And so this is Christmas (nearly). And what have we done?
There goes another year, and another decade. Time to gather round the yule log
wearing a paper hat, with a mince pie and a mug of foaming eggnog, to reflect
on time gone by.
We had a tricky start to the decade at W+K London. In fact, looking back, the agency's survival seems
to have been in question. But we did survive and we finished
'the noughties' as the agency responsible for the Campaign's 'campaign of the
decade' - Honda Power of Dreams. And this was noted not just in the UK. Adweek
said Grrr was ‘Ad of the decade’ – and it never even ran in the USA.
Advertising Age agreed and included it in their top ten best TV ads of the
decade. Campaign also included Honda 'Grrr' and 'Cog' in their top ten best TV ads of the decade and 'Cog' was number 4 in ITV's top ten of the decade.
If that’s not living up to our goal of ‘best work of our
lives’, I don’t know what is.
So, since everyone else is reviewing the decade, let's go
back in time to look at W+K London 1999-2009 - the highs, the lows, the
laughter, the tears, etc, etc.
1999: Campaign wrote in July: "W&K’s London office has been beset with difficulties since
opening amid great fanfare last year. As well as MD Mike Perry, it has lost its
original joint creative director, Nick Gill, who quit for M&C Saatchi after
just six months; Alison Hoad, the original planning director, who is now at
Lowe Howard-Spink; and more recently Rob Forshaw, the client services director,
who leaves the agency this week." At this stage, the agency was deemed
too insignificant to feature in the annual school reports.
2000: School
Report: “The jury is still out on whether
W+K will ever make its presence felt in London. Its problems continue to centre
on its inability to retain new staff and a dismal new business record...the
year got off to the worst possible start.”
2001 - Campaign
School Report: "If you were to
believe the rumour mongers, then W+K shouldn't still be knocking around
London...the agency lost The Cartoon Network and there were few wins." (We
did win Virgin Interactive Entertainment, though I have to admit I don't recall
ever seeing any work we did for them.) Creative
Directors Tony and Kim join. Nation rejoices.
2002 - Campaign
School Report: "A comparatively good
year, highlighted by some impressive creative and the £20million Honda
win". Nike Run London launches; Ben and Matt join. Russell Davies
moves over from Portland as Planning Director.
2003 - Campaign:
"Wins were not enormous...W+K has
had a turbulent time since its UK launch in 1998." Honda 'Cog' wins
gold at Cannes and "has already
taken its place in the pantheon of the greatest ads in British history";
MD Amy Lawson departs; we win Aiwa globally.
2004 - MD
Christie joins. Honda named Campaign advertiser of the year; British TV Awards
Ad of the Year for 'Cog', plus 4 further golds; Grand Prix at Andys; Clio Grand
Prix; 2 black pencils and 7 more pencils at D&AD; top gong at Creative
Circle; gold at Cannes for Honda Civic 'Everyday'. W+K London is the second
most awarded agency in the world in 2004, according to The Gunn Report, with
Cog the world's most awarded TV ad and Civic Everyday the world's 4th most
awarded. We win Wales Tourist Board and an international Persil project. Major
digital campaigns launched for Aiwa and Honda, 'Goodbye hoof' magazine and
documentary launched for Nike. Campaign: "W+K
has passed an important milestone in its evolution and has reached that
often-difficult growth stage of mid-size."
2005 - BTAA Ad
of the Year (Grrr); Clio Grand Prix; Epica D'Or, Cannes Titanium Lion and Film Grand
Prix, 2 x Gold at IPA Effectiveness; IPA ‘Best of the Best’ Agency of the Year;
Grand Prix at Andys; APG Grand Prix; Best Travel & Leisure Campaign for
Nike 'Go nocturnal' at Media Awards. We win Pizza Hut, EA Games, Space.NK, Yakult
and make it onto the COI roster. We win and lose Sky One after a brief and
unhappy relationship. New work includes Honda 'Impossible Dream'. Russell
Davies leaves for Nike and Stu Smith steps up to take his place. Simon
Summerscales joins from Naked to lead comms planning. Voted 2nd most desirable
agency to work at in Campaign survey. Neil listed in Guardian's list of top 10
'most powerful people in advertising'. WK Side talent scheme launched. We slip
to 7th most awarded agency in the world in The Gunn Report but come top of the
AAR's pitch conversion league table. And we move into our current home at
Hanbury Street in London's fashionable east end. Campaign: "More outstanding campaigns for Honda...the agency has cracked it
again. W+K is a small agency capable of handling big clients while producing
some of the best work in London."
2006 – Campaign
- "W+K begins to look like a more
balanced operation... in many ways the agency is a victim of its own success,
since anything less than a Cannes Grand Prix looks like failure." Honda
'Choir' launches and is the first ad ever to hit the iTunes top 30.
W+K
worldwide named Ad Age agency of the year. We win The Guardian, Lurpak,
Cravendale, Emeco, Nokia Flagship stores and Orange Romania; 2 golds at Cannes for Honda 'Choir' and
'Impossible Dream'; British TV Awards Ad of the Year for the third year running
(for Honda 'Impossible Dream' this time); 3 further golds and 2 silvers at BTAA,
Clio Grand Prix; pencil at D&AD for our xmas bin-bags; Grand Prix at Andys;
Nike 'Joga bonito' football campaign launches; Nike Saint Wayne captures the
mood of the country and wins best poster of the year at Campaign Posters and
best press ad of the year at ANNAs; Nike Run London 'north vs south' launches;
Tony D elected president of D&AD; according to the Gunn Report we are the
world's sixth most awarded agency in 2006; Honda 'museum' campaign featuring
robot Asimo launches; performance rated ‘excellent’ by Campaign, which makes
W+K its runner-up network of the year. "The
agency really is on a roll," says The Independent.
2007 - Campaign
- "With a reputation already at the
cutting edge of creativity, 2007 was the year when W+K also validated its
network credentials... The minnow took on and defeated network juggernauts...showing
that the micro-network was shaping a different vision of the future." We
lose Yakult and win Nokia and Save the Children, win The Observer, win and lose
again Visa World Cup; we launch the cow/pirate/cyclist campaign for Cravendale,
create digital campaigns for Nike, Honda, Save the Children, Visit Wales and
Emeco and the interactive 'meet your city' campaign for Nokia; Honda: Advertiser
of the Year – Cannes; Campaign Posters – Best Poster of the Year (Saint Wayne);
Campaign Press and National Press Awards – Best Press ad of the Year (Saint
Wayne); golds at the Andys for Honda 'museum' and 'Choir; pencils at D&AD
for Nike and Honda; W+K named most successful agency at Montreux Golden Awards;
Nike Run London and Hondamentalism win at Campaign Digital Awards; overall
winners at Film4 Director's Cut Awards; golds at Midsummer Awards for
Cravendale and Orange; Run London best integrated campaign at Sports Industry Awards;
top of AAR's pitch conversion league table again; Hondamentalism campaign
launches; The Guardian says, "Honda
and agency Wieden + Kennedy continue to experiment on behalf of the industry
and continue to show how intelligent, original work can overcome all the
current question marks about advertising and its ability to impact commercially
and culturally." We create the 'not without a fight' campaign for Nike
and the England rugby team and design the Christmas lights on Regent Street for
Nokia; Tony and Kim listed amongst Creativity magazine's top 50 inspiring
people; W+K ranked second in Boards magazine's list of best global agencies; we
build an extra floor on the building to accommodate our growth; massive piss-up
in Amsterdam to celebrate 25th anniversary of the founding of W+K; No 1 best
Agency to work for - Campaign Magazine; Adweek Global Agency of the Year; we
slip from the top spot to second in the AAR's pitch conversion league table but
are given 'outstanding' status by Sunday Times 100 Best Companies ranking. All
this and the Honda Choir performed at the Oscars ceremony.
2008 - New work includes for Nokia - Music
Almighty, PhoNtography and Supernova; for Honda
'problem playground', the Honda 'jump' campaign and live skydive ad; Nike Human
Race and the Nike Live TV show with Cesc Fabregas. We resign Pizza Hut; we
celebrate the tenth birthday of W+K London; W+K wins Honda green initiative for
EMEA; we pitch and win the global Nokia Nseries business; Martin Cole joins as
planning director, replacing Stuart, who goes to Google Labs; No 1 best Agency to work for - Campaign Magazine; no. 31 in Sunday
Times 100 Best Companies.
2009 - We
entered the year with a lot of economic caution. We knew that 2009 was not
going to be easy. In an attempt to
avoid making layoffs and to prepare for the increasingly weak economy, we froze
all salaries early in the year.
The W+K Partner Group took a 10% pay cut and we also enacted stronger
discipline throughout the network to keep our operating costs in check. These financial moves, along with some new business wins
have put us in a pretty good position at year-end; better than we expected. And
better than most of our competitors - with some of the industry's most
respected and successful agencies being forced to make big rounds of redundancies.
It’s tough out there.
Our advantage is that we are an independent agency without
some holding company telling us what we can or can't do. So we don't have
shareholders breathing down our necks when things get challenging. This is a huge
benefit to all our people.
So, our business is commercially sound and we can be
cautiously optimistic about the future, but the numbers aren't the most important
thing - we are only as good as the work we do. Creativity is still our number one asset. This hasn't been
an easy year in which to do great work but we have still done a lot to be proud
of.
Our Nike 5 work was just named best digital campaign of the
year by Campaign.
And our Guardian 'Classic Comics' work was named best press
campaign.
Honda 'iron' was listed in their ten best posters of the year.
Plus, a ton of other stuff happened in 2009, including:
- We successfully launched Platform, our experimental creative
incubator, bringing in a bunch of young talent from round the world
- Sadly, we lost planning director Martin Cole to cancer. He
is much missed.
- We pitched and won the COI underage drinking account
- We pitched and won the Nestea global account
- We pitched and won the brief to create the installation
for Selfridges' 100th anniversary window display.
- We pitched and won the Fairtrade Foundation account.
- We created the interactive brand identity for the Onedotzero
digital festival
- We launched our own range of designer jewellery - Plot -
with pieces based on data
- We launched our own products, including the Dan Wieden musical
ruler, a novelty salt cellar and Christmas pudding bin bags. Revenue is now
coming in from sales of these products and the bin bags have sold out.
- We
won gold at One Show Interactive for Nokia and silver for Nike 'Paula chasing'.
- We created a series of poetic print ads for Honda to
announce the reopening of the Swindon factory.
- We expanded across the road into a new, additional
building
- We got a series of ‘pick of week’ and ‘best in show’ mentions
for new work on Lurpak and Cravendale.
- We got two silvers at the APG Awards for Nike 5 and Nokia
Supernova.
- We pitched and retained the integrated Visit Wales account,
and won extra business from Wales on Ryder Cup and the literacy/basic skills
project
- We pitched and won Arla Lactofree, so that was an overall
pitch conversion of six out of seven. (We lost the Arla international pitch.)
Not bad at all.
- We did some interesting 'non-traditional' projects like
the live streaming of the Dead Weather gig and the David Bailey 'Alive at
Night' exhibition for Nokia UK.
- We curated a series of art exhibitions, including 'this is
why we meet', in association with artists Pat and Trevor and the University of
the Arts London.
- We created a technically amazing video promo using
thousands of individual still photos for dance-punk anthem 'You Came Out' by We
Have Band.
- We continued to do stuff for our local community, working
with Cardboard Citizens and Spitalfields Music Festival.
- We consolidated our relationship with Nokia, were awarded
the My First Nokia business and did a ton of work for Nokia round the world.
- We finally saw the Nike 'Spirit of Highbury' permanent installation
go up at Arsenal's Emirates stadium.
- We hosted a series of fascinating talks by inspiring
visiting speakers
- Kim turned 50
- Sophie P had twins and various other W+Kers had babies
- Oliver ran 40km in 4 and a half hours for charity
- Colman and Chesters took over as joint heads of planning.
- We brought in a whole bunch of smart, talented new people.
- We put almost everyone in the agency through the Hyper
Island Digital Masterclass to ensure that we keep at the forefront of
understanding of interactivity and how it affects our clients' businesses.
- We all grew moustaches for November
- This blog exceeded one million page views.
- We finished the year with a cracking new Honda campaign
for the Civic, 'Everything we do'.
It’s been a busy year. And we have new campaigns in production for Nokia, Lurpak,
COI, Cravendale, Honda and Lactofree that will break in the new year. No wonder we all feel knackered! But we've
achieved a hell of a lot and it's only a few days now until we break for
Christmas holidays.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
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