Wieden + Kennedy: The Future of Creative Business

How does an agency find out what people do every day? How do they tell good stories? Nick Barham and Dan Hon of Wieden+Kennedy tackled these questions at the PSFK CONFERENCE SAN FRANCISCO by narrating the journey they took when adopting new practices to help move their clients’ brands towards an all-encompassing value-based service in addition to the product offering.

The future of storytelling in advertising, and the ability to create emotional connections between consumers and brands, is now intimately tied into technology and how people manipulate it creatively. Dan and Nick explain how to harness these new platforms to greatest effect by viewing technology and the internet as materials and crafts to create with, rather than simple utilitarian tools.

Great points from Nick and Dan’s talk:

• Ad agencies need to infuse themselves with fresh skill sets to take advantage of the storytelling opportunities offered by modern technology.
• It is harder to bring creativity to an engineering-focused organization than to bring tech talent to a creative agency.
• As such, Wieden + Kennedy regularly works with startups that bring them fresh ideas and skills.
• Platforms like Google and Facebook are great from an engineering standpoint, but lack a human touch, a soul.
• The process of creating an interactive, emotional platform to tell a story and sell something is incredibly complicated and is largely unexplored territory.