A few of us from Wieden + Kennedy London spent the last few days over at head office in Portland, Oregon. We joined representatives from the five other W+K offices for a planning session on our founding – and still our largest – client, Nike. We’ve worked with Nike for nearly 25 years, which is an extraordinarily long and strong relationship in this business. And we’d like to keep it that way. So, the reason for the get together was to review ways in which we can continue to surprise and enthuse our clients after all this time. Founder Dan Wieden kicked off proceedings with some introductory remarks.

The Portland office makes W+K London feel like a wee corner shop. Portland is the Death Star, an enormous wood and concrete warehouse built on a massive scale, containing over 300 people. They have a giant totem pole in the cavernous reception area.

(Here are Kim Papworth and Tony Davidson hiding behind it.)

They also have a nest-like meeting room woven from twigs by thousands of tiny birds. (That last bit may not be true.)

One evening after our Nike sessions the London team did a little talk for the agency about what we’re up to in London. We did this in the huge central atrium space. It was a bit like playing the Hollywood bowl. We felt a bit foolish with our little slide show showing our Russian dolls exhibit and Yakult ads. Not that we’re not proud of our Yakult campaign, but none of them knew what Yakult is.

One of highlights of the trip was a visit to the Nike campus at Beaverton.

Not just because we got to shop at the employee store (though that was good) but because we got to visit Tinker Hatfield and his design team at the Nike Innovation Kitchen.

This is the secret lab where they come up with the cool new stuff. The place reminded us a little of W+K – filled with bits and pieces of inspirational stuff – toys, mags, clippings, pics and loads and loads of sneakers. Surprise, surprise – the shoes in the Kitchen seemed a lot more cool than the ones we’d seen for sale in the employee store.

Tinker has been at Nike since the early days. He competed in track and field alongside Steve Prefontaine under the legendary coach and Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman. He and his team are responsible for some of the world’s most iconic sports shoes. It was a real privilege to spend time with him and his people and hear them talk about the inspiration behind their work and what they’re trying to achieve. For our guys, getting this close to the guys who create the shoes is like tapping into the heart and soul of the brand. This kind of connection can result in much more insightful work. (It was a comment from chief engineer at Honda, Kenichi Nagahiro, about how he hated diesel engines, that led to our ‘Hate something, change something’ campaign.) So the couple of hours we spent in the Kitchen really made the trip worthwhile.

People in Portland are weirdly friendly. Strangers will say hello in the street. This can take you by surprise if you’re a Londoner. We were treated to proper Portland hospitality by the W+K folks. Met up with gurus Mark Fenske and Steve Williams.

Ate some great sushi and drank some fine local beers. Interesting menu item: Beeramisu – tiramisu made with beer. The cheesy peas of desserts.

On the last day we were joined by representatives from Nike advertising and marketing. Seemed to be a good session.

Came up with some initiatives for ourselves. Plenty to do when we all return to our respective constituencies and recover from the jet lag.