A member of the Euro RSCG global network, MVBMS is a US$1.4 billion agency with clients like Volvo, Intel, Philips, New Balance, Evian and Nestle. The new Amsterdam shop (including an outpost of the agency's interactive branch, Fuel) is focused on the upcoming reVOLVOlution campaign geared towards North America and Europe. CEO/chief creative officer Ron Berger says both continents will see ads based around the Swedish automaker's evolving brand identity, primarily that Volvo cars are interestingly designed, fun to drive but still safe.

"Volvo had an agency in one country and each country had its own interpretations of how the Volvo brand should be articulated. We were asked to compete with Leagas Delaney in the UK and Wieden + Kennedy and 180 in Amsterdam," says Berger. MVBMS was chosen for the pan-European business, and its first branch office in Amsterdam is staffing up.

"Each [European] country has its differences, which is no different from the fact that parts of North America have their differences. We need to identify what the similarities are, the universal truths," says Berger. "To ensure we are able to do something pan-European we will staff up with a multicultural team, a cross section of European creatives and people from New York who have worked with the Volvo brand for several years."

The opening of the Amsterdam branch should have little impact on the organization of the creative department: three internal mini agencies, each handling a core group of accounts but sharing ideas and concepts.

Similarly unaffected are ads created for Dutch electronics purveyor Philips; although the corporation is based in Amsterdam, MVBMS handles only the American portion of the account while other Euro RSCG agencies deal with European ads. That said, the latest four-part Philips TV campaign is product focused and could function anywhere a specific product is sold, be it Kansas or Chile. This campaign, as with the previous, was directed by South African Keith Rose, whose storytelling and visuals mesh nicely with the ads' humor quotient.

A young man uses his Philips CD burner to prepare the perfect love mix in "Dinner Date;" when his lady friend arrives, they dine, then rock out to raucous death metal. "Puppy" has a young man prepping a young pooch to woo his sweetheart. She arrives and is clearly touched, not by the dog, but by the shiny Philips TV. These ads, as well as "Ritual" and "Concession" show young people's lives improved by Philips gear, telling stories with visuals rather than words, and incorporating the brand's Beatles-licensed track. Creative directors Phil Silvestri and Rich Roth concepted the ads.

"We opened the campaign up to our entire work group, giving everybody a shot. It's a challenging, high-visibility account, so we had five teams working on it," says Roth. "Art direction is tremendously important to this campaign. We were looking for a director who could tell a story yet have a sophisticated, international look and feel."

Clean, imaginative, well-shot art direction and attention to detail work for Philips, but MVBMS has taken a different approach with New Balance,>

"There is an audience that believes in the integrity of the product rather than the hype and hoopla of advertising," says Berger. The last global campaign, "Connect With Yourself" features high-density visuals from Gary McKendry of Go Film (see Pg 30) and was conceived by creative director Michael Lee and creatives Sean Robertson and James Overall. The high-minded approach was also applied to the logo conceptualization of the Intel Blue Man Group campaign directed by David Kellogg of Anonymous. The Intel account has become one of the agency's global priorities; Ken Segall has been named partner/worldwide creative director in-charge of the account. Segall is perhaps best known for his "Think Different" work for Apple while creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day.

This combination of brand building and communicative visuals continues to make MVBMS boards a coveted commodity in the production community: new spots for Volvo and New Balance are set to air in early 2001.

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