De Surinaamse Gids — Dat hebben we.

De Surinaamse Gids brings restaurants, events, culture and local businesses together in one place. The challenge was to give visitors a reason to start with the guide when they already had a phone full of maps, blogs and recommendations.

We built the film around a question those visitors would recognize: I’m here. Now where do I start?

A traveler lands at Zanderij and spends the ride into Paramaribo trying to find her bearings on her phone. The guide keeps turning up around her: on a poster, in a radio spot and on a red polo shirt in a shop. The audience pieces the clues together before she does. By the time she asks why nobody told her sooner, the city has been telling her the whole way.

That’s the joke behind Dat hebben we. In Dutch, it can mean “We have that,” a promise from a guide that brings so much together, or “We did,” the answer to the traveler’s question. One line does both jobs.

We wanted to show how a visitor’s image of Suriname changes when she looks up from her phone. The ride into Paramaribo brings everyday life into view: people at work, neighborhood shops and local food. The city she was trying to navigate becomes a place she wants to get to know.

The payoff comes in the back seat. The traveler who couldn’t decide where to go is now grinning among Surinamese flags, her arms full of local snacks. The driver’s dry reaction gives the scene its humor. She’s found a place to start, and she already has a story to tell.

Concept development, treatment and script · Suleigha Winkel, Markoesa Consultancy

We developed the commercial concept and wrote the treatment and script. We decided when to reveal the guide, how to show it without interrupting the story, and how to make the campaign’s promise visible in a single shot.