We’re not a traditional advertising agency," says Hal Curtis, a creative director at Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore. "We’re populated by people who are not only passionate about advertising and filmmaking and graphic design, but are passionate about sports."
Creative director Jim Riswold agrees: "I’ve often said that as a sports fan, I’m a kid in a candy store who gets paid to be in the candy store."
For both Riswold and Curtis, W+K wouldn’t be the same "candy store" without Nike. Though they’ve only been working as a team on the account since the summer, Nike has been Curtis’ focus for four of his five years at the agency. And Riswold, a 16-year W+K veteran, helped create such seminal Nike campaigns as "Bo Knows," directed by Joe Pytka of Venice, Calif.-based PYTKA, and "Spike and Mike," helmed by Spike Lee of Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Brooklyn, N.Y.
So, when Nike gave some business to Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, Riswold and Curtis were understandably upset. "That was a difficult period," Curtis recalls. Instead of throwing in the towel, W+K creatives worked overtime to improve their game. "I think the Goodby experience made us appreciate what we and Nike had together," Curtis relates. "We got over the hurt, and decided to do the best we possibly could and not worry about it."
That strategy proved effective. Last November, Nike consolidated its business at W+K. And the agency responded with some of its most innovative work to date—from the Emmy Award-winning spot "The Morning After," to the interactive "whatever.nike.com" campaign, to this summer’s "Why Sport?" ads. W+K also worked on campaigns for the Nike Presto line of sneakers, and for the Shox brand.
As remarkable as 2000 has been, Curtis points out, "the objective of our Nike advertising has never changed. ‘Just do it’—encouraging people to get up off the couch and move their bodies because it’s good for them—is still the foundation of the brand. But how we’ve best been able to achieve that has definitely evolved over the years."
"When I first worked on the account," Riswold remembers, "there was one way to speak to people, and it was very serious. The approach was, ‘We understand your sweat.’ I think a major piece of work in the evolution of Nike was the old ‘Spike and Mike/Mars Blackman’ campaign, because it was the first time humor was used in Nike advertising."
Sports fans
Riswold first became interested in advertising when he was still in college at the University of Washington, Seattle. "One of my school jobs at the time was working part-time for the Seattle Sonics," he recalls. "Working for them got me interested in advertising. At the time, their agency was John Brown and Partners. They’re not around any more, but they were also Nike’s very first advertising agency."
After an internship at McCann-Erickson, Seattle, Riswold worked briefly at some area agencies. "Then, I met Dan Wieden," he says, "and within a month, I moved to Portland." Riswold became a copywriter at W+K, and worked his way up to creative director. "I generally have a habit of sending art directors fleeing for cover," he laughs.
A graduate of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif., Curtis says he "always wanted to work at Wieden+Kennedy—but it took me about four or five years to get here." He started out at the Venice office of Livingston and Company, Seattle, then moved across the country, working at agencies including Pagano, Schenck & Kay, Boston, before heading west to W+K.
One of the pair’s first projects together was the "Why Sport?" campaign—a three-spot package which answered that question in memorably offbeat ways. In "Elephant," directed by Dante Ariola of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films, a group of circus performers clusters around a dying elephant whom they are incapable of helping—until Olympic cyclist and Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong saves the day by giving the pachyderm mouth-to-trunk resuscitation. "Strong lungs," the titles read at the end. "Gladiator," helmed by Tarsem of bicoastal/international @radical.media, depicts a skateboarder successfully battling a Roman gladiator let loose in the city. "Horror," directed by Phil Joanou out of Villains, bicoastal and Chicago, was intended as a parody of slasher movies. The ad generated a considerable amount of controversy before NBC pulled it from its lineup of Olympic spots. According to some observers, the ad was too violent for the games’ family-oriented audience.
Riswold and Curtis—who oversaw art director Scott Vitrone and copywriter Ian Reichenthal on "Horror"—were surprised at the response. Both point out that there is no actual violence in the ad. "Movies like Scream or Urban Legend, where the female doesn’t get away, don’t garner that much criticism," Riswold says. "I find it ironic that NBC pulls the spot, yet still runs advertisements for the aforementioned kind of movie."
"I felt the response to it would be really different, because I found the message to be empowering," Curtis concurs. "To tell the truth, I was much more concerned about ‘The Morning After.’ "
Directed by Spike Jonze of bicoastal/international Satellite, "The Morning After"—which came out in late ’99—depicts a jogger on New Year’s Day, 2000, who obliviously runs past such Y2K images as falling bombs, rampaging looters and escaped zoo animals. "When that thing ran, people were terrified," says Curtis, who served as creative director on the spot along with Chuck McBride, who has since moved to TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco. "Here we were showing all that stuff as real. To me, that was much more frightening than a slasher spoof."
The dark cloud of controversy over "Horror" did have a silver lining, Curtis points out: "After NBC forced us to pull it, several different Web sites posted the ad. It got an incredible number of downloads. Probably more people paid attention to it than if it had run only on TV."
Curtis is familiar with the power of the Web, having acted as creative director alongside Bob Moore on January’s "whatever.nike.com" campaign. Comprising one of the first large-scale advertising campaigns to begin on TV and end on the Web, the spots—"Racing Marion," "Celebrity Cruise," and "Snowball"—utilize shaky, POV-style camerawork to pit the viewer against such formidable athletes as runner Marion Jones, slugger Mark McGwire and snowboarder Rob Kingwill. Directed by Johan Renck of bicoastal HSI, and Stockholm-based Petersson Ackerlund Renck, the chase scenes all had cliffhanger endings, which the viewer could complete by logging on to Nike’s Web site. "The ‘Whatever’ spots were for cross-training shoes," says Curtis. "They’re shoes that allow you to do multiple activities, so we [created] a media version of that." (The ads were written by Dylan Lee and art directed by Andy Fackrell.)
Curtis and Riswold like to make helmers an active part of their team. "When a director looks at your idea in a whole new way, and you agree on it, that’s a fabulous thing," relates Riswold. "You wind up saying, ‘Look. They’re making me appear even smarter than I thought I was.’ "Û
