As a Brit living in Amsterdam for the last 11 years, there are plenty of cultural stereotypes I’ve faced head-on. Like any country, those in the Netherlands are both good and bad, some expected, others surprising. Over the years I’ve worked out all by myself that the Dutch don’t sit on the steps of windmills in clogs, carrying tulips, eating cheese, to watch mice dance. At least, not the Dutch I know. You?

Cultural stereotypes are fascinating. After all, they come from somewhere, right? Recent events in London and other cities in the UK have reinforced the idea that, given the chance, a certain section of the population is a disgraceful rampaging mob of rioters and looters. There was a time when ‘Think football, think British hooligans’ rang true. Last week’s opportunistic civil unrest was shameful. It also seemed to be sponsored by adidas. This blog from Zimbabwe, which has collected random photos, asks a common question: ‘Is Nike pissed off that the recent disturbances aren’t known as the Nike Riots?’ Dutch news site AD.nl headlined a news story ‘Adidas: official sponsor of the London riots’. Type in ‘adidas riots’ into Facebook and you will find six sites immediately devoted to this cause – in both English and Dutch.
It begs another question: how is adidas going to position itself now to successfully shrug off this aggressive and violent image? I’m assuming they want to. Gone are the days when (football) hooliganism went hand in hand with Ben Sherman shirts or Kappa tracksuits. Now we see the distinctive three stripes of adidas emblazoned across looters. Some even have stolen adidas stock in their hands. A proud moment indeed for a global brand which has had its European advertising developed out of Amsterdam for years.
Have a fleet of brand managers, ad agency strategists and the like already swooped into action with a cunning ruse to downplay this hostile ‘sponsored by adidas’ impression? I don’t know. One thing is for sure though – it’s August, which means that the Continent is on holiday. More time for watching TV, reading newspapers and surfing the internet to catch up on the news? More time to gossip and moan about the state of the British nation – and who gave them all those tracksuits, anyway? Maybe. Most holidaymakers, however, seem to have simply unplugged. And there are a lot of them.
In the UK, which has never pretended to be part of Europe, work continues as normal. Offices don’t close, factories continue to send products down a conveyor belt, governments don’t put up a ‘gone fishing’ sign (except the Prime Minister did seem sluggish in finally returning from holiday to deal with London riots). On the Continent? France is closed. Italy is closed. Spain is closed. Even Germany seems to be opening the shop part-time. The Netherlands? It’s somewhere in between. Try getting someone on the phone and you will be lucky to speak to a live human voice.
At my company, FinchFactor, we had a client project which required one journalist from Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and France to attend an exclusive automotive event taking place in Belgium. Now I’m not into cars but even I could see how a heady combination of sports car, race track, stuntman, racing driver, all expenses paid, and the chance to sit in the driving seat could appeal. Big time. “Brilliant, I’m in, when is it?” was the standard response, until we mentioned the mid-August date. “Ah, we’re closed.” Closed? And the journalist didn’t mean just their office, their publication. They meant the country. Try explaining that to a British client based in London. This is one cultural trait found throughout the Continent which I find hard to believe.
Kerrie Finch is the founder of FinchFactor, Europe’s foremost PR consultancy specialised in reputation management for the creative industries.
www.finchfactor.com