“We figured out the importance of being stupid” This is how
Dan Wieden, co-founder of the renowned advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy,
describes the key to his agency’s success. The agency is known for its
creative, unconventional ads for companies such as Nike, Old Spice, and
Chrysler.
Advertising is an interesting domain to study in terms of
creativity, because the creative product’s success is determined by how much it
influences the behavior of the audience. Thus, advertising requires a broad
form of creativity that in some ways even transcends differences such as the
different cultural views of creativity Lubart describes as “eastern and
“western.” Creativity in advertising is not only focused on individual
discoveries that are “novel and appropriate,” but also about tapping into
timeless ideas about who people are and presenting them in a fresh way–what
Lubart might consider the “eastern” idea of expressing “an inner essence or
ultimate reality” (Lubart 339-40). Creative ads often involve the
re-imagination of a truth that people inherently understand, but hadn’t thought
of in a particular light before.
For an example, take the advertising Wieden + Kennedy
created for Nike. It was Dan Wieden who came up with the “Just Do It” slogan to
capture Nike’s goal of inspiring ordinary people to participate in sports,
which had previously been associated with professional athletes only. The
simple insight behind this slogan–that people have a million excuses for not
pursuing their goals–resonated so deeply with people that they found
inspiration for their lives in Nike’s advertising that went beyond just getting
out of bed and going for a run. In the documentary Art and Copy, Wieden
and other members of his team recall letters from people saying the campaign
had inspired them to do all sorts of things–pursue their dream job, leave an
abusive partner, ask someone out, and so on. There was a similar result when
two women in the agency, Janet Champ and Charlotte Moore, created a Nike campaign
centered on building women’s self-confidence. They drew on very personal experiences to create ads that reminded women they
didn’t have to be who anyone else expected them to be. The message was so
powerful that mothers were telling the agency that they were showing the ads to
their daughters as a way of reinforcing what they’d tried to teach them about
self-worth. Advertising like this certainly requires new or fresh ideas to catch
the audience’s attention, but at its core it relies on tapping into timeless
human emotions, and reimagining these inner truths in a way that hadn’t been
portrayed in advertising before.
One reason that Wieden and Kennedy were so successful in a business
filled with creative people was the power of their collaboration. As in most advertising partnerships, each
brought particular skills to the table–Wieden was the copywriter who
articulated the message for an ad, and the Kennedy was the designer who
expressed this message in a way that would capture the audience’s attention. They
also brought very different personalities. Wieden is more outgoing and known
for always pushing boundaries, and is the better-known figure of the pair as
the spokesperson and public face of the company. Kennedy may be more in the
shadows (and has since retired from Wieden + Kennedy), but brought fifteen
years of experience in the Chicago advertising world to balance Wieden’s
initial lack of experience working with traditional big-name brands. However, another key factor in their successful partnership is something they had in common. They both hated the self-importance advertising
could take on, and in a 2008 interview,
said that to this day they consider one of their biggest strengths to be the
fact that they had the mentality of outsiders who weren’t “living and breathing
and eating advertising every day.” They loved the work, not the insular culture
or perceived glamour of advertising, and that’s why they started a tiny agency
in Portland, Oregon, far away from the big advertising agencies. They had
nothing to lose when they started working together, and this intrinsic
motivation helped them create advertising that was more authentic and
provocative than many of their competitors. They didn’t care about failing, but
only about the fun of creating work that spoke to people.
Another part of what made Wieden and Kennedy successful–and
continues to make their agency successful–is the organizational culture they
created. In an interview,
Wieden described the agency as a “ship of fools” when they started out. Since
they weren’t located in a major advertising market, the employees they
attracted were almost never top talent. However, he says that the fact that
their agency was “naïve, even stupid” when it came to figuring out how to
advertise successfully ended up being its greatest strength. As he put it,
“when you don’t know, you try desperately to find out, but the minute you think
you know it all, that’s when you start believing your own historic wisdom, and
you’re not stupid anymore, you’re dead.”
It was the goal of remaining curious, driven, and “stupid” that became the soul
of their agency. Wieden recalls that when they realized they couldn’t compete
financially with larger agencies, they decided “to create a culture that’s so
damn weird, so wild, so sticky, that it would hurt your very soul to leave the
place. And that culture, if it’s seen as our highest priority, and nurtured
properly, it just might create the kind of environment that would not only
retain our best people, but inspired them to do the best work of their lives.”
Wieden + Kennedy’s culture is all about authenticity and
taking risks. Their walls don’t feature awards, but pictures of employees that
capture who each person truly is–some are even pictured hanging from trees or
sitting on a toilet. Also prominently displayed is their motto–“fail harder.”
They believe it is the ability to fail that leads to success. Wieden and
Kennedy also interact closely with the other employees and involve them in
decision-making. Even in his retirement, Kennedy comes into the agency several
times a week because he says he would miss the camaraderie and the chance to
work with young, fresh minds rather than his own peers. Thus, the
organization’s culture matches many of the creativity-fostering traits that
Amabile identified in her research, including “encouragement of
risk taking and idea generation, supportive evaluation of ideas, collaborative
idea flow, and participative management and decision making” (McLean 235). Wieden and Kennedy
deliberately set out to build an agency that fosters creativity, and it continued recognition for creative advertising shows that their approach really works.
Additional sources:
On David Kennedy’s role in the agency: http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/david-kennedy-67238/
Wieden + Kennedy agency website: http://www.wk.com/
This was a really great post! I really liked reading about the creativity and thinking behind Wieden + Kennedy's advertisements. I think it's interesting that a lot of the creatives I've looked at and we've learned about have found their most successful products to come from their intrinsic motivation. These two wanted to create a company that was their own and its own unique atmosphere, knowing that they couldn't compete with the large companies but it turned out to be extremely successful, just look at the Nike ad!
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