.
Hereby we want to thank you all and we’ll promise that 2010 will be as twice successful as the past year.



To thank you, we’ve selected the 10 most viewed and most appreciated posts in 2009. From Wonderbra, Toshiba, Air Zealand & Philips to our ‘Vintage Tuesday’ and the popular ‘Creative Bus stop’-ad. Many said that 2009 was the toughest year for advertising ever, but if you look at these genius ads, you wouldn’t tell!

For all of you, from the United States to China, from Africa to Europe, have a blast tonight and
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

Centraal Beheer Achmea is a Dutch Insurance company. It was founded in 1909 in Amsterdam and moved to the city of Apeldoorn in the 70’s.

In 1984 the company decided to launch a campaign that should expand their brand awareness and create a positive association with the insurance company. They advertised with the words: “Even Apeldoorn bellen” meaning “Just call us, Apeldoorn”.

In the commercials people experience awkward/painful situations that are very humorous for the viewers. The commercials are mostly in Dutch (some in English) although very little Dutch is spoken; the situations are understandable without the knowledge of Dutch.

In 2009 they stopped these popular commercials due to an attempt to assassin the Queen in Apeldoorn. The relation of the slogan “Just call us, Apeldoorn” is too close related to the attempt to kill the Queen in Apeldoorn.

Watch all 54 commercials after the jump.

Bill Clinton (1996)

A great way to gain exposure for your product or service is to advertise at bus stops. People have to wait until the bus arrives and do not have too much to do besides waiting. But also drivers and pedestrians get attracted by bus stop advertisements.

This month I have selected the most creative bus stop advertisements that make you look twice! View all bus stop advertisements after the jump.

1. Ikea

Starting today, I will write a monthly post regarding advertising placement.

This month Creative Criminals will present you the best advertisements placed on benches. I have been surfing the net the last couple of weeks in search for special, mostly ambient advertisement, placed on benches. Each advertisement will be accompanied by a short explanation. All the bench advertisements that will be made in the future will be added to this topic. Enjoy these benchvertisements.

View all Bench Advertisements by clicking Continue.

Denver Water

On this bench features the slogan “Use only what you need”. It was placed on corners of park benches leaving the rest blank. The campaign further existed of TV commercial, a bus ad, a billboard and a car ambient. The Denver Water commissioned the $1 million campaign, which was launched in early July 2007, to further its goal of reducing water consumption by 22 percent.


2007, Sukle Advertising & Design, USA

You most probably have seen some of these muppets commercials made for Nike Basketball. These week the celebration commercial came out because Kobe won the NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers. Click continue to watch all other Kobe & LeBron muppet commercials, they are hilarious. My favorite commercial is MVP’s Kobe & LeBron (Lil Dez).



Website: Nike
Agency: Unkown
Country: USA

For over 25 years Absolut vodka has had a simply genius advertising campaign. The well known bottle of Absolut is the shape of a Swedish Medicine Bottle. Which is hard to use for bartenders but the shape was an inspiration for their print campaign.

The principle is simple. Always create the same shape with a dazzling image using all different kinds of techniques. The prints that were displayed in magazines became collector items and even famous artists and writes helped creating them. According to Advertising Age magazine, the Absolut vodka campaign was one of the ten best campaigns of the 20th century.

In this post you will find more than 75 different advertisements according to well known places around the world. Click Continue under this image to see them all.

The agency that helped Absolut with creating these amazing advertisements was TBWA/Chiat/Day.