Dan Wieden: Taking a Stand for Creativity

This year’s Titanium & Integrated jury president, Dan Wieden, knows more than a thing or two about the prize – he’s the one who  introduced it to the festival. He talks to Joe Lancaster about ‘the red carpet being rolled out to clients’ at Cannes, and the creative spirit that keeps drawing him back

Perhaps surprisingly for someone whose name has been carved into so many Lion trophies, Dan Wieden isn’t particularly fond of visiting Cannes.

“I’m more comfortable in the woods of Oregon than on the beaches of Cannes. I think I’m not as gregarious as [is] required of people going there, but the weather’s nice, the people are great and it’s just that sitting in rooms judging is a pain in the butt,” says the chief creative officer and co-founder of Wieden+Kennedy. However, he’s quick to add that, “at the same time it’s quite wonderful”, and although he feels like a fish out of water in the city, those darkened rooms can be inspiring places. “It’s really a great chance to see the best and the worst work in the world and it’s great to sit with some of the best women and men in this industry, arguing and concurring and coming up with winners. That’s a remarkable process.”

Last year’s recipient of the Lion of St Mark, Wieden founded his agency in Portland with partner David Kennedy in 1982 and grew it into one of the biggest independent networks in the world, with eight global offices, each renowned for compelling, effective work.

There are few people in the industry whose opinions command as much respect as Wieden’s and in 2003, Cannes Lions launched a new category, Titanium, at his recommendation. “I thought it would be really good to give recognition to pieces of work that were startling, but in the sense of being evolutionary, and those pieces that sort of trumpet a new approach to things,” he explains. In 2005, Integrated was added to the category, and the way entries have been assessed from year to year has been regarded as somewhat fluid, as a result of its ‘idea is everything’ mantra, which is stated on the Festival’s website.

This year, Wieden returns to Cannes to chair the T&I jury, and is excited about what he’ll see. “It’s been a really good year for experimental work,” he says. “I think digital has come of age and is being used in a really provocative fashion, so that’s why I’m anxious to go this year.”

He’ll be joined by some of the cream of advertising’s crop, but how will he manage the dynamic in the judging room? “I think you just watch what’s trying to emerge and get a sense of the chemistry, and it doesn’t really require a lot of politicking,” he says. “There’s a lot of disagreement sometimes but it resolves itself.” Is it a good thing when people argue rather than automatically give each entry a thumbs-up or down? “Absolutely. That’s why, when you respect a lot of these people and then they have different views, it’s really quite fascinating and it makes you question, ‘am I not seeing something here?’.”

Wieden admits that he can’t recall many of the past winners in the category due to his memory, rather than their quality, but he certainly remembers being “thrilled” when his client, Nike, won last year for its Nike+ Fuelband concept, design and delivery, by agency R/GA New York. So what will the chairman and his contemporaries be looking for in the entries? What does a campaign need to lift a Titanium Grand Prix? Wieden laughs while he imagines himself in the room, watching the case studies. “It’s that kind of work where you sit there and it’s like, ‘what the fuck?’, that’s what you’re looking for. ‘Where the shit did that come from?’.” However, he would prefer it if there was a little less work to do. “As someone who has to sit through a godzillion entries, it would be a gift to the judges if you only entered the work you were really, really proud of.”

Since the T&I category was introduced, the Festival has evolved hugely, and the biggest change is “the red carpet being rolled out for the clients”, believes Wieden. “To be really, really honest I felt there was some more integrity when it was really run by and for creative people. I think the client side – it’s good that they’re there I suppose – but I worry about this becoming a client contest rather than a creative contest. It gets tricky.”

How could the festival ensure that doesn’t happen? “I think it’s a money-making machine, it’s a very lucrative business and I think it’d just be better if people took their best work and put it in and not put all their work in, just in hopes of feeding the people who run Cannes and... just look at the work. I just loved it more intensely back when this was about creative work judged by creative people without a lot of client influence.” Does he think that clients care about agencies winning at Cannes? “I think clients care about clients winning at Cannes.”

Despite this, Wieden still feels that the festival is “really important”, but he does add, “I just hope it doesn’t get too full of itself.”

It might be a shock to hear one of the festival’s most loved figures talking so frankly about its state, but the fact that one of advertising’s most influential leaders is willing to spend a week of his time in a place he’s not too fond of, must mean there’s a good reason to do so. And who better to chair the jury for the T&I Lions than the man who championed their introduction?