For the second straight year, Wieden+Kennedy is SHOOT’s Agency of the Year. In 2009, our coverage provided insights into the inner workings and the creative environment at the agency–and of course the work, delving into the dynamics that went into our selection of W+K. This year, we can encapsulate W+K’s success in a single moment on Sesame Street: Grover doing his rendition of “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” noting at the end that he’s sitting on a horse which turns out to be a four-legged puppet character who let’s out a “moo.” Grover quickly recovers, correcting himself to say that he’s sitting on a cow.
More than the Cannes Film Grand Prix, the best of AICP Show single commercial honor, the primetime Emmy Award and assorted other accolades earned by Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” commercial in 2010, the slice-of-TV-life spoof starring Grover eloquently reflects how great creative can resonate with and engage people, underscoring that W+K’s campaign indeed wove its way into mainstream popular culture.
During the Emmy ceremony, that realization hit home for Tom Kuntz of MJZ who directed “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” with former pro football player Isaiah Mustafa in the title role. Kuntz noted that he was so close to the work that he hadn’t been that cognizant of the campaign earning pop culture status–until he saw Mustafa being treated like a celebrity at the Emmy proceedings. “I found that amazing off of a commercial campaign,” recalled Kuntz. “Other actors recognized him, came up to him, talked to him. He was embraced by his peers as a celebrity. Isaiah is extremely talented and will go on to do more great things–but he already has celeb status. No one looked down on him for not being a film actor. That showed me that our commercial had gained acceptance as–and had become part of–mainstream culture.”
While the TV commercial made the initial major splash, W+K spun out the campaign and give it a much more multi-dimensional feel, among the components being Mustafa in character answering people’s questions and comments on YouTube. This turned a buzz-generating phenomenon–with millions of online views of the original and then the follow-up spot–into more of a two-way dialogue as fans got to interact with “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.”
Since February when the initial commercial debuted (the day after the Super Bowl), there have been two billion-plus impressions for Old Spice which now sports the number one all time most viewed and most subscribed to brand channel on YouTube. The brand’s Twitter following has increased 3,000 percent, Google search is up 2,000 percent, Facebook interactions have risen 800 percent and OS.com traffic has grown 300 percent.
In the process, the campaign has redefined the Old Spice brand, making it more relevant and contemporary, and helping to catapult sales, making Old Spice the number one body wash and deodorant brand.
Another “outsider”
Beyond Grover and Kuntz, another figure from outside W+K–James Moorhead, North American marketing, brand manager for Old Spice–sheds light on why the agency enjoyed such success this year. Speaking during the Association of National Advertisers’ first ever Creativity Conference last week in New York, Moorhead cited the trust in the relationship between agency and client–a trust exemplified in the alluded to dialogue between consumers and Mustafa.
During a three-day blitz, Mustafa starred in 186 responses filmed and then uploaded to YouTube. The responses were produced in a Portland, Ore.-based studio with a team of creatives, digital strategists, community managers, developers and editors from W+K in the same room as Mustafa. Meanwhile, some 3,000 miles away in Boston was Moorhead. On average a new response video was turned out every seven minutes. Some 70 percent of the responses were made to regular consumers; the remaining 30 percent to “celebs” with online followings (Ellen DeGeneres, Alyssa Milano).
“We were on the sidelines reading posts,” related Moorhead, noting that he and his team had trust and confidence in the W+K ensemble’s creative wherewithal and ability to think and work on the fly. In fact, Moorhead said that one of the prime lessons he learned this year based on the overall Old Spice campaign is that “trust between client and agency enables you to be nimble, flexible, timely–key elements for real world success in the digital world.”
Among the two-way conversations fostered during the three-day round robin were a real-life marriage proposal which Mustafa delivered to the prospective bride (she Twittered her acceptance), a tongue-in-cheek flirtatious exchange with actress Alyssa Milano (who posted her own video response to Mustafa), and a political dialogue prompted by Good Morning, America host and former Bill Clinton presidential campaign adviser George Stephanopoulos who asked how President Barack Obama could regain support from female voters. Mustafa’s suggestions included the president changing his wardrobe to a towel as worn by “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” and/or the Commander and Chief changing his speech introduction from “My fellow Americans” to “Hello, ladies.”
Stacked against the most popular virals in their first 24 hours, the most watched were the Mustafa response videos which far outdistanced such online events as Obama’s election victory speech, President George W. Bush dodging a pair of thrown shoes, and the auspicious performance of singer Susan Boyle which made her an international star seemingly overnight.
Outsider turned insider
Continuing with our outside-of-the-agency perspective–except this one comes from someone who became an insider in April when he joined W+K as global interactive executive creative director–is Iain Tait. He served the previous eight years as creative director/head of strategy for London shop Poke. A month after joining W+K, Tait jumped headlong into “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” online responses campaign.
Before coming to W+K, Tait was impressed with what he was hearing from those at the agency who were courting him. “I had talked to a couple of other places who in essence said that they had this digital thing sorted out, needed to tweak it here and there, and that I could help,” recalled Tait. “By contrast, what I heard from Wieden was more along the lines of ‘we have no idea what’s going on but will have fun figuring it out.’ That sense of constantly questioning what’s happening and never really feeling like they have the whole thing figured out drew me in. Technology and the landscape mutates at an incredible rate of speed. That sense of thriving on chaos is what I saw as making this agency special.”
Once he was inside W+K, Tait found that mindset motivating and at the same time serving to make things simpler. “It might sound that it was daunting to jump right into this digital part of the campaign. But, I was surrounded by a bunch of people who had created a phenomenal campaign already. This was terrific talent I could trust and rely on. It was easy and the next natural step for me was to bring in the dynamic of a two-way conversation, an online responses campaign. What struck me about everyone’s attitude is how quickly they were on board, from the creatives to the producer to the account people and strategists. Instead of hearing ‘the client will never buy it,’ I felt a sense of anything you can imagine is possible. This makes this agency an incredibly exciting place to be at and it’s a feeling that scales right through the entire organization.”
Going into W+K, Tait recalled that one of his concerns was that “there would be very experienced, seasoned people there who were not all that excited or enthused by what’s going on in digital. What I’ve found is just the opposite. The people here are excited and passionate about the opportunities that digital presents. To be able to take what these people are so amazing at and work with it in a new way through digital has been wonderful. It taking what the agency is amazing at and multiplying it by the power of the Internet. This all goes back to my first conversation with Dan [Wieden, co-founder/CEO/global exec creative director]. He told me what really motivates the agency is impacting mainstream culture. It’s stopped being about advertising and instead became about impacting what people talk about, the way they think and behave, being a positive cultural influence. Digital and associated technologies help give you the opportunity to do that in a participatory manner.”
In SHOOT’s “Then and Now” series, Wieden earlier this year talked about how the road an agency travels has changed–for the better. “Back in the day,” he said, “I used to complain quite a bit about our industry being very much reminiscent of a cul-de-sac. You were always in the same neighborhood, going in a circle, pulling into one driveway and then the next–without any real difference between driveways. Well, those days of complaining are long gone for me.
“So much has been said of the rise of the digital class, the impact of social media and how these developments have changed everything,” he continued. “What is so interesting to me is that this whole technological revolution is shaking so many economic and business models to their very foundation. It’s like we’re doing business in the middle of an earthquake where you appreciate just having a base of operation from which to work and observe–a tent and clean water so to speak. But the fact is that this is probably the most exciting time ever in the business. No more cul-de-sacs–now we have a whole new frontier to work in, to innovate and in which to connect with people.”
Games face
Old Spice wasn’t the only Procter & Gamble success story at W+K this year–the other notable undertaking being sponsorship of the 2010 Winter Olympics spanning 18 P&G brands. But rather than work heralding sponsorship of the Games, the decision was made to sponsor the Moms of Team USA athletes. A Pampers spot, for example, noted that “before they [American athletes] were wearing Gold, Silver or Bronze, they were wearing diapers…Thank you, Mom.”
Spots drove traffic to ThankYouMom.com where people could express appreciation for their mothers.
P&G also built a center in Vancouver, B.C., for Olympic family members to stay at during the Games–and paid for every Team USA Mom to attend the Olympics. This created a village of goodwill for Team USA family members, and this positive spirit was evident in the overall campaign which generated during the 17 days of the Games some 50,000 tweets about the work, 400,000 new Facebook friends, and an estimated $130 million in incremental sales of P&G products.
This marked P&G’s first sponsorship of the Olympics. Now W&K is working on the upcoming Special Olympics as well as the 2012 Summer Olympics in London for P&G. Incidentally, the Old Spice and 2010 Winter Olympics campaigns also helped P&G earn distinction as SHOOT’s 2010 Creative Marketer of the Year (see separate story).
Community
Another spirit of community–but of a decidedly different nature and for a distinctively different reason–also was evident in W+K’s 2010 campaign for Levi’s. Following the advice and campaign mantra unfurled on a banner in last year’s anthem commercial “America” for Levi’s, W+K decided to indeed “Go Forth” for the client in 2010 in search of people who’ve adopted a pioneering spirit to work through adversity. W+K’s search led to Braddock, Pennsylvania, a town embodying the demise of the blue collar base that is now mobilizing to again gain traction.
Mayor John Fetterman has enlisted the help of residents to serve as modern pioneers–artists, craftsmen, musicians, business owners–to rebuild and revive the community. This rebuilding process has made Braddock somewhat of a model for how any city can pull itself and its people up, providing a semblance of inspiration and hope for other towns hit hard by the recession.
Thus Braddock is where Levi’s “Ready to Work” multimedia campaign for its Ready to Work Wear is situated. A centerpiece of the integrated effort was the launch film “To Work” directed by John Hillcoat of production house Skunk in the U.S. and Stink in London. Feature filmmaker Hillcoat’s credits include such movies as The Proposition and The Road, the latter (based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road written by Cormac McCarthy) having been shot in Braddock.
With a cast of Braddock residents, “To Work” starts out like a look at yesteryear, spanning the 1830s to 1930s. Then as dawn comes up, viewers begin to see that the pioneers they’re witnessing are real people in a real place and are not only wholly relevant to today, but are today’s people.
The simple yet poignant narration of a girl takes us through the years. She notes, “A long time ago, things got broken here. People got sad and left.”
She observes, though, a silver lining: “Maybe the world breaks on purpose so we have work to do.”
The time for that work is now. Pushing past a door and onto a Braddock street, the girl tells us, “Some people think there aren’t frontiers anymore. They can’t see how the frontiers are all around us.”
Similarly and fittingly, “To Work” represented a new filmmaking frontier for Hillcoat, who decided to “Go Forth” into advertising. “To Work” was his spot directing debut.
Hillcoat had been looking to extend his reach into the ad arena. With roots in music videos, he diversified into feature filmmaking and in recent years started to become interested in commercials, particularly the work being done by such notables as Frank Budgen and Spike Jonze. “In many ways, commercials are now dealing with more storytelling than music videos. I wanted very much to try my hand at it and that’s how Levi’s came about. My understanding is that the agency was drawn to my film work, both The Proposition and The Road. Both are in a way frontier films, and there’s a heightened realism to them, a lyrical quality. The agency wanted this lyrical feel with real people and real locations. Then there was the additional connection of Braddock when they heard about The Road having been shot there.”
For Hillcoat, the spot was a chance to reflect a side of Braddock he had to avoid in filming The Road. The feature reflected the town’s urban blight in order to capture what the storyline demanded–a post-apocalyptic world. “The demise of the steel industry and the other businesses that have downsized created a lot of unemployment in Braddock, a city which during its heyday was one of America’s wealthiest,” related Hillcoat. “We saw abandoned areas, homes going for $5,000, with some having signs asking prospective buyers to just ‘make an offer.’ At one point, 90 percent of the population had vacated. But what I remember most about the town is that the people of Braddock and Pittsburgh were brilliant, caring, helpful–without any kind of ulterior motive. Despite the dire sum of circumstances, there is an incredible spirit there. They even showed an uncanny dark humor about the fact that we picked their neighborhood for the apocalypse. We saw another side of Braddock that we couldn’t reflect in The Road. The opportunity to go back there and work with some of the same people and show some of the same locations, the small businesses trying to make a go of it, to show the community in a different light was a real treat. I’m a humanist at heart. What we were aiming for with Levi’s was ambitious–an uplifting emotional resonance in a short span of time. The imagery and the people in Braddock enabled us to do that.”
The campaign includes We Are All Workers, documentary portraits of people and businesses in Braddock. The documentaries sprung out of Levi’s in association with IFC and the Sundance Channel.
Levi’s too is investing in Braddock, funding a new community center and library. The Braddock campaign–which has struck a responsive chord in today’s economy–generated a nearly 1,180 percent increase in Levi’s Facebook fan base.
“Human Chain”
While the economy served as an undercurrent to the Levi’s work in Braddock, so too did it serve as a catalyst of a different sort for Nike. Economic woes had Nike detouring somewhat from “Just Do It” to more product-driven advertising last year and into 2010. But changing that and representing a return to athlete-led broadcast was “The Human Chain.” which showcased multiple tracked images of individual star athletes that bond with each other to form a human chain of artistry and athleticism. The spot was one of three which earned primetime commercial Emmy nominations for W+K in 2010–the others being Coca-Cola’s “Finals” and Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” which won the Emmy.
Most recently tapping into the athlete as star vein in a major way was the LeBron James tour de force “Rise,” a Nike :90 which tackled the superstar’s eroding popularity in some people’s minds as he asks us “What should I do?” “Rise” became the #1 most viewed online sports video during the week of a campaign launch, generating some 2.6 million views on YouTube.
Even work that wasn’t favorably received across the board garnered pop culture attention–namely “Earl and Tiger,” the first spot in which Tiger Woods appeared following his public fall from grace. With narration from Tiger’s late father, the video was seen on newscasts and TV shows as well as online around the world, reaching some 200 million people globally in one week.
Lab work
Also in the sports vein, W+K teamed with ESPN on its Social Media Lab, a 7/24 proposition which has staffers posting, blogging, Tweeting, and creating videos in real time, all the time, about stories important to fans.
ESPN saw a 340 percent increase in its Facebook fans from 500,000 to 2.2 million. Those 2.2 million are from some 18 countries. Plus the Social Media Lab has thus far tallied more than 700,000 total interactions.
On Target
Back to the economy, which also factored into W+K’s strategy for Target, which had evolved in recent years to more of a department store than a low-price retailer. Fiscal reality dictated a return to the latter with a “real lives, low prices” tact as part of the “life’s a moving Target” campaign.
Deploying a co-op dollars approach, Target’s “Everyday” campaign triggered sales increases for featured products carried in the store.
Yet with all these dollar-driven considerations, W+K has injected humor into the mix, the most recent example being Target’s 2-Day Sale campaign in which comedian Maria Bamford is featured as an overachieving Target shopper obsessed with Xmas.
This year as Target’s agency of record, W+K saw a quadrupling in billings from the client.
Also on the business front, new accounts for W+K included the Portland office garnering Dodge and since then also getting awarded Jeep, while Nokia North America landed at W+K New York. Handling North America for Levi’s and P&G, W+K added global responsibilities. Diet Coke digital and Coca-Cola teen digital business also came aboard the W+K client roster.
W+K debuted with Dodge on the Super Bowl, turning out “Man’s Last Stand” for the Charger, and later in the year evoked George Washington for Dodge Challenger’s “Freedom.”
Again, W+K thrived in both art and commerce this year, the former including three Grand Prixs at Cannes–the aforementioned Film Grand Prix for “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like,” as well as the Cyber and integrated Grand Prix honors for the ’09 Nike Livestrong “Chalkbot” initiative.
W+K’s Portland office also claimed a slot in the top three for each of 2010 Cannes’ special award categories: Independent Agency of the Year, Agency of the Year, and Interactive Agency of the Year.
Immediately after Cannes’ conclusion, agency co-founder Wieden said, “We not only shook the digital tree, we rattled damn near every category we entered this year. But this isn’t about the actual awards. This is about our ability as a network to redefine ourselves. To look where we are and look where we need to be and frickin’ get there. And trust me, we are not done yet.”
