Wieden + Kennedy took home three
Grand Prix trophies this week at the Cannes advertising festival, one for Old
Spice in the film category, the other two for Nike in the cyber and integrated
contests.

Nike ‘Chalkbot’ by Wieden +
Kennedy Portland was awarded Cyber Lion Grand Prix in Interactive. The campaign
was acclaimed as a prime
example of two themes that emerged from the best work seen during the judging
process: invisible technology and "real-time" interaction. The
greatest innovations supported "this notion that technology will reach its
peak when you don't even realize it's there," said Jury President Jeff
Benjamin (of Crispin Porter Bogusky). "The stuff that was so innovative
was the stuff that seemed magical. It had technology, but that's not what was
showing." 

The Nike's Livestrong campaign, of which Chalkbot was a part, took home the integrated Grand Prix. The campaign incorporated everything from events, outdoor, online,
web films, and "Chalkbot”. "We saw brilliant work
in every aspect of the campaign – print, broadband, an event and specifically
Chalkbot, that in itself showed true innovation in numerous channels,"
said Jury President Bob Greenberg. "The execution was flawless in every
way shape and form and we voted unanimously." And while
"Chalkbot" has been the most celebrated aspect of the campaign so
far, some jurors found the campaign's most brilliant component to be its
opening gambit — Armstrong's decision to return to the Tour De France in the
name of Livestrong.

"We have
to look at that as part of the advertising," said juror Rob Reilly, CCO of
Crispin, Porter & Bogusky. "That's where integration is going. It's
not just another TV spot. His coming back was a calculated move to start this
campaign. To me, that's the most important part. Chalkbot is an incredible
tool, but the decision to come back in the first place, as a marketing idea, is
brilliant."

The Grand Prix for film at this
year's Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival was awarded to a TV
commercial for Old Spice, "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like", also by
Wieden & Kennedy, Portland.

"It took an old, sleepy brand and woke it up,
and overnight wove its way into popular culture," said jury President Mark
Tutssel, global chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide. He noted that
the commercial showed "the power of creativity to ignite a sleeping
giant."

We're on a horse!

Little
attention has been paid to ignorance as a precious resource. Unlike knowledge,
which is infinitely reusable, ignorance is a one-shot deal: once it has been
replaced by knowledge, it can be hard to get back. And after it’s gone, we are
more apt to follow well-worn paths to find answers than to exert our sense of
what we don’t know in order to probe new opinions. Knowledge can stand in the
way of innovation. Solved problems tend to stay solved – sometimes disastrously
so.

David Gray. “Wanted, Chief Ignorance Officer”.
Harvard Business Review November 2003

(Via Grant McCracken “Chief Culture Officer”).

This reminded me very much of our own ‘Walk in Stupid’
philosophy, as described here in a 2007 interview with W+K founder Dan Wieden
in The Independent.

Step into
the London offices of Wieden & Kennedy, one of the world's most cutting-
edge advertising agencies, and the first thing you see is a mannequin in a
pinstriped suit and buffed shoes, his head replaced with a kitchen blender and
the words "Walk In Stupid Every Morning" inscribed in pink on his
briefcase.

"Blender
Man" embodies the chaotic creative spirit of the agency that Dan Wieden
founded with David Kennedy in Portland, Oregon, in 1982, but the motto is just
one of many slogans found in this strangest of workplaces. "Fail
harder" is another, "Welcome to Optimism" is another.

W&K
(says Wieden) still thrives on a culture "built around a friendly
relationship with chaos", a concept represented by Blender Man. "I
think it's important that if you're going to be innovative, that there's not a
process for everything. Sometimes it seems that if you're never lost you're
never going to wind up any place new. It's only if you're willing to be
completely fucked-up that you're going to do anything important."