On this site you can see footage from the finals of the Nike Midnight Madness basketball event. It seemed to be a success in terms of crowd participation, standard of ballers and the brand identity we developed here at W+K. This carried through the line and they made up the court for the Finals in the design (amongst much more). Thanks to Rob K from the WK Portland studio, who worked on the design while he was over here.

Slightly subdued today after yesterday’s celebrations. Bit of a morning after feeling for those who celebrated extensively. Sense that now we have a lot of work to do, as these two new clients – Lurpak and The Guardian – join our existing list. And it’s not like we weren’t working hard already. In fact, many people were too busy to be able to join the celebrants in The Golden Heart. The agency has grown a lot in the last couple of years and this is another spurt of momentum, another bit of change and development for the little world of Wieden + Kennedy.

This could be one of those defining moments for a company. These two wins are both great, great brands to work on. Each is iconic in its own way. (Though both can be enjoyed with your breakfast.) That silver pack of Lurpak block butter is a true icon of the kitchen. It’s a famous brand in a traditionally conservative and little-considered category. A category characterized by bland, boring communications. There’s a real need and opportunity for Lurpak to find its voice again. And after seven long months of pitching Arla Foods has picked us to do the job. Wieden + Kennedy perhaps wasn’t the obvious choice for a blue chip FMCG brand. (Or so some have said.) Which makes victory all the more sweet.

And we certainly weren’t the front runner to win The Guardian. The media world had convinced everyone, including us, that we had no chance. All the gossip was that Red Brick Road had the pitch sewn up because of the founders’ prior relationship with people at The Guardian. But in the end the client made the appointment based on the work, not on past relationships. Which as Michael, CD on the pitch said, just goes to show that they really do put their principles of fairness and balance into practice. It’s profoundly satisfying to have confounded those who bet against us, but winning The Guardian is important for other reasons: it’s another truly iconic brand, it has a heritage of brilliant creative work, it’s at a fascinating stage in its development as it pioneers news media in the digital age, and it’s an organization whose values are very much in tune with our own. They’re innovators and iconoclasts and we’ll learn a lot from working with them.

So, short term focus for these two new clients is to deliver innovative, effective work for them. Beyond that, for W+K the company, these wins enable us and require us to think about how and to where the agency next evolves. Because the last thing the world needs is another medium-sized, mediocre advert factory.