A real Zoom mentality
Wieden & Kennedy answers critics with interactive strike

Portland Business Journal - August 31, 2007

by Matthew Kish, Business Journal staff writer
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Wieden & Kennedy has responded in dramatic fashion to critics who say the Portland-based advertising powerhouse has fallen behind in the race to develop digital advertising expertise.
In March, The Wall Street Journal ran a story suggesting the agency lost part of its signature account with Nike Inc. because it lacked the skills to market products beyond its historic strengths in print and television advertising.

This month, however, the agency launched an interactive campaign around the new Nike Zoom training shoe that has left the industry abuzz. Popular industry publication AdAge deemed it "historic" and the "most ambitious push in that medium to date."

The campaign is accessible to Dish DVR users. It allows viewers to use their remote control to interact with a series of 30-second commercials featuring Nike athletes ranging from football star LaDainian Tomlinson to Olympic sprinter Sanya Richards.

The commercials essentially work like extras on a DVD. When a button pops up on the screen, viewers can click on it to watch vignettes on an athlete's training regimen or signature move.

There's also a deconstruction of the Zoom training shoe. The LaDainian Tomlinson commercial has a video game component. Viewers play by punching buttons on their remote.

People who sit through each of the extras will spend more than 20 minutes watching what's otherwise a 30-second Nike commercial, simultaneously skipping the other commercials on TV and exponentially increasing the bang for the sneaker company's buck.

"The [Zoom campaign] blew everything out of the water," said Michele Bogdan, senior vice president of marketing at Portland-based Ensequence, which helped Wieden & Kennedy and the interactive advertising agency R/GA with the technical aspects of the campaign. "It's revolutionary in the U.S. market."

Digital advertising is the opposite of traditional advertising, which relies on mass messages conveyed across billboards, magazine ads and 30-second commercials. It includes everything from the World Wide Web to DVR commercials and cell phone advertising.

Last year, Parks Associates estimated digital advertising would represent 10 percent, or roughly $23.5 billion, of the industry by 2010 as advertisers figure out how to tap the enormous potential of new technologies and popular Web sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

Roughly 5 percent of ad dollars, or $9.45 billion, went to digital advertising in 2005.

Wieden & Kennedy dismisses the idea that the Zoom campaign is a response to critics. They say the Journal whiffed on its portrayal of the agency as an advertising dinosaur.

"You would think the information superhighway didn't fly by Wieden & Kennedy," said Danny Sheniak, Wieden & Kennedy's Nike group media director.

In fact, Wieden & Kennedy has significantly beefed up its digital skills since the start of the year, hiring Renny Gleeson as global director of digital strategies and Jordi Martinez as director of creative technology.

"Having Jordi has enabled us to up-level the capability of the agency," said Gleeson, who is also considered a national expert in the field. "Our abilities have accelerated."

The agency's interactive production unit has also been folded together with its broadcast production and long-form content departments. As a result, digital strategies are now part of all Wieden & Kennedy accounts.

The agency's client list includes big-names like Nike, ESPN, ABC, Starbucks and Nokia.
It's critical that Wieden develops the expertise, say experts.

"If Nike feels that it's not going to attract the next group of 13-year-olds from Wieden, they'll go to the next Wieden," said Arve Overland, CEO of the Portland-based Overland Agency, which specializes in interactive advertising.

Wieden & Kennedy continues to work on most aspects of the Nike account, with the exception of running shoes and apparel.

The agency has more than made up for the loss of business, picking up an estimated $400 million in new billings in less than a month this summer with the addition of Careerbuilder.com, Visa International's World Cup sponsorship and creative duties for Nokia. AdAge calls it a "new global powerhouse."

The challenge for advertising agencies is finding the personnel to monetize new digital mediums.

"What agencies have to cope with now is integrating engineering departments into the creative atmosphere," Overland said.

Wieden & Kennedy will continue working with companies like Ensequence to stay ahead of the digital pack. And it wants to continue to be an innovator.

"We're pushing what's being done," Martinez said.


The possibilities are endless. Imagine movie previews that allow viewers to buy tickets using their remote control. The Zoom campaign could even be enabled to allow viewers to click a button and purchase shoes, without getting off the couch.

"It used to be advertising was the end point," said Gleeson, who will discuss the campaign at next week's Inverge conference in Portland. "Now it's the beginning of a conversation."

mkish@bizjournals.com | 503-219-3414