By Michael Bürgi • October 1, 2024 •
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Ivy Liu
The Dutch are no longer any strangers to Recent York. Despite every little thing, the metropolis used to be is named Recent Amsterdam. But there’s a resurgence of agencies from the Netherlands discovering their manner to American shores.
Dept did it on the outset of the pandemic when The Carlyle Community acquired the Dutch company. Now, two agencies — Hypersolid, which is being formed from the union of a handful of companies, and Superheroes, which makes a speciality of increasing artwork installations that double as media campaigns — maintain field up camp domestically, harboring assorted aspirations.
The extra recent of the 2 to blueprint within the U.S. is Austin, Texas-primarily based mostly HyperSolid, an amalgam formed out of Dutch tech company Triple, brand expertise company code d’azur, alternate transformation company Connect2Crowd and brand develop company Wonderland, all of which maintain operated in Europe. HyperSolid’s focal point is on merging tech, media and creativity, and it assign code d’azur’s CEO Nik Nieuwenhuijs as CEO of U.S., working out of Austin-primarily based mostly headquarters.
Nieuwenhuijs stated half of the motivation to open within the U.S. is due to present consumers EV brands Polestar and Heineken, which had advertising wants within the U.S., nonetheless he hopes one day to grow income generated here to 50% of total world income.
“For us, it’s a in actuality logical step, no longer only to enhance our international consumers, nonetheless additionally to faucet into the U.S. market with our capabilities,” stated Nieuwenhuijs, who believes HyperSolid can be “smarter than agencies and sooner than consultancies. … The fusion of technology and creativity is aloof a blue ocean for me, within the sense of in actuality integrating and connecting them.”
He additionally argued a distinguishing factor would perchance perchance additionally honest be a non-American manner of thinking. “That’s per chance additionally rather of little bit of the Dutch tradition — being in actuality pragmatic, with a makers’ mindset that differentiates us from our U.S. competitors,” he stated.
With a satellite now firmly primarily based mostly in Brooklyn, Superheroes is a 15-year-veteran Amsterdam-primarily based mostly shop that’s been dabbling in AI-generated artwork, Superheroes is concentrated on reaching Gen Z in non-traditional methods, one of which is generating artwork installations for consumers that one wouldn’t ordinarily ask to commission such things. The premise is to focal point on organic means of generating target market and interest rather than by procedure of paid media.
“Now we maintain an technique that is de facto all about earned-first thinking, which for us is hooked in to what in actuality engages with of us,” stated Superheroes co-founder and chief inventive officer Roger Vijverberg. “How we breakthrough the clutter is a starting point, nonetheless additionally how can we maintain that in a manner that we basically web these thumbs to stop for a moment to web of us to take into legend what we offer? We want to in actuality elevate brands to changing into half of tradition or changing into a conversation starter.”
Vijverberg stated it all starts with earned media so the information can organically stand on their very have, nonetheless then web boosted by social funding, adopted by reformatting the content with backstories or spinoffs, which stretches the information additional. “for instance, we’ll manufacture paid formats love love pre-rolls or shorts, he stated. “We additionally convey that content to digital, connected TV, out of dwelling and even retail generally. We additionally add social commerce tools to it so we can send visitors to web sites or e-comm channels or retail stores. It starts with organic and within the ruin leads into full on social-driven media campaigns.”
Superheroes assembled a collective known as Jimmy, consisting of fifty or so creators and artists who it in actuality works with to make the artwork and concepts that turn into the media channels. To enhance these artists, Superheroes has additionally assign together a world network of Gen Zers who dispute brand teams what extra or much less artwork strikes them, below the banner The Robins.
Buick is a consumer that’s used the Jimmy collective to wait on foster its newer image — the automobile brand has undergone a significant rebranding effort of late, stated Sam Gentry, Buick’s assistant manager, social and brand partnerships. Superheroes, by procedure of about a of Jimmy’s artists, rendered three of the brand’s SUVs as hanging artwork gadgets in a gallery, utilizing AI as they morph from a great deal of shapes into the autos.
“It met our targets. We noticed a double digit elevate by manner of a completion price metric vs. benchmark content from the past. So it did maintain a measurable impact,” stated Gentry, who added the Superheroes of us delivered on a sooner turnaround time than long-established. “This became once utilized within the context of an larger-funnel open campaign. So with that in suggestions, it done what we were we were looking to attain.”
Other consumers who’ve work this manner include Netflix,