shots Awards 2015: Agency of The Year

AGENCY OF THE YEAR: Wieden+Kennedy London

W+K London has produced an impressive body of work over the past 12 months. Can you feel, over a period of time, when the company is really firing on all cylinders?

Tony Davidson [co-ECD]: In any agency you have good years and not so good years. The important thing is to maintain the right culture and have a clear mission that everybody gets behind. You also need to have great clients that want to challenge the status quo and do remarkable work.

Iain Tait [co-ECD]: I think you can tell when the company is firing on all cylinders on an hourly basis. Every day has a confusing mishmash of things going well, projects being cancelled, everything being awesome, and then not. I think it’s safest to assume that nothing is going well all the time. Then you might be pleasantly surprised. (Insert winky face.)

To what do you attribute the agency’s success?

Davidson: The culture and the people. The people who work here care a lot about the work, but they care equally as much about other people. There’s not much hierarchy at Wieden+Kennedy London and everybody wants everybody to do well.

Independence is another major factor. I think it is sad that so many agencies have sold themselves. In general I don’t believe that large holding companies are good for creativity. When companies get bought I rarely see them flourish. The industry felt far more creative when it was run by creative people. Dan Wieden has set up a structure whereby the agency can never be sold.

Tait: Which makes things really simple. We’re all just here – employees and clients – to make the best work of our lives. It’s a high bar to set, and that comes with downsides. But we encourage everyone to approach every project with the belief that this can be the best thing we’ve ever done. There are no poor cousins.

Is London still one of – if not the – creative capital(s) of the world when it comes to advertising?

Tait: I think London is undoubtedly one of the creative capitals of the world. But I think the more important question is whether advertising is the place where the most exciting kind of creativity is happening? That’s the thing that keeps me up at night.

Davidson: If you are in the right kind of creative company I think you can do good work from anywhere. Obviously there are markets that are more sophisticated than others, but if you are truly creative this shouldn’t stop you. In recent times I think London has thrived in art, architecture, food culture and technology more than it has advertising. Having other creative cultures around you should inspire you to be more creative. The only negative with London is that it is in danger of pricing itself out of the ‘creative market’ due to rising living costs.  

W+K London recently worked with Citizens UK on their Good Jobs campaign, which connects employers and young people. How important is it for the agency (and the industry as a whole) to attract new talent from a really diverse range of backgrounds?

Davidson: Wieden+Kennedy was founded in 1982 in Portland, Oregon. Because of this they found it hard to attract advertising talent and were forced to hire ‘outsiders’. Ever since then the company has tried to seek out the ‘oddballs’, the ‘misfits’, those deeply creative folks that never thought a role in advertising could work for them. The truth is that our industry is currently far too middle-class and white, and is desperately in need of diversity of every kind.

Tait: Today there are so many more places to be creative and put interesting stuff out into the world. So we need to make sure that we’re the most amazing place for bright young (and old) things of all shapes and sizes to come and work. Which takes continual focus and effort. I worry that advertising has become a place where people who want to work in advertising and went to advertising school go. And if we keep fishing from the same pool it’s not going to end well.

W+K’s shortlisted work covers quite a broad range – interactive, social and film – is that mix something the agency specifically aims for?

Tait: I don’t think it’s a conscious thing. We just look for interesting, appropriate and creatively exciting ways to solve problems for our clients. I think the only type of work that we actively discourage is the fakey stuff that’s specifically aimed at award shows.

Davidson: We have a ‘Wiedenism’ in our lobby that says ‘Walk In Stupid’. This points to the fact that whatever business problem walks into the building, there’s no set way of solving it. In today’s world there are so many options as to how you might solve that problem that it is important you and your clients keep an open mind and don’t immediately jump to conclusions about anything, especially media.

One of the shortlisted campaigns, Finish Dishes, was described in a recent Guardian article as ‘one of the most gender-progressive campaigns of 2015’ [for going beyond the issue of who does the washing up]. How much progress has been made by the industry in tackling gender inequality issues?

Davidson: There’s a ton of ‘inequality’ work around at the moment, which is no bad thing! But eventually we need to move on and just treat everyone as equal. Actioning it is what needs to happen. Equality needs to be the norm across the board in many industries and countries. Without it, society is missing out on important voices that could hugely benefit it.

Tait: I think we all need to look much closer to home in terms of gender inequality issues. There’s so much imbalance and deeply ingrained bias in the way that the world functions. Simply putting out some marginally more progressive messaging – although commendable – is nowhere near enough. I think every senior bloke in the industry should be forced to have a daughter, things would change pretty fast. I know it worked for me – times two.

One of the judges said W+K London “cranks out giant multiplatform ideas anchored by best in class film over and over again… Unformulaic and hilarious”. Do you think that’s an accurate description of the agency’s output?

Davidson: Interesting description! I think we do have a love of big ideas. So much advertising these days seems to be instantly disposable one-off ideas. I still believe in a long-term brand strategy with strong foundations that can flex to any media. Film is something that we have built our reputation on. And we’re excited by all the new opportunities to evolve emotional filmic storytelling.

Tait: That’s pretty flattering. I think if you’re not doing ‘giant multiplatform ideas’ then you’re not really helping. There’s tons of people out there who can do a really stellar ‘ad’ or ‘experience’ or whatever. But it’s helping companies figure out who they are, and how to put themselves out there that’s exciting. Once you’ve done that groundwork, then you can start to be unformulaic and hilarious.

Which piece of work from the past 12 months have you most enjoyed seeing come to fruition?

Davidson: Honda Civic Type R The Other Side would have to be up there. It was a long process as the brief kept changing. A lot of good ideas bit the dust along the way, but the end result was worth it. I loved the simplicity of the interaction. There is some interesting new work in the pipeline that we hope can land in culture and get talked about.

Tait: I don’t like to pick favourites. Everything we do that goes out into the world pleases me immensely.

What does winning Agency Of The Year at the shots Awards mean to you?

Davidson: Everyone likes to be recognised and we are no different. To be awarded Agency Of The Year is a huge accolade when you consider the amount of competition. So a huge thank you to everyone who voted for us. As an organisation we try not to chase awards.

Our industry stands accused of awarding itself awards rather than creating work that has genuinely affected culture and made a difference. We have a statue of Saint Sebastian made from awards in our building with the message ‘Beware the trophy hunters’ to remind people of this.  All we have ever tried to do at W+K is genuinely attempt to do the best work for our clients.  

Tait: It’s always nice to think that people like what we do. Thank you! Hope we can keep it up.