Today the Netherlands State Lottery (Staatsloterij) revealed ‘the biggest congratulation card in the Netherlands.’ The card, with dimensions of 5 by 6 metres, was made in honour of Queen Beatrix’ 25 year jubilee in office. At the same time, the presentation of the congratulation card formed the kick-off for the Queen’s Day Lottery.

The card was revealed in Madurodam. Staatsloterij Live! presenters Carlo Boszhard and Chantal Janzen were the first to write their messages of congratulation to the Queen on the card.

The Netherlands’ largest congratulation card is a concept of Linden & Barbosa. L&B always looks for the ultimate attention-generating kick-off with accompanying media interest. The revelation can be seen tonight on RTL Boulevard (18.30 hours). Photos of the revelation will be published in De Telegraaf (national daily), society magazines and in regional papers in The Hague.

In the run-up to the draw of the Queen’s Day Lottery on the coming 30 April, the card will tour a number of Dutch cities and towns: Groningen (Grote Markt, 7 April), Amsterdam (Dam,14 April), Utrecht (Vredenburg,21 April), Maastricht (Vismarkt, 28 April) before finally arriving in Scheveningen on Queen’s Day (where the Queen will be visiting that day). With the card, the State Lottery is giving the entire Dutch population an opportunity to send the Queen a personal message of congratulations.

On 29 March, the B.I.G. team visited the O.R.S. Lek en Linge school in Culemborg. B.I.G. stands for Ban Illegal Games & Software. Linden & Barbosa was responsible for creating press attention for this special visit.

The B.I.G. offline detectives arrived on the school grounds around noon. During the break from 12.30 to 13.00 they provided information in the canteen and played a quiz with the pupils. The school in Culemborg is the first in a line of schools the B.I.G. team will be visiting in the coming weeks. Immediately following the start of the campaign schools spontaneously began to register for a visit.

The preliminary notification of the event was taken up by the Gelderlander and Utrechts Nieuwsblad regional dailies. The Hart van Nederland TV show dedicated a 2-minute item to the B.I.G. team. Quality daily NRC Handelsblad, free paper Metro, as well as Radio 1 op de Middag and Radio 3 FM gave coverage to this item.

Our client NVPI is the sector organisation for the entertainment industry. NVPI started the B.I.G. campaign to lower social tolerance of downloading and copying games and other software. Over 67% of Dutch young persons between the ages of 12 and 19 see obtaining copies and copying games and other software as completely normal, whereas distributing or selling this type of copy is illegal and seriously damages the industry.