For decades, Wieden+Kennedy has defined the brands that shape culture. Now, as economic uncertainty, AI, and shifting consumer expectations rewrite the rules of business, CEO Neal Arthur breaks down why understanding your audience is no longer just the marketing team’s job. He shares what today’s most successful brands are getting right, how leaders can better understand the culture that moves their customers, and what’s at stake for the future of creativity in business.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
Wieden+Kennedy is known for a lot of things—among them, your deep pulse on consumers. And that’s where I’d like to start. Today’s business environment is so tricky: Stock prices are up, but so are oil prices. AI is disrupting and exciting people. Geopolitical issues are arguably at an inflection point. There are a lot of serious, contentious trends. And at the same time, marketing messages are tending toward the playful, the practical, and sometimes, dare I say, the superficial. I’m curious what your sense is about why that is, and how much of that is about where the consumer is emotionally right now versus where brands are.
I don’t think there are a bunch of conversations in a boardroom that are like, “It’s serious out there, so let’s make some jokes.” Just to clarify, that’s not what’s going on. If I had to guess, I think you saw in the pandemic that what was happening in the world was dire. Then marketers showed up, and it quickly became that meme of sad piano music ads. I think people would probably prefer escape more than they want to be reminded by Brand X that times are interesting.
When you’re talking with CEOs and leadership teams across industries (because you do work for a broad range of clients), what kind of conversations are they having? Is the mood fear and wait and see, or optimism and go for it?
I don’t really think there’s time for fear. Fear and stress probably just lend themselves to paralysis, and it’s certainly not time for that. Right now we’re at a point of high prices generally in consumer goods. A lot of clients are trying to figure out how to show up in a way that feels value-forward and that makes clear we’re aware of the situation the consumer is in.
You’re dealing with those things rather than talking about existential issues and topics. I think there’s a prevailing sense of pragmatism, where people are just trying to figure out what problem we’re trying to solve and how we solve it as quickly as possible.
With all the changes going on, you need to take risks. But at the same time, it’s kind of a tough moment to take risks. People talk about polarization, like, “Can brands appeal to everyone? Is it better to pick a lane?” It almost feels like no matter where you go, you’re worried you’re going to run into something.
I feel like the conversations now are less about brand ideology—“What are the politics of brands and businesses?”—and more about their practical nature. I think there have been a lot of lessons learned about standing for certain value sets and principles, and there’s a lot of fear and anxiety around that because of the missteps that have been well publicized. By no means am I saying that brands shouldn’t stand for something. It’s really about what problem we’re dealing with and how we solve it.
It’s less about creative risk and some of those things. I feel like those are for maybe highfalutin times. Right now it’s a street fight, and everybody is just trying to figure out how to deal with the obstacles directly in front of them.
To me, part of what has always made Wieden+Kennedy distinctive is your ability to tap people’s emotions. As you’re talking about the environment right now, it sounds like utility is the primary thing that businesses and brands are trying to get across. Does that change the way you approach campaigns? Or does it just mean that to get to that emotion, you do it in a different way?
Yeah, it’s the latter, and that’s an important distinction. I wouldn’t say that we’re in a time of utility in terms of messaging and output. The way that you do that can still be really emotional. As Wieden+Kennedy, we still find tons of humanity and emotion in the problems that our clients are dealing with on a day-to-day basis and in how to connect with consumers in a human way. But the problem tends to be more straightforward or more functional than a lofty ideal, I guess is what I would say in this moment.
You guys are known for the ultimate go-for-it campaign: Nike’s “Just Do It.” As a longtime New York Knicks fan, I have to bring up the amazing post-finals Nike campaign, courtesy of director Josh Safdie: a fan running through the streets as Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” plays. Is that the kind of thing you’re planning ahead of time? Do you have options for whichever team wins? Or is it more instinctive and reactive?
Great question. Nike, being in the business of sport, is always thinking about who’s going to win and who’s going to be in those moments. The goal is to show up for them in a meaningful way. When you have a moment like that, where the Knicks are making a legendary run—and I live in New York City and I’m a season-ticket holder, and boy, was that electric—you get to these moments where you go, “This is going to be a thing.”
It’s one of those moments that captures what we love about sports. It’s not just a moment in sport, it’s a moment that’s transcendent. And you go, “Okay, if there’s a way to make a meaningful contribution to this conversation about this legendary city and long-beaten-up team rising to the heights that they did, you’ve got to take that shot.” I think one of the keys for Nike, always, is authenticity.
So you get a guy like Safdie, who’s a lifelong fan, and you get to see the perspective of the team or the athlete through the lens of somebody who really knows sport. You get to a moment like that, and obviously that makes us collectively—Wieden+Kennedy and Nike—incredibly proud to be able to have that moment. And it’s the moment that we’re responding to, not just the creative output.
I feel like sometimes CEOs don’t really get creativity. They say they want it, but they don’t really understand it. Do you find that when you’re talking to leaders?
This may be a little heretical to say, but I think talking about creativity in a broad sense is problematic because it makes the conversation almost exclusive. It becomes, “Well, this is for a group of people who have cool T-shirts and interesting handbags.” I think the conversation has to be much more about what, as a brand, do you want to stand for? And when you do that, a CEO can engage.
We have clients who feel like the CEO shouldn’t be involved because this is a creative conversation. No way. We’re talking about what a company should stand for at its best. A CEO should feel very comfortable in that conversation. We’re not going to, in most cases, talk to a CEO about the music in the spot. We’re talking to CEOs about what they believe, what they want to be, and what they want to project to the world. Talking about what we do as a purely creative endeavor is problematic, and I think it excludes people who we really need in these conversations.
So when you get to the point where, “Okay, this is what the brand is, and how do we emotionally connect with the consumer?” maybe the CEO doesn’t need to be in the room for that. Is that more about the music track or whatever?
If I was talking to a CEO who is marketing-averse, I’d say: “Don’t feel like you need to know who the voice-over should be. Don’t feel like you need to know what happens in production. I don’t go on production myself. But you have tons to give in a conversation about the brand.”
