by Bill Sewell 05/13/09
Day two at the Clios was simply great. It started off with a lifetime achievement award luncheon honoring Dan Wieden of Wieden + Kennedy. It felt like being invited to a family gathering. Dan is incredibly kind, loves what he does and runs a culture that inspires people and makes them feel needed. I learned a lot from Dan’s favorite quote from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest author Ken Kesey:
“The answer is never the answer. What’s really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer — they think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.”
It’s the perfect quote for today’s crazy times, especially in the advertising industry. Dan continued to connect today’s experience to his entry into the business. He knew nothing about advertising when he startes, so he wasn’t constrained by rules. These days, the formalized business of advertising is breaking down and no one really knows what is happening next . . . just like when Dan started. This is when the exciting stuff happens, because advertising becomes more about listening to the customer needs and problem solving using any relevant medium and less about crafted answers in 30 second snippets.
Challenging the advertising order with chaos
Although the message wasn’t completely new, it was how Dan delivered the ideas which felt like a reassuring parent telling you to have faith in chaos and that you will be OK. Nothing was sugar coated. Dan doesn’t believe in lifetime awards and said so at the lifetime awards gala 
. He got his start with Phil Knight who outright hated advertising. Dan (who knew nothing about ads when he started) and Phil (who hated what he knew) collectively figured out that they would just try stuff that felt right. It sounds easy, but creating a corporate environment that encourages risk and actually rewards failure is still uncommon.
Dan’s goal is to inspire the next generation of ad people to keep challenging the status quo through strong creative and respectful interactions. He sure got me fired up
Regards,
Bill