the Truth About Amsterdam » admin

Welkom 2 Amsterdam ft. Misstrezz & Chappell

admin — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 09:40:15 +0000

Truth about Amsterdam wins City Marketing Award

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:40:40 +0000

The truth about the Truth About Amsterdam

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 11:35:41 +0000

On 27 July 2009 a video called The Truth About Amsterdam was posted on YouTube. The video responded to views about Amsterdam expressed by an American political TV talk show on Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor. Comments and assumptions made on the show portrayed Amsterdam as a ‘cesspool of corruption and crime’, ‘boasting free drugs and free love’. Two Amsterdam locals — and several more to follow — disagreed.

Proudly supported by the ATCB

Produced by locals Robbert Nieuwenhuis and Elian Wils, The Truth About Amsterdam aimed to cast light on the reality of Amsterdam life – beyond the common stereotypes of the city and blatant false claims of the O’Reilly Factor. They showed the side of the city that residents experience; families on bakfietsen, busy canals and buskers on the Leidseplein, while illustrating the facts about drugs and corruption in the Netherlands against that of the USA.

Nieuwenhuis and Wils pitched their creative concept to the ATCB, who recognised the viral video as a great opportunity to engage the lucrative American market and break through the common misconceptions of Amsterdam. The viral formed part of an inspired marketing campaign for the ATCB. Production remained entirely in the hands of Nieuwenhuis and Wils, with funding and stock footage supplied by the ATCB.

Revealing the truth

To date, there have been over 400, 000 views and thousands of comments (in support of both views) on YouTube. The ATCB also supported the creation of a website for people to express their own Truth About Amsterdam. In November 2009, the ATCB announced their involvement in the video. This had not been revealed earlier, in order to strengthen the impact of the viral and to avoid influencing the reactions and discussion that emerged from the video.

“We stand by our choice”, stated Eduard Peter Oud from the ATCB. “We did not aim to deceive the viewers, but rather to facilitate an open forum and to communicate The Truth to potential visitors of Amsterdam”. The ATCB has been nominated for a marketing award for the film.

Women from amsterdam

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:31:47 +0000

Amsterdam versus O’Reilly 2

Robbert — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:45:32 +0000

The truth about Amsterdam, our response to Bill

admin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:48:37 +0000

Why this website?

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:51:29 +0000

We’re Robbert (26) and Elian (28), we live in Amsterdam. We set up this website as a response to the worldwide pre-assumptions about our city. TV host Bill O’Reilly from Fox News (USA) is one of the most hilarious representatives of these false ideas. We aim to show you a more realistic view of Amsterdam.

We hope that this site inspires you to come up with your own Amsterdam video, showing us and the world what you think it’s like. We’ll also continue to post new videos from time to time. We started the forum because we believe in freedom of speech and the power of internet. So please don’t hold back if you got something to say.

We are working on another reply to Bill. Keep checking our site as we’ll post it soon!

Elian & Robbert

Amsterdam versus O’Reilly 2

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 15:26:00 +0000

Today, we proudly announce our new response to Bill called “Amsterdam versus O’Reilly 2”. It took a little longer than planned, but we’re happy with the result as we think it truly exposes the nonsense of the American “News program” The O’Reilly Factor. But we didn’t just aim this response at Bill. We really started the discussion because many people around the world still have a distorted view on Amsterdam, mainly related to our liberal drugs policy.

Bill O’Reilly calls us “far left” and “propagandists”. We don’t feel like that at all, but we do believe in creating a society which allows people to make there own choices, as long as those choices respect the freedom and safety of others. And we believe news media have a responsibility to remain objective, something Fox News doesn’t seem to take to seriously at all (although they pride themselves for it in their own promo commercials).

Many different people visit and live in Amsterdam and we’re sure that they all perceive the city differently. For those of you with an opinion about the true nature of the city we made it real easy to upload your own video on our site. We’d love to see your perspective!

We encourage you all to give your vision and opinion on our beloved hometown so that eventually this site will present a “fair, balanced and accurate” portrayal of Amsterdam.

Robbert and Elian

Update on the new video

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:33:19 +0000

So, when you finally think that you can relax and enjoy a weekend of music and fun, the phone starts to ring again. In a couple of week’s time, the media attention for our video, The truth about Amsterdam, has blown out of proportions.

Last Thursday, we were interviewed by prime-time news program Netwerk. The interview can be found here (unfortunately, only in Dutch). After the interview, we really thought we could enjoy our weekend at the Lowlands Festival. But during the day after our Netwerk interview, both of our phone´s ringtones almost exceeded the live music. We even had to skip one show, due to a unscheduled photo shoot for newspaper De Pers, who wanted to do a short story on the progress of our new video and how we feel about Bill’s latest response.

Anywho, media attention around our video keeps growing. And that is a positive thing, especially because we´re about to launch our newest response to Bill (bet you can´t wait for that). We´ll keep you posted on that one, but for now, feel free to discuss all of the matters on our forum. We´re very curious how you feel about the way our city is being portrayed by media such as FOX News.

Bill’s response to our Video

admin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 22:02:50 +0000