Advertising Analysis

Advertising Analysis

The advertising agency of interest is Wieden+Kennedy. Wieden+Kennedy is a North American advertising agency based in Portland, Oregon. It is an independent advertising agency that has earned a brand reputation through a successful Nike Campain called “Dream Crazy.” Thus, the structure of this Nike commercial boosted my interest in analyzing this ad agency. Personally, American sports and global sports apparel brands are two factors that fascinated me in joining the field of advertising. These two categories have led to the improvement of the global market.

Moreover, advertising agencies are required to invest in market research about the customer’s preferences and needs. Hence, the sports fandom and sport-apparel must consider their customers first before creating launching an advertising campaign. The reason is that in the United States, a successful advertising agency prioritizes diversity and demography of their consumers. Besides, the majority of athlete and audiences comes from different races, genders, ethnicity, and age groups. It occurs that W+K had established an innovative technique of unique sports campaign structure, which is professional and unprecedented by including diversity with an inspirational tone. The Nike’s ad “Dream Crazy” is undoubtedly a successful campaign and is a valuable example for helping thousands of agencies and advertisers achieve the best advertising objectives.

In Sep 2018, W+K carried out its organization structure to locate its staff in their best positions. The company announced Colleen Decourcy and Tom Blessington were selected as the Co-Presidents on leadership boards. Furthermore, Decourcy and Blessington assumed the role of branding, creative marketing, and media experience before working for their current positions. Both of them joined the force as the leading creative roles personnel of the ad agency. On the other hand, Dave Luhr and Susan Huffman were allocated the chair roles alongside W+K founder Dan Wieden. The team then had to contribute to their expertise and innovative, original works and inspire the W+K communication networks. According to W+K on “Names New Co-presidents and Chair Roles” (2018), it was reported that both co-presidents should aim to expand the network and diversify the talented teams and leadership. They also wish to build the W+K’s reputation for creative excellence while earning more recognition for great innovation.

Currently, W+K’s network is continuing to grow. The company has partnered with nearly 50 clients who are passionate about new business and innovations for customers. Besides, W+K is expanding its career opportunity globally. The foreseen global network comprises eight worldwide offices and 1400 employees.

W+K’s diversifying culture is also a valuable component that helps it stand out among all other ad agencies. The culture is based on its mission, which is focused on build a platform that inspires thousands of businesses to become innovative in their work. According to Myers (2017), “a W+K Recruiter Shares Her Best Advice on How to Stand Out from the Competition,” reported that Dan Wieden has significant determinations to make W+K a leading advertising agency in the world. Through the observation of inclusiveness and multicultural perspective, W+K has become one of the leading agencies as it pays close attention to race, gender, ethnicity, cultural background at all levels to reduce biasness.

The enthusiasm and broad perspective are crucial elements that make W+K stand out from its competitors and help to gain a competitive advantage in the market. Among the 50 clients that W+K has been collaborating with, Nike is presumably the most exciting client that has enabled it to build it’s brand and services loyalty. For the past 30 years of Nike campaigns, W+K has been providing inspirational content that ties with Nike’s mission statement. Nike has been sharing the “Just do it” mentality worldwide, which is motivational and inspirational not only for the athletes but also for all people passionate about sports. Along with the culture of W+K, creativity, diversity, innovation, and respect in the TV commercial has helped to reach a large population of consumers. W+K fills its targeted group with enthusiasm and excitement to celebrate the spirit of sport. In this way, through the appearance of athletes in these adverts, they help to motivate the young generation to perform at a professional level and find their talents. For example, W+K’s recent commercial “Dream Crazy” helped Nike earn an immeasurable reputation and massive success on social media. Also, the poster with the slogan “Believe in Something Even if it Means Sacrificing Everything” increased huge share/repost numbers on the internet after the campaign was released. According to Hanson (2018), “Five Numbers from Nike’s recent “Dream Crazy” Campaign that Confirm its Smashing Success,” indicated that Nike had been mentioned on social media 2.7 million times, and it reached 21,135,487 times of view on YouTube within a week of its initial announcement.

Moreover, through these campaigns, W+K is continuously reaching out to their clients for a great creative solution and result. To achieve it even better, W+K is preparing to step farther to expand its networks, and innovative leadership as its advertising realm is spending for reasons. Until now, W+K owns five affinity groups that strengthen its comprehensive creative perspective to support the organization for the professional integration of global culture changes around diversity and inclusion. Collaborating with the affinity group would be a beneficial business pattern for both the clients and advertisers. Hence, W+K could be more knowledgeable about the racial and ethnic heritage of each region around the world and provide them with the best products and services descriptions.

For a typical workplace, it seems complicated to express one’s potential and ideas due to a highly competitive workforce. However, W+K is subverting this tradition into a more expressive manner. In W+K, there is no limit to freedom of expression, and each employee is assigned for a particular role to perform at their peak level of creativity. That can lead to pushing the boundaries of the typical workplace and a lot of motivation and encouragement. According to Lauren Ranke” (2017) on “The Talent Equation Getting a Job at W+K,” provided some key takeaways from an interview with Lauren Ranke, a director of creative recruiting in W+K. She illustrated that “a distinction for Portland is our distance from industry hubs. That buffers us a little from the hive-mind mentality and makes people a bit more focused, loyal, and dedicated. It is not for everyone, but if it is for you, it is hard to beat.”

To summarize, I prefer devoting myself to work in a workplace like W+K because, first of all, the multiple location choices, there have eight offices worldwide, and the core value will never change despite different workplaces. Second, W+K’s mission is the key. Today’s advertising industry is more of diversity and inclusion, and W+K is conscious of the culture changes for all communities. Third, the dynamic work atmosphere will keep my passion for sharing brilliant ideas on the table and delivering them to thousands of clients and customers. Lastly, W+K is more of self-discipline rather than a hierarchy working model. That all employees will find their mission to fulfill something people need, and they will feel pleasure to participate in anything because it is pretty organic.