Ad Icon: Susan Hoffman

Susan Hoffman takes time out to discuss her long tenure at Wieden+Kennedy, what it takes to keep Nike relevant for over three decades, her experiences as a woman in adland – and why the agency almost jettisoned Just Do It as a slogan. She talked to Simon Wakelin

Susan Hoffman’s career at Wieden+Kennedy began 31 years ago, and in that time she’s seen an endless array of hit campaigns come and go. What many don’t know is that Hoffman’s alliance with Dan Wieden and David Kennedy stretches back even further than her time at W+K.

“I first met Dan and David when they hired me to work at the William Cain agency,” she recalls. She rejoined the pair at Wieden+Kennedy a few years later. “Dan and David understood my craziness and freedom. With them it’s always been an attitude of wanting to do things differently, and I love that attitude.”

Hoffman recently returned to the agency’s flagship office in Portland after helping managing director Neal Arthur find creative leaders (Jaime Robinson and David Kolbusz) to replace Scott Vitrone and Ian Reichenthal, dynamo talent that left the NY office for Barton F. Graf 9000 last year.

Hoffman enjoyed her time in the Big Apple, and equally enjoys time in the agency’s network of offices, which now stretches out to London, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Delhi and São Paulo. “I’ve opened a few offices in my time,” she says. “To be successful globally you really have to understand what each city is about.”

Arguably the most recognised and successful independent advertising agency in the world, W+K has fostered a desire to be unique right from its inception. After three decades the shop still holds legendary brand Nike – its founding client.

Highly visible, global and influential, Nike’s commercials have garnered worldwide acclaim over the years. There’s the Emmy award-winning The Morning After, an unforgettable spot directed by Spike Jonze featuring a runner on New Year’s Day 2000 ignoring every dire Y2K prediction that has come to pass on his morning jog; and Move, an eloquent Emmy winner helmed by Jake Scott that seamlessly edits dozens of athletes moving from one sport to the next.

Few agencies manage to instill a brand with the level of awareness that Nike possesses, told through a lineage of thought-provoking ad campaigns. It began when Nike turned the sneaker industry on its head by introducing the Air Jordan 1 in 1984, a red-and-black colourway that violated NBA uniform policies by being “non-regulation color”.

Jordan – a superbrand himself at the time – was fined $5000 each time he stepped onto the basketball court, a fee paid by Nike while W+K capitalised on commercials that touted the rebellious nature of the brand’s shoes. “Since its early years Nike has always wanted to push out provocative advertising, and in doing so they set the industry standard,” says Hoffman on those early years. “We discovered that Nike was, and is, a living brand with a personality, so we knew it was okay to make mistakes along the way.”

Hoffman references work including the infamous I Am Not A Role Model ad featuring basketball celebrity Charles Barkley. The work sparked great public debate at the time about the obligation of sports figures to set an example. The commercial played it straight, rolling with the banter of the 6ft 6in offensive-style player who claims: “I’m not paid to be a role model. I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court.”

“We should all be prepared to entertain and never be afraid of polarising the audience in the way that spot did,” Hoffman says. “Mistakes are part of the game. It’s down to finding a brand’s truth, then discovering an appropriate way to tell that truth. I think controversy is a good thing for a brand like Nike if it shows that it has an opinion.”

Speaking of opinion, Hoffman reveals that Nike’s ‘Just Do It’ slogan almost didn’t see the light of day. “Some were worried it felt like a mother telling you to clean up your room,” she explains. “But it made sense as an identity because it put in place a broad communication platform where we could talk to almost everybody. We all have to exercise – young or old, we all need to work out. I think Nike has an understanding of self because its core identity is the audience itself.”

Quizzed on the agency’s approach to branding the swoosh over the years, Hoffman answers that their approach has never changed. “Advertising should be like a magazine,” she says. “You open it up and see ads and editorial. I think W+K’s advertising is the editorial content, ads that make people feel and allow them to learn something. It’s always been about discovering ways to pique people’s interest.”

Hoffman is particularly proud of new work for Delta. On The Road, the most recent instalment in Delta’s Keep Climbing campaign, salutes frequent flyers around the world. Directed by Martin de Thurah through Epoch Films, with voice-over by Donald Sutherland, On The Road features a weary business traveller experiencing the anxieties and travails of international business travel, before arriving back to Delta on his return flight home, sinking back into his seat with a sense of relief.

“You know what? It’s not always fun travelling,” Hoffman insists. “We wanted to show the truth and reality of travel and ignore any glorified version of what it’s like. It’s a provocative ad for Delta because it’s saying the brand knows the reality out there. Clients need to be brave enough to put out intriguing and provocative work like this. It can often be very scary for them.”

The challenge inherent in recovering a brand’s identity is ground Hoffman has also covered. Levi’s springs to mind – an account that W+K oversaw for five successful years, reviving a brand that had been founded in San Francisco over a century before.

W+K immediately hit a homer, creating the immensely popular Go Forth campaign that celebrated America’s pioneering spirit. In doing so W+K tagged Levi’s as an iconic American clothing brand. O Pioneers, a spot featuring the poetry of Walt Whitman, exemplified the campaign’s emotional centre. The spot unleashed a stunning flow of rapid-stream images of people from across America, recalling those distant American pioneers who paved the way for the majority to follow. Go Forth successfully tied denim to the spirit of America, and in doing so won back the brand’s appeal.

The Go Forth campaign created a mythology of the brand’s own past, placing Levi’s at the very heart of the American Dream. “Levi’s had lost their way but we found their core truth which was to be a pioneer,” says Hoffman. “That idea naturally led to the Go Forth work. They were a great client to work with.”

Smart humour has also been an important facet of W+K’s success, recently evidenced in a series of wry spots for Southern Comfort. Beach and Karate from the Whatever’s Comfortable campaign stand out as compelling work, each celebrating the self-affirming attitude of characters that display an attitude of complete comfort with themselves.

Directed by Biscuit’s Tim Godsall, Beach strikes a warmly funny and ironically hip tone. The spot celebrates the boldness of an oiled-up, beer-bellied chap in Speedos and sunglasses strutting along a beach, somehow wrangling a Southern Comfort along the way. The saga continues in Karate, where a scrawny cowboy type, anachronistically getting some highlights done, impresses the ladies at a local hair salon with his karate moves – perfectly matched to I’m A Fool To Care by Les Paul and Mary Ford.

Hoffman sounds a cautionary note when it comes to the humour in W+K’s campaigns, however. “We try not to do sophomoric humour on the whole and attempt to create comedy that has a little more thinking to it. With Southern Comfort, the humour is very close to being over the top, but there is still a sophistication to the work that makes it very attractive.”

Apart from a delicate touch with the funny stuff, what other magic does W+K possess that keeps its success afloat? According to Hoffman it’s about accessing our feelings: “Years ago somebody said that W+K aren’t a great agency because they really don’t have a point of view,” she says. “I thought that was a really interesting comment because it’s about the client’s point of view, not ours. There’s also enough diversity in the work to access all kinds of human emotions. I think that’s another reason for the success.”

And what about diversity when it comes to gender at the agency? For Hoffman it’s more about attitude.

“It has never come down to guys and girls per se because you always hire the talent first,” she answers. “I’ve never felt, or was even aware of the lack of women around me when I started out because it felt so normal working alongside Dan and David.

“Now there is more dialogue about the issue,” she continues. “I will say that advertising is a very hard field. You have to log in the time and pay the price. I have two kids and at times haven’t see them for many months while travelling and working. Thankfully I have a partner who wasn’t on the road as much as I was, so it helped a great deal. You really have to figure out what works for you.”

She’s excited about embarking on a new era in advertising with a need to craft content for multiple channels. An iconic commercial for Nike featuring Ronaldinho hitting the crossbar of a goal several times without the ball touching the ground became the first YouTube video to reach one million views in 2005.

A smart new Gap campaign helmed by duo Daniels of Prettybird is a recent signifier of opportunities afoot for brands in new and unexplored regions. The 12-part Instagram-based micro-series, Spring Is Weird, stars SNL alum Jenny Slate and actor Paul Dano. Each 15-second episode features the pair, clad in the retailer’s spring fashion line, in a surreal adventure where their real and virtual Instagram lives merge.

“You can be so adventurous on so many fronts today,” Hoffman enthuses. “It’s a new world, and with Gap it’s an opportunity to find new ways of having a conversation. I love the idea of putting a lot of work out there in this fashion.”

If there are any caveats offered by Hoffman, it’s that deadlines and costs become the main inhibitors of successful creative work: “It’s been the same problem since the dawn of advertising,” she says. “How do you make it great regardless of the confines of budget and time? We all know that a lot of money doesn’t necessarily make something great. Sure, it helps a bad idea look average, but you also need time to craft things. The industry needs to be more aware of this.

“I think that everything you put out there today must be, by and large, provocative and creative. Campaigns need to discuss issues that people care about. You need to sit down and ask yourself what it is that moves people. This is probably the most important element of the game.”

Meanwhile, thought provoking and inspirational work continues to be the heartbeat of the agency, a spirit aptly summed up in Find Your Greatness for Nike. The campaign’s most memorable spot features an overweight kid slowly running toward us, determined to keep going. It’s work that highlights how greatness is not down to some rare DNA strand. It’s something we’re all capable of achieving.