Client Story. It started with Wieden & Kennedy in Portland

My assignment was to help grow a small creative “hot shop” in Portland, Oregon to become a global creative powerhouse.

Cultural context: Portland, Oregon was not an epicenter it was a frontier, independent of the cultures of big cities like New York and San Francisco. WK was a product of Nike and Oregon – fiercely dedicated to creative work, unimpressed by laborious processes and endless meaningless meetings.

Strategic Direction: Position the agency beyond advertising and integrate strategic thinking into our reputation for producing the best creative work in the world:  With the leadership team I wrote “WK creates strong and provocative relationships between good companies and their customers.” We positioned strategy as integral to provocative creative work and drove rapid growth with Nike and new clients worldwide.

Eleven years later the agency was a global creative superstar with offices in Europe, Asia and America. The agency went from 100 people in an old commercial building in downtown Portland to over 1500 people worldwide in creative offices that were magnets for talent. Nike is one of the worlds greatest global brands and WK became an enduring creative inspiration as well as a diversified business.

Where: USA, Netherlands, London, Japan.

With: The Wieden & Kennedy family led by Dan and Dave RIP.