The Last Trickster Poet of Hollywood

A remembrance of an evening with Val Kilmer—where he conjured a provocation: the creative life begins when you stop asking for permission, find art in the everyday, and dare to make your own reality.

It wasn’t a conversation, not in the traditional sense. Val Kilmer didn’t stand behind a podium. He didn’t read from notes. He shuffled onstage, found an armchair that looked like it belonged in a sunken living room from 1978, and just—sat.

This was at my college, a small liberal arts school with an ambitious lecture series that had recently hosted former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, and an up-and-coming senator named Barack Obama. These were people of consequence. Leaders who made policy, waged war, held power.

But none of them had been Batman, Iceman, Doc Holliday and Jim Morrison all rolled into one. None of them had that strange electricity of myth and menace, all bottled in a single person.

The moment Kilmer appeared on stage, the air in the room changed.

This was post-Heat, post-Batman, the tail-end of a decade when he’d shape-shifted through a rogue’s gallery of icons. He was famous in a way that felt dangerous. You didn’t know what he’d say—and that was the point.

He opened the floor to questions immediately. No script. Just Val, free-associating through Twain and Shakespeare, quoting his own films, rhapsodizing about his kids, about cameras, about the stubborn, irrational act of making art. The whole night orbited one message:

Create your own reality.

Nobody’s going to hand it to you. And even when they do, you’ll have to fight to keep it. Surprise people. Be undeniable.

He told the story of landing The Doors. He hadn’t waited for a studio call. He recorded himself singing Morrison songs. Slipped one of his own into the demo, unlabeled. Even Oliver Stone couldn’t tell which was which. Neither could the remaining members of the band. He became Morrison, and by the time casting decisions were made, there was no decision. Val was the Lizard King.

He talked about being the first person he knew to own a video camera. He filmed constantly. It was the same footage that would, decades later, form the spine of Val, his devastating, luminous 2020 documentary.

And somewhere in those rambling minutes, something clicked in me.

That night, Kilmer didn’t just perform. He modeled something. A way of living as an artist—scrappy, obsessive, defiant, enchanted. Shortly after Kilmer’s talk, I started carrying around my own video camera. I shot everything. DIY remakes of Psycho. Art films about levitating scissors. Late-night antics at Denny’s . I wasn’t trying to make something perfect. I was trying to live creatively. To treat reality as pliable. To find everlasting moments in every day. Val would understand.

It’s easy to remember the fun stuff. He did say “I’m your Huckleberry,” and yes, he told a story about Marlon Brando so strange it felt like a hallucination—involving face paint and a kimono. But what stayed with me were the deeper threads—about fate, failure, and the fragile, self-styled scaffolding that holds up an artistic life.

When someone asked about his reputation for being “difficult,” he didn’t flinch. He spoke about being a guardian of truth—for the characters he played. If he found something essential, he fought for it. The work didn’t have to be easy. It had to be real.

He talked about his son thinking he was actually Batman, not Val. Even after showing his son the movie, the boy was not convinced, and assured that he was Batman, and not his father onscreen, despite the blockbuster proof. What is reality anyway?

Maybe we are all Batman.

Kilmer painted, drew, made collages. None of that showed up in the tabloids, but it pulsed through him that night. A creative energy too unruly for one medium. You realized that the onscreen personas were just fragments and borrowed masks—glimpses of someone constantly inventing, constantly seeking.

I watched Val recently. Listened to the audiobook of his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry. Rewatched Tombstone, then Heat. And suddenly, I was back in that auditorium. In the dark. Watching a man peel away the myth and try on masks, only to reveal something stranger: a deeply sincere, wildly imperfect, defiantly poetic romantic. It was impossible not to feel inspired by that.

He made rebellion feel sacred. Mischief felt like method. He refused to play the Hollywood game, even as he conquered it. His career was a masterclass in turning dust into gold and getting bored the moment it gleamed.

Yes, he made baffling choices. Burned bridges. Took detours no manager would have greenlit. And yet he carved out something rare: a career that was his. A life of ecstatic contradictions.

He turned down the easy version of success. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he didn’t. What’s certain is that he kept surprising us, right up until his voice gave out, and then—somehow—kept talking.

That night affirmed something in me.

I stopped waiting for permission. I stopped bowing down to so-called gatekeepers and forces I can’t control. I started making things. Well, I started making more things. Different things. Experiments. And I’ve kept on, trusting that if you throw enough wonder into the world, something unexpected will come back. It worked for Val, and over time, I’ve seen it play out in my domain as well.

Val Kilmer was, and is, our Huckleberry.

A trickster-poet in a cape. A dreamer who saw art everywhere. The crew-cut scene-stealer who once stole Top Gun from Tom Cruise with a single, arrogant chomp of chewing gum.

The Lizard King who refused to let The End define him—but instead transform him.

And when we look back, when we really trace the strange flickering light he left behind, what do we see?

We see the ghost of Jim Morrison swaggering through firelight, singing prophecy through a veil of leather and smoke—somehow about something more soulful than an expected chronicle of sex, drugs, rock n’ roll.

We see Doc Holliday, pale and facing the void, still faster on the draw than anyone alive. A Southern specter, one foot in the grave, the other in poetry.

We see Batman, not the brooding demigod of later years, but something more tormented—more Shakespearean. A Batman who looked like he’d read Hamlet and meant it.

We see Chris Shiherlis in Heat, silent and wounded, a thief with the face of a fallen angel and the soul of someone already halfway gone.

And we see Val himself, in Val, the final act, stripped of voice but not spirit. Archiving his own myth with love, regret, and more vulnerability than Hollywood ever knew what to do with.

Each of these characters was a mask. And each mask revealed something truer.

Because Val Kilmer didn’t just play icons. He inhabited them. Bent their voices to his cadence. Let their ghosts borrow his skin. He moved through genre, through persona, through time, as if this life was just one long improv scene and he was dead set on finding its truth before the lights went down.

And maybe that’s the real secret:

He was never just acting.
He was becoming.

Becoming the outlaw.
Becoming the poet.
Becoming the myth.

Becoming a cosmic jester with paint on his hands and a camera in his palm, chasing beauty across deserts and backlots and dreams.

Some actors fade.
Val burned.
With brilliance. With mess. With risk. With refusal.

He created a reality larger than the screen. A creative life so alive it bled off the edges. A rock opera of detours and digressions that joyfully haunt us all.

So here’s to Val.

Our Huckleberry.
Our Saint.
Our fading gunfighter, laughing into the abyss.
Our shapeshifter in the spotlight.
Our silent poet in the wings.

Val, if you're listening—
as you're out there still filming, still dreaming, still editing the reel of your cosmic cut—know this:

You didn’t just live a life.
You performed a constellation.
And we, lucky as hell, got to look up.

Grass, Leather, and the Geometry of Failure

How baseball reveals the beauty and brutality of being human.

Japanese phenom Roki Sasaki throws his first pitch on the mound at Camelback Ranch during spring training. Glendale, Arizona. Photo by Andrew Miller.

Baseball begins with a whisper.

Not a roar, not a frenzy of synchronized chanting or the gut-punching bass of stadium speakers rattling ribcages.

No, baseball begins out of sight, behind chain-link fences on dew-soaked backfields where the grass is still wet enough to stain your cleats and the air carries the faint scent of distant concessions. It’s less an arrival and more a reemergence—the slow, deliberate stretching of limbs, the muscle memory of leather against palm, of fingers searching for that perfect grip along uniform red stitches. Something deep and primal stirs, an echo of summers past and seasons unfinished.

Baseball is a contradiction in cleats. It is both timeless and fleeting. Timeless in the sense that the game itself has barely changed in over a century—the diamond remains ninety feet to first, the pitcher’s mound still sixty feet, six inches from home plate, and the rituals of sunflower seeds, pine tar, and rally caps persist like sacred rites. And yet, for those who step onto the field, the opportunity is heartbreakingly finite—a narrow window to weave yourself into the tapestry of a game far greater than the sum of its individual strands.

And make no mistake, baseball is a game of strands—light and shadow, myth and mathematics. There’s the version you see on glossy posters and highlight reels, all towering home runs and gravity-defying catches. Then there’s the version obscured by shadows—the grinding repetition of early-morning fielding drills, the bone-deep ache of a season’s wear and tear, and the whispered superstitions that players follow as if appeasing the baseball gods themselves. Step over the chalk lines. Never mention a no-hitter in progress. Wear the same socks—unwashed, if necessary—until the streak ends.

Baseball’s unwritten rules are less suggestions and more commandments etched into the collective consciousness of players and fans alike. Violate them at your peril. Flip your bat a little too enthusiastically? Expect a fastball in the ribs next time up. Linger too long admiring a home run? Watch your teammates duck the consequences. It’s a sport where humility and hubris exist in constant tension, where respect for the game is paramount—even as the game itself shows little mercy in return.

Consider the cruel calculus of baseball. In no other sport is failure so visible, so frequent, and so defining. Hit safely three times out of ten and you’re a legend. Anything less, and you’re just another name etched into the ever-expanding database of statistical mediocrity. And the numbers are always there, whispering in the background—batting averages, on-base percentages, exit velocities—each data point a tiny chisel scraping away at the illusion of permanence. Swagger might get you through the tunnel, but baseball’s relentless machinery grinds down even the most confident players, reducing ego to dust scattered across the infield.

Yet, for all its cruelty, baseball remains a democracy of opportunity. The lineup is a great equalizer—one through nine, every player gets their turn. There are no shortcuts, no strategic dodges that let a team avoid its weakest link. When the game is on the line, fate might call upon a superstar, but just as often it taps the shoulder of a journeyman utility player whose name barely registers outside the clubhouse. And should that unheralded player deliver in that singular moment—should they lace a line drive into the gap or drop a perfectly placed bunt—the weight of their past failures momentarily lifts, replaced by the intoxicating clarity of success.

Of course, the opposite is also true. A stellar career can unravel in an instant—the wrong hop, a momentary lapse in concentration, or the cruel physics of a baseball rolling through the legs at the worst possible moment. Think of Bill Buckner. One error, one instant of misfortune, and decades of excellence reduced to a single highlight looped endlessly across sports networks. Baseball remembers both your triumphs and your failures, but it has a longer memory for the latter.

And yet, year after year, players return. They gather in sun-drenched ballparks and windswept dugouts, chasing that fleeting sensation of contact perfectly made—the sharp crack of bat against ball, the clean thwack of leather as a fastball hits the catcher’s mitt. They return because, despite everything, baseball offers a portal to something beyond the drudgery of daily life. It demands total immersion—an obsessive focus on the minute details of weight transfer, swing mechanics, and release points. Hours spent perfecting the spin of a slider or the precise timing of a swing become their own form of meditation. See ball. Hit ball. The mantra is deceptively simple, but in its simplicity lies the freedom to disappear into the moment, untethered from the world outside the foul lines.

Baseball is both therapy and torture—a game that reveals character with unflinching clarity. Step into the batter’s box after a strikeout and the game will immediately test your ability to forget the past. The pitcher on the mound doesn’t care about your self-doubt. The scoreboard doesn’t offer sympathy. The only question that matters is whether you can reset, whether you can convince yourself—against all evidence to the contrary—that this time, this swing, will be different.

And perhaps this is why baseball players are, more often than not, a peculiar breed. To survive a season’s worth of failures requires a contradictory blend of obsessive focus and short-term amnesia. You must care deeply about every detail of their craft while maintaining the ability to shrug off each setback as if it never happened. The moment you start carrying yesterday’s failures into today’s game, the weight becomes too much to bear. So you forget. You rebuild your confidence from scratch, one at-bat at a time, until the next slump arrives to tear it all down again.

This cycle—of hope and heartbreak, of success measured in fractions of inches—is what makes baseball both maddening and irresistible. It’s why, every February, players gather once more on those dew-covered backfields, their breath visible in the crisp morning air as they stretch and sprint and reacquaint themselves with the feel of bat and glove. They come not because they’ve forgotten the failures of seasons past, but because they’ve chosen to believe that this year might be different. That this year, the baseball gods might smile a little more kindly. Empirical evidence and a Wikipedia page full of strikeouts be damned.

Baseball is coming.

This is both promise and threat.

And somewhere out there, on a sun-warmed field where shadows fall long and thin, a ballplayer picks up a scuffed baseball and grips it tight. The seams press into his fingers, familiar and strange all at once. He winds up, lets it fly, and listens for the sound—the slap of leather against leather, the first echo of a thousand possibilities yet unwritten. The whisper that started it all, now rising, growing, swelling into something more.

Because baseball, in the end, is not merely a sport like the others, but rather a cosmic question posed to the universe: What if this time, just this once, it all goes right?

Play ball.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Lose the Jargon

I know robots are the future, but that doesn't mean we have to talk to people like we are one.

Marketing and advertising have always been a breeding ground for jargon.

It comes from a desperate instinct to organize chaos.

To name and label and make the unknowable known.

To make people with no idea what they are doing sound like experts.

Fake it till you make it, and all that.

But if all of these efforts are to ultimately connect with actual human beings, how do these inhuman terms help?

Holistic paradigms. Achieve virality. Orchestrate behavior loops. Foster brand equity. Omni-channel experiences. Catalyze disruption innovation. Harmonize touchpoints. Optimize stakeholder value. Accelerate brand consideration. Agile methodologies. Maximize ROI. Segmentation.

And my favorite, least human shout out of them all: CONSUMERS.

How do we activate and empower consumers to drive brand awareness and capture increased market share with a media agnostic marketing mix that micro targets Gen-Z favored niches where they congregate on and offline? #iykyk #Blessed

Ummmmmmmmmmmm….

I’ll get back to you on that one…

While strategic thinking and analytical reasoning is important, we shouldn’t get lost in talking to each other like a bunch of bots and algorithms.

Keep things simple.

Reduce the complex into easy conversations.

Digest all of the big data and make it your own.

Search for TRUTH not facts, numbers and formats.

The whole point of trying to reach people is to make them feel something.

All of the layers of insider speak just get in the way.

What’s worse, is some people seem to relish using this jargon.

I’ve run into a few junior creatives lately who were very good at using fancy terms.

It made them sound hypnotic and polished.

It felt like a part of their identity.

But what were they really saying?

Who were they trying to impress?

I tried to talk with them in simple ways and threw in a few dumb jokes to break the trance.

What do you want to make? What do you find interesting? Seen any good shows lately? Look at this dumb thing I saw on Instagram.

Sometimes it’s small talk that naturally turns into big ideas.

You can offer way more value if you talk to people like yourself.

You don’t need to adopt a voice that makes you sound like everyone else.

Everyone struggles with imposter syndrome, and jargon can be a mask and source of strength.

But sounding smart in a meeting and being good at what you do are not the same thing.

It’s okay to let your guard down.

No one knows everything and we aren’t counting on you to be an expert.

We need you to be yourself and offer only what you can offer.

The smartest people I’ve worked with sound like super regular people.

They’re human, uncertain, funny and like no one else.

But they keep showing up as themselves and being vulnerable.

They’re willing to put in the deep thought to figure hard things out.

Don’t let a mastery of a dictionary of industry terms be a substitute for actual mastery.

The gig is to solve problems.

Not create an unnecessary labyrinth of words and checkpoints that obscure the goal.

The next time someone drops some jargon on you in a meeting, ask what they mean.

Get them to go a little deeper.

Encourage them to explain it in their own words.

And if you catch yourself saying something overly technical, keep talking.

Try to rephrase in a way that says what you are thinking.

That’s when the sparks and insights truly come.

Sometimes it’s the person who is brave enough to sound uncertain or simple that triggers the breakthrough.

Especially these days, we have plenty of AIs and algorithms we can turn to if we want overly analytic and stoic responses.

Let us band together as humans having real conversations.

That’s always been our strength.

We’re beings that feel and cry and make stupid jokes.

You don’t have to be slick or polished to be good.

You’ll be judged by the quality of your thought.

You don’t score points for using trendy gibberish.

Lose the jargon.

Use your own voice.

That’s where your power lies.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Shohei Ohtani: Surpassing Expectations. As Expected.

Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented 50/50 milestone isn’t just rewriting baseball history—it’s redefining what greatness in the game looks like.

Shoutout to MLB and Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo.

Shohei Ohtani has made history and headlines.

Again.

Does it matter?

It’s just numbers after all, right? Who cares about dry statistics? Ohtani doesn’t even play defense (this year). What about Aaron Judge? Francisco Lindor? Aren’t they having monster seasons too?

Alright, talking heads. So-called pundits. Blabbermouths. Clickbait conmen. Circus freaks.

I’m hitting MUTE on all of you.

Because, yes, Shohei Ohtani’s 50-home-run, 50-stolen-base milestone does matter. And if you don’t think so, history won’t be kind to you.

First of all, no one in the history of baseball—in all its dusty, 150-million-year-old grandiosity—has ever done this. Ohtani’s already been creating his own new club of achievement. Each homer, each steal, is another chapter in the history books. But fine, 47/47 didn’t get the same headlines because we’re obsessed with round, juicy numbers that roll off the tongue. Fifty feels better, doesn’t it?

But let’s talk about where this deserved hype is coming from.

Yes, Judge and Lindor are putting up incredible seasons, too. They are elite, but in a way that’s still earthly. We’ve seen their kind before. They’re fantastic, MVP-worthy, even.

But Shohei Ohtani? He’s beyond that. We’re talking about a unicorn leading a revolution.

Remember, before Ohtani, it had been almost 100 years since anyone both pitched and hit at a high level in Major League Baseball. The last to do it? Babe Ruth—America’s first national sports superstar. Ruth was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. Elvis before Elvis—if Elvis could swing a 44-ounce bat, call his shots, promise sick kids a homer, then deliver, and hop on the mound to strike out fools with a grin on his face. The Sultan of Swat? Sure. But also the king of swagger.

And then… baseball stopped letting players try both. “That’s just not how it’s done,” they said, as if the game had some holy decree carved into the surface of horse hide-wrapped spheres.

Pick one. Hit or pitch. Baseball said, “You can’t have both.”

And so, for generations, players with two-way talent were forced into boxes—generation after generation of missed opportunity. Call them the lost years. Call it what happens when tradition becomes tyranny.

Then, Shohei Ohtani arrived.

Out of Japan, where he was drafted out of high school by the Nippon Ham Fighters. Yes, Ham Fighters. I don’t know what they have against ham, but suddenly, Ohtani was one.

Why? Did he hate ham? Was this some personal vendetta against pork products? Who knows. But what we do know is that they offered him something no one else did: the chance to both pitch and hit. It was unheard of. Even Ohtani was surprised. Because that’s not how modern pro baseball works. It’s a game of specialization, after all. You focus on one thing and become the best at it. But the Ham Fighters? They were willing to fight a lot more than ham. They were ready to take on the entire baseball establishment.

It wasn’t an overnight success. Hell, it wasn’t even a home run. Maybe closer to a strikeout. But baseball is a game of failure, and the Ham Fighters and Ohtani stuck with it. Slowly, methodically, he developed a routine, building up both sides of his game until he was a legitimate two-way threat.

MLB scouts came in droves. And as Ohtani’s skills sharpened, it became clear he had his sights set on America. The big leagues.

Scouts were famously mixed on Ohtani. Including one hot take that said Ohtani wasn’t special and basically looked like a high school hitter. Ha.

Then came the real question: Would any team actually let him continue to play both ways?

No one believed it. It sounded like a novelty, a marketing gimmick. Just wait, they thought—he’ll have to pick one. But the Los Angeles Angels? They decided to roll the dice and let him try both.

Ohtani debuted, and it was like the baseball world woke up. The media couldn’t get enough. Finally, something new to talk about. The hot-take machines went into overdrive. Ohtani faltered a bit at first, even thought about giving up the dream of being a two-way player. But slowly, he found his stride—racking up strikeouts on the mound and launching homers over the wall.

Fast forward, and now we’re in a place no one could have imagined: Shohei Ohtani, not just excelling at both, but redefining what it means to be great. Wait—he’s one of the best pitchers in the game? On some nights, yes. One of the best hitters? Possibly, yes.

He did what nobody thought was possible. And in doing so, he began to obliterate the boundaries baseball had set for itself for a century. The unicorn revolution, indeed.

And still, the naysayers persisted. The ultra-conservatives, the gatekeepers. “But Ohtani can’t be the face of baseball,” they said. “He doesn’t even speak English.” Enter Stephen A. Smith, sports’ professional loudmouth, saying that Ohtani couldn’t be the face of baseball because of that language barrier. What a take, huh? That one aged like milk left out in the sun. If only Smith didn’t speak English—or any language for that matter—our sports-watching experience would be far more enjoyable.

Then came the MVPs. Then came the contract. Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, earning the largest deal in sports history. More validation. More hype. More people waiting for him to fail under the weight of expectations.

Then there was that weird Netflix-worthy scandal with his translator-slash-best friend, who held all his financial passwords. The media was ready to pounce. Surely, this was the unraveling they had been waiting for.

Ohtani’s response? He became the sixth player in MLB history to join the 40/40 club—40 home runs, 40 stolen bases. The pinnacle of offensive greatness, right?

But he didn’t stop there.

Yesterday, Ohtani went 6 for 6, belting a career-high 3 home runs in a single game, to go along with two stolen bases, two doubles, and an astounding 10 RBIs. And in that crazed blur, Ohtani achieved 50-50 in the same game. He even pushed it to 51-51 if you want to get technical.

Once again, Ohtani has set the world on fire. And not just the baseball world. LeBron James chimed in. So did Patrick Mahomes. So did countless voices acknowledging the real-time greatness unfolding before our eyes.

For the uninitiated, outsiders might wonder what the big deal is. Well, baseball is a game that has been going on for 200 years. Untold thousands have passed through. And Ohtani has emerged as the only person to register this level of greatness.

Baseball is a simple game, it’s been said. Throw the ball. Hit the ball. And in that simplicity, the game will judge you. It’s a game that all comes down to repetition and making split-second choices.

You see, baseball loves choices. Power or speed. Pick one. You can’t be both. That’s just how the game works.

But Ohtani, once again, chooses both.

This doesn’t diminish what Judge or Lindor are doing. They’re having amazing seasons in their own right. But Ohtani? He’s reframing the whole damn conversation. What does baseball excellence even look like now?

Judge and Lindor are incredible. But Shohei Ohtani is redefining the game.

And it’s not just baseball. Ohtani’s captured the world’s imagination. He’s transcending the sport itself, mentioned alongside names like Ronaldo and Messi. A global superstar in a sport that’s longed for one.

The fact that fierce debates are raging and waves of haters and trolls are rising, is proof that baseball is roaring back into culture. Let the national and international debates catch fire.

So, yeah, bring the hype. Bring the hate. Bring another MVP.

And with it, bring the haters and naysayers. It’s all voices that will raise the game higher.

Then sit back, as the dust settles on Ohtani’s newly minted, exclusive 50-50 club. Because when Ohtani steps onto the sacred ground of October baseball for the first time, history and the world will be watching.

And with history as our guide, we have no idea what Shohei Ohtani will do next.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Jim Riswold Changed Advertising

From the outside, Jim Riswold was the name I kept hearing.

Riswold was the first copywriter Dan Wieden hired and was credited with authoring Nike’s voice in the 80’s and beyond. First with the Spike and Mike ads, Bo Knows, Hello World for Tiger Woods.

And on and on and on.

The list is staggering and endless.

One of his ideas for Nike was so big, pairing Michael Jordan with Bugs Bunny, that it ended up becoming a Hollywood blockbuster, Space Jam.

When I started at Wieden+Kennedy, the Riswold anecdotes started on day one and never stopped.

About how he rode off with Michael Jordan one day to go golfing. Or how he would start swearing at random people in the elevator. Or how he literally had a “Stupid” stamp that he would pound on work presented to him.

Susan Hoffman, my mentor and patron saint of W+K was especially full of the Wisdom of Riz. About how he’d make things so simple and sharp. About how he’d never give up once he had an idea. About how much he hated boring work. About how much he hated BORING.

One day, when I was in W+K 12, Wieden’s experimental advertising school, Susan arranged for us to visit Jim Riswold in his art studio. We were all a little intimidated given the man’s hard core reputation and hall of fame body of work.

We showed up at his studio, which was filled floor to high ceiling with art, WW2 propaganda, bins of vintage toys, statues of world dictators, random doll parts, portraits of David Bowie and Warhol paintings. It was like a psychotic flea market or deranged toymaker’s factory.

We gathered around and Jim started talking about how he came up with some of his famous ads. How he’d bang his head against his desk (or hide under it), wallowing in despair until he found something interesting. He talked about how he always looked for ways to exaggerate or stretch the truth. Like Bo Knows about two-sport superstar Bo Jackson. The idea was simple, Bo is good at two things, what if he was good at everything?

Despite Jim’s snarling reputation, he was extremely generous and open with sharing his thinking and process with our group. Even when someone asked a “dumb” question, he answered earnestly and thoughtfully. Of course, he would tip into his famous profanity-laced tirades during his anecdotes. Usually when he was recounting resistance to his ideas or having to deal with a process that would dumb down his work.

After the talk, a few of us were looking around his studio and checking out his art and toys. He asked if we wanted to go around the corner to his local spot to keep chatting. Of course we were up for that.

I asked him how he comes up with his ideas. He said he just had a list of people he wanted to work with, then he made up campaigns as an excuse to work with them. That list included Lou Reed, Spike Lee, Bo Diddley, Bugs Bunny, Miles Davis and more. He had a knack for turning fame in on itself and creating a cultural bang that turned into new and unexpected things that became crystalized in pop culture.

Riswold then asked what we wanted to do. He alternated between harsh cynicism “the client would never buy that. You should have had that idea ten years ago,” and teacherly optimism, “keep going, there might be something there.”

After the visit to Riswold’s studio, I’d email him for advice sometimes. He always responded right away. Sometimes just with a short line. Sometimes with a couple of paragraphs. Usually taking the time to both rip on himself and me.

A few years later I was asked to give a talk to the current W+K 12 group. At one point Riswold walked by as I was answering a question. He was just walking through. He kept his head down and when he was almost out of the space he suddenly shouted “Don’t listen to this stupid f***! He’s only been in advertising for two f***ing minutes!!”

It was a drive-by STUPID STAMPING by Riswold.

The standard the he set with his work has remained the creative bar and north star for decades.

In meetings and brainstorm sessions, I used to hear “that’s kind of a Riswold idea” as a high form of praise. I don’t hear that so much these days. And that’s a damn shame. It falls on those of us who heard some of the method behind the madness to preach the gospel according to Riz. In all its vulgar glory. It’s central to the DNA of a place like Wieden+Kennedy. It’s the big bang of creativity that preaches taking big swings, and being bold enough to be wrong. Or these days, maybe even worse, daring to NOT MAKE SENSE.

One more pearl of wisdom Riswold explained was this: Never complete an idea.

Riswold argued that if you perfectly wrap up an idea, the audience will get bored. Leave something unsaid or unexplained. Or flat out wrong. In an industry of meetings and video calls with everyone power nodding along in agreement as a presentation “tracks”, maybe the bravest thing is to go the other way. Risk alienating some people. Let them scramble to catch up. Give them space to figure it out for themselves. That’s one way to get to work that cuts through and gets remembered.

It’s something I still think about when I’m putting ideas together today.

I’ll leave you with some words from the man himself below. And when it comes to advertising, no one has ever had a command of words like this dude. He will be greatly missed.

My love goes out to his family, the thousands he inspired and mentored and the untold millions who were smacked upside the head by his work. Riz Forever.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Shohei Ohtani: Baseball's Most, Most Valuable Player

Shohei Ohtani.

Baseball’s first two-way player in a century.

In a sport landscape filled with players who are apparently “different,” Ohtani is caps lock DIFFERENT. The HIM of “Hims.”

Call him G.O.A.T.-ani.

Call him two goats.

Split him in two and he’d be worth two individual MVPs.

Break down his atoms and particles and they’d all be worth their weight in gold.

Condense his elite aura into fumes and he’d solve the global energy crisis.

That he even exists is provocative and downright offensive. What are all these other ballplayers even doing out there? Why can’t anyone else be more like him?

Who else is using half of the game to throw shutouts, and the other half to hit two homeruns?

Exactly no body. Count ‘em up.

Of course he’s the unanimous choice for MVP, for a second time. What the hell happened those non-MVP seasons? Sports writers were doing crazy non-paying attention, absent minded, feel sorry for everyone else voting. Of course he’s the MVP.

His yearly MVP coronation isn’t just an end-season award. It’s a state of being.

If Ohtani is breathing air in the vicinity of a ballpark, he’s the guy.

Create a fancy jewel-encrusted award for the runners up, because it’s not a fair comparison. There are other great, cool and elite baseball players in the game. But Ohtani is something more.

He makes your hyperbole sound like humility.

No matter what flowery, new age sports metaphors and clever wordplay you can come up with, you can’t encapsulate truthfully what Ohtani is doing.

We can’t even crack a proper metaphor on what he’s doing. It’s like if Pat Mahomes was leading the NFL in touchdowns and sacks? Maybe it’s similar to Michael Jordan when he was scoring champ AND defensive player of the year? Something like that, except Jordan was just doing his job. Ohtani is doing TWO JOBS at all-time levels, all of the time. You dig?

In video games and little league, Ohtani’s are aplenty. It’s backyard whiffle ball fun to do it all.

But that’s not how the gatekeepers, legion of lawyers, doctors and gods of baseball work.

The institution of baseball forces you to make a choice: Hit or pitch.

You are given permission to play in only one half of the game.

The scouts and coaches eventually make the choice for you. They pay you a stack to do one or the other. There is no multiple choice option. They whisper about “protecting their investment” and “reality.”

Until Ohtani. He’s the all of the above trick question of sports.

When he first announced his major league intentions after playing in Japan, he flexed and fronted that he’d only play for a team that let him do both.

Cute, they’d say. Let’s humor him, they’d say.

Maybe we’ll let him pitch out of the bullpen in the spring training, and then use him as a hitter only once the games start.

Or maybe we’ll make him our starting pitcher, and then use him to pinch hit once every ten games so he feels validated. He’ll grow out of this phase, they’d say.

Ohtani didn’t accept such shenanigans.

He demanded to be a proper two-way player in a traditional sport that only knew one way for 150 years.

Except a dude named Babe Ruth. He did both. A sepia toned, crusty century ago.

Then teams had to debate. Wait, is Shohei a better pitcher or hitter? What should we sign him as? What should we prioritize him as? How does he fit into our system?

His prodigious double talent forced the game of baseball to bend brains and inflexible “it’s always been that way” Hawaiian shirt wearing “baseball people” to learn all sorts of mental yoga positions. (sorry, not a pretty image)

Ohtani forced America’s longest running, most traditional sport to CHANGE.

When he touched down, he did it all. And people didn’t buy in. It won’t last—they said. What a lucky start—they said.

That was 2018. But the thing is, that lucky start has been going on for five years. A couple of MVPs later, we’re living in an alternate reality, where we’re being treated to regular shows of no one who is alive has ever seen incidents on the baseball field.

None of this was supposed to happen. The powers that be should have never allowed this. Players don’t get a choice. For a century, baseball ran the show. They told you how it was.

Now it flipped and Sho is The Show.

Baseball is a team game, but unique in that it puts individuals squarely in the spotlight. Ohtani is twisting all those spotlights to look at him, and casting a shadow over everyone else. And he’s doing it with no disrespect. In an era where players are running around and screaming about their personal narratives and how they are the greatest ever, Shohei Ohtani has a legit claim to all of that and he’s just sitting on his sofa high-fiving his dog.

Hashtag Wholesome.

Hashtag Whole Game.

Now we’ve all had some time to absorb what’s going on, but we still don’t know how to talk about. We don’t know how to properly hype what Ohtani is doing. His dramatic feats empty our heads and steal the words from our mouths.

It’s okay. Maybe we’ll be able to contextualize what’s going on later.

For now, just keep your eyes open and enjoy the show.

It’s historic goat level things that make sports real time historic drama like no others.

So let’s all mint nicknames, get hyped and enjoy the nightly goosebumps courtesy of Ohtani-san. Enjoy the ride as he smashes multiple balls into the cheap seats and dons his samurai helmet.

Baseball has never dreamed wilder or crazier than it’s doing with the career display the slugger slash hurler from the Rising Sun is putting on. These are competitive hallucinations made tangible. We’re living within the borders of a rare baseball card, surrounded by living, breathing golden baseball monuments.

And so we ride on, accelerating to an uncharted region on the sports map. It’s like learning that the world is round. And spinning like a baseball erupting from the hand or bat of Mr. Shohei Ohtani.

The Thing About Brand Taglines...

Every brand wants to say something that stands the test of time. But do they have the discipline and patience to get there?

Brand taglines are treated like a magic bullet.

Some people turn to them to patch up a shaky campaign. But that’s really just putting a bandaid on a bigger problem. If a campaign isn’t working, the short phrase at the end isn’t going to magically make sense of it all.

The value of brand taglines is earned.

Over time.

Take Nike’s “Just Do It.” In 2023, the motivational phrase is so ubiquitous, it’s hard to consider its origins. But in the 1980s when Dan Wieden wrote the slogan and Nike ran it in a campaign, it was anything but a sure thing. Wieden had tapped out the phrase in an effort to patch together a wildly diverse set of commercials that would all be running as a part of the same campaign. Since the voice of the commercials was all over the place, Wieden threw “Just Do It” at the end of them all to offer some cohesion.

In interviews, Wieden even suggested that the phrase was a “placeholder” until they could think of something else. Something in his mind felt that the line could be beat. Of course, the place has been held by “Just Do It” for decades and has since become synonymous with the Nike brand itself.

Over time, the meaning and power of Nike’s tagline has grown exponentially. This is to Nike’s credit, for continuing to serve campaigns that featured the phrase. Each time adding nuance, dimension and power to the simple three word edict.

One of the most crippling briefs I see come up is when a client asks “What’s our ‘Just Do It?’” Or “Think Different” or “We Try Harder.”

Of course, we’re all attracted to the lasting power and inspiration of long-lasting brand lines. We all want to play a role in building a legacy. But this is a paralyzing and unrealistic ask.

It’s not a human request to essentially ask “What is the simple phrase that our brand can run for decades?”

The best we can do, is look at the opportunity on the table and say “What best serves the work and brand?”

What is the most insightful thing we can say right now?

That’s all Dan Wieden was trying to do back in the day. His needs were to find something that spoke with an athletic mindset and unified a diverse body of work. It was a specific brief with an immediate need.

One thing I’ve seen over the course of my career is brands abandoning great lines “just to change things up.” This is the opposite kind of thinking. You don’t have to say something completely different this year than you did the last. The way you say it can change, but it’s okay to have conviction and let your brand tagline run a little more.

If your brand is coming up with a new tagline every fiscal quarter, and yet you still have the desire to build a “Just Do It” level legacy—how does that work?

Building a brand requires you to be comfortable being both consistent and surprising at the same time. This is how you win over time. You keep doing the things that work, and find new ways to stay relevant and engaged with culture in the current moment.

Brands that constantly demand disruption and are prone to chase the latest shiny trend, find themselves in a constant state of identity crisis. Someone needs to talk them down. Someone needs to have the confidence to keep some things the same.

And that’s exactly what a long-running brand tagline projects.

Confidence.

Your audience learns that they can depend on you and know exactly who you are in the little bursts of moments they spend with you during their day. Because you know who you are and can consistently communicate it.

With your brand tagline set, then begins the fun work of varying your tone and voice to add diversity and new layers of meaning to that tagline. Figure out how it works when you have something serious to say. Try it out when you have a lighter message. See how it connects to individual brand ambassadors and their stories. Offer an invitation for your audience to relate to your brand mantra in a personal way.

The more touch points you create, the more emotional resonance you can layer onto your brand tagline.

If you treat your tagline like a flavor of the week, it shows you don’t care or have conviction. It will smack of marketing and ring hollow. Your audience is sophisticated. They make fun of goofy or corporate or AI-generated sounding taglines all the time. If you don’t commit, you will be ridiculed or suffer an even far worse fate—you’ll be forgotten.

So keep your eye out for the next opportunity to commit to a brand line. Sometimes that looks like having the conviction to dust a previous line off and give it another run. Sometimes it’s coming up with a new line. The art of branding comes from the gut and making bold decisions that follow your instincts. So look at everything available to you and figure out the mix of messaging with a brand line that speaks your brand truth—right now.

Don’t get lost in thinking about the future or worrying if your three-word statement sounds “epic” or “Gen Z” enough.

Is it right for the work on the table today?

That’s the only question you have to consider. It’s soul-searching work. That’s the daily job of building a brand. It’s not all lightning in a bottle, dramatic moments of clarity. It’s a run of small decisions that you make from a single perspective.

If you answer the call and execute honestly, you give your brand a shot at building a lasting legacy.

Branding Vs. Brand Guidelines: What's the Real Difference?

Marketing is famously filled with jargon. The problem with jargon is that it quickly becomes meaningless. There are some foundational terms and concepts that are easily conflated and that lose sharpness over time. One fundamental term that I’ve seen have a broad range of interpretations is “branding” itself. Most commonly, I’ve seen people use “branding” to specifically refer to “brand guidelines.” However, in my experience brand guidelines are just a very small subset of what branding is.

Let’s dig in and see what the distinctions are.

What is Branding, Anyway?

First things first, let's define what branding actually is. At its core, branding is all about creating a meaningful, emotional connection between a brand and its audience. It's about making people feel something when they see your logo, hear your name, or encounter your products. Think of it as the heart and soul of your brand – the intangible magic that makes people choose you over the competition.

For example, Nike is a brand that has nailed the art of branding. It's not just about their iconic swoosh; it's about their "Just Do It" ethos. Nike has become synonymous with athletic achievement, determination, and the pursuit of excellence. When you wear Nike gear, you're not just wearing sports apparel; you're embodying a winning mindset.

Another standout example is Coca-Cola. Beyond their sugary beverages, Coca-Cola has created a timeless and universal message of happiness, togetherness, and sharing. Their branding campaigns, like the iconic "Share a Coke" campaign, have touched the hearts of millions worldwide.

Brand Guidelines: The Rulebook

Now, on to brand guidelines. These are like the brand's rulebook. They lay out the dos and don'ts, ensuring that your brand's visuals and voice are consistent across all touchpoints. Brand guidelines are essential to maintaining a cohesive image, but they're not the soul of your brand. They're more like the uniform your brand wears every day.

Let's take Old Spice as an example. Their brand guidelines ensure that no matter where you encounter Old Spice – whether it's in a TV commercial, a print ad, or on social media – you'll recognize that quirky, humorous style. The brand guidelines keep the Old Spice persona intact, but it's the brand itself that makes you smile.

Harley-Davidson is another brand that knows the power of guidelines. Their brand is synonymous with freedom, rebellion, and the open road. While their guidelines ensure consistency in logo usage and typography, it's the brand's strong identity that makes owning a Harley a lifestyle choice. You can intellectually recognize the logo, but it’s the brand that makes you feel something.

Branding = Culture Relevance

So, why is it crucial to distinguish between branding and brand guidelines? Because understanding this difference can take your brand to a whole new level. You see, branding is what makes your brand relevant in culture. It's about tapping into the zeitgeist, reflecting societal values, and creating something that resonates with your audience on a deep, emotional level.

Think about Apple. It's not just a tech company; it's a cultural phenomenon. Apple's branding revolves around innovation, simplicity, and challenging the status quo. They've made owning an Apple product a statement about individuality and creativity. When you see someone with an iPhone, it's not just a phone; it's a symbol of a shared ethos.

Red Bull is another brand that's deeply ingrained in culture. Their branding is all about pushing the boundaries of what's possible. From extreme sports events to content creation, they've made "gives you wings" a lifestyle, not just a slogan.

Emotion = Fans

One of the most powerful and enduring things about branding is that it turns customers into fans. When you create a strong emotional bond with your audience, they become your biggest advocates. They'll wear your merchandise, share your content, and defend your brand in internet debates. That's the power of a brand that connects on a deeper level.

Take Nike again, for instance. Their emotional connection with fans goes beyond sports. When they released the "Dream Crazy" campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, they tapped into the broader cultural conversation about social justice. This move not only solidified their brand's values but also won them a legion of new fans who admired their bold stance.

Another example of this phenomenon is Disney. Disney's branding is all about nostalgia, magic, and storytelling. They've created a fan culture that spans generations. From Mickey Mouse to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Disney's branding is a masterclass in creating lifelong fans that keep coming back (and bring their kids with them).

When asked about the role of a brand, Dan Wieden distilled it down to “Move me, Dude!” That sums it up pretty well. If your branding isn’t making someone feel something, it’s time to rethink and find ways that it can.

The Takeaway

So, the next time a team member uses branding interchangeably with brand guidelines, you can offer this distinction. Brand guidelines are essential for maintaining consistency in design and voice, but branding is the heart and soul of your brand. It's about creating an emotional relationship, winning more fans, and becoming culturally relevant. When you get branding right, the guidelines become part of your daily work in delivering the magic of your brand to the world.

The TLDR: Branding is about emotions, connections, and culture. Brand guidelines? They're just the stewards and hosts who make sure the party goes smoothly.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

Dame Time Never Stops

To be a sports fan is to consent to a certain kind of repeating hell.

To take a ride on a fragile carousel of fleeting delights and hopes.

To have your journey hijacked by nightmares seen and unexpected.

At least that’s the kind of looping fandom experience that awaits fans of certain sports franchises. I’m not talking about perennial winners like the Yankees or Lakers or Man United. Teams with decades of titles, yet whose fans still find reasons to moan insufferably about their “misfortune.”

I’m talking about fans of cursed franchises. Like the Cubs (before they won) or the Red Sox (before they won).

I’m talking about the specific kind of prolonged cosmic agony that comes with being a fan of the Portland Trailblazers.

Live through enough of these downturns and floor drops and you’ll end up flinching at your own shadow.

Portland, an improbable place for a pro sports franchise. A tiny media market in an out of the way place. Besides being Nike’s birthplace, the Blazers have been our only point of sports pride. When the Blazers matter, so too does Portland matter. When the Blazers falter, well, um…

We’re West Coast, but we’re not LA. We’re not Hollywood, but we’re within jeering distance. It’s a a one-sided relationship that grows the chip on your shoulder. The identity of outcast and underdog is readily available. We’re a band of hippies, that place Steve Jobs fell in love with typography, a handful of Ken Kesey novels, a smattering of bookstores and strip clubs—and lush, green nature full of mountains and trees for us to get lost in and find ourselves again.

But back to the Blazers. Back to day Zero.

Us Blazermaniacs are hurting today.

There is always a dull pain, but today, for the first time in 11 years, Damian Lillard is not a Portland Trailblazer. Man, it hurts to type that.

For over a decade, his singular passion and loyalty emanated and elevated our city of roses and made Portland matter in the sports world. No, sadly we didn’t win a championship. But we became the stage of a unique and legendary basketball talent. A man who was a trailblazer in his very being. Who did things his own way. Going directly against the way things were always done, and catching flack for each of his legacy building moves.

With Nike in his backyard, Lillard went counterintuitive to three stripes, becoming the cornerstone of their basketball business and securing a 300 million plus bag in the process. He pushed through the cliche of athletes having “music” projects, and kept developing his skills, dropping tracks and albums every year as Dame D.O.L.L.A.—pulling noteworthy features along the way. From the jump, there was something different about this undersized point guard. He defied cliches and had a specific vision about who he was.

And all the while, he was a gym rat. Obsessively tuning and optimizing his game. Displaying a rare competitive drive that closely aligned with Kobe Bryant’s notorious Mamba Mentality. Kobe even recognized the greatness in young Dame, singling him out with uncharacteristic praise for an opponent. Those who knew basketball deeply, saw something in Dame’s emerging talent.

Dame continued to go off. Each season showing more bravado. Getting faster, sharper and trickier. Extending his three-point range to video game distances that forced conversations about the NBA adding a four-point line. He and Steph Curry made shooting from half-court a part of their arsenal. It seemed like an audacious one-off when Dame launched his first “logo” three, but the long distance bombs never stopped. They only grew more frequent. Dame was evolving into one of the most potent scoring machines in his era.

Slowly, Portland realized that we weren’t just watching our guy, but that Dame was putting on displays of all-time greatness. The basketball gods had illuminated his game. Dame transcended playing in a small market and showed up with a big time persona.

It was the era of Dame Time.

The accolades came. All-star appearances. Olympic gold. Impressive scoring averages. Three point records. Eventually Dame passed Hall of Fame legend Clyde Drexler to become Portland’s all time leading scorer. LeBron James even tapped Dame to co-star in Space Jam 2. Dame was the ultimate big fish in a small pond, and it never held him back. He was growing into a superstar on his own terms.

As Dame matured into a veteran, he eschewed the NBA trend toward superstar buddies joining up to create super teams. Dame emerged as the vocal antithesis of this mindset. He was determined to stay on his grind. He backed it up in his actions, on podcasts and the lyrics of his tracks. He was determined to win, unconventionally, with loyalty. It was a noble stance that drew heat and fire from media and fellow athletes the brighter Dame’s star burned. In an era that glorifies rings above all else, Dame was going to get there on his own path.

Sadly, Portland’s front office failed Dame. They failed to match his from a different time loyalty. They failed to surround him with balanced talent that complimented his outlandish game. And so, year after year, Portland languished and Dame would need to carry the entire franchise and city, making up for obvious roster holes.

There were highlights and miracles and blazes of hope along the way. There were game winners and series winners. The spotlight shone solely on Dame and Dame delivered. Earning a reputation for being an all time clutch performer. Despite never having made the NBA Finals.

There was even an improbable, cinderella run to the Western Conference Finals a few years ago. The farthest the Blazers would ever go in the Dame era. The team sadly ran out of steam and ended up being swept by Steph Curry and his Warriors dynasty. But Dame didn’t hang his head. As always, he had overachieved. He got back in the gym and stayed on his lonely grind.

All this time, for 11 years, Dame was a rock. A leader and a professional. Never dodging the media and always speaking his mind with respect. Dame is a throwback. His values are entrenched and he operates on a personal code that prides itself on loyalty and commitment.

For 11 years, we were blessed with this loyalty in Portland.

On paper, loyalty was returned. His contracts from the Blazers earned him nearly half a billion dollars, one of the richest hauls in pro sports. And that doesn’t count what his personality and story earned him from his 300 million shoe deal and other endorsements. Portland made the right business moves to reward the face of the franchise. But beyond the paycheck, loyalty was woefully lacking.

Somewhere over the course of this summer, the wires got crossed. Portland decided to move on from Dame, and unfathomably didn’t give him the heads up. Instead they went out and drafted a rookie, who has echoes of a young Dame and plays the exact same position. It was the last straw.

Portland could have worked with Dame by trying to bring in veteran pieces that complimented and enhanced Dame. That’s the basic strategy when you have a singular superstar, you build around them. But in making their brash choice, Dame’s hand was forced, and on July 1st he formally requested a trade. The face of the Blazers for over a decade wanted out.

And yesterday, he got his wish.

And for Blazer fans, our worst fears have manifested again.

Today, we add to our impressive resume of misfortune.

The tragedy and business of sports dictates that those who care most deeply about the team and its players, have zero say in the team’s path. A path that has included such spectacular lowlights as:

-Being the team that could have drafted Michael Jordan, but didn’t.

-Being the team that could have drafted Kevin Durant, but didn’t.

-And now, being the team that willfully ignored the wishes of it’s greatest player and most loyal athlete of the modern era.

Yes, woe is always us. But today is about Dame.

Today we lose a major piece of our identity for the past 11 years. No doubt we’ll have phantom limb syndrome and live vicariously through the triumphs Dame achieves in another city. It’s not possible to stop reacting to the thrill of a Dame half-court shot.

To Dame, THANK YOU.

Thank you for your class and heart. Thank you for embedding yourself into the Portland community and all the good you do in the city. Both loudly and quietly. You will forever be our true mayor.

Thank you for making Portland matter again. When superstars came into our house, you stood up for us and fought back. Thank you for the insane threes and game winners. Thank you for the professionalism. We’ve seen our share of dark and embarrassing times, but with you as our leader, there was only pride. Only class and wide-eyed truthfulness.

You made us stand up straighter and puff out our chests. We could claim you as our own and hitch a ride to the stratosphere as your star rose.

These past three months have been a lot. Amid all the trash talk and sports media hype, it still felt like the basketball gods might intervene and find a way to keep you in a Blazer uniform.

Today we know that was wishful thinking.

Anyway, go get your ring. Go get a couple.

And when it’s all said and done, we’ll beam with pride knowing our guy did it. Hell, we’ll even dream of you coming back to Portland as a champ and leading us to the promised land and that parade down Broadway you prophesied about years ago.

Bridges may have been burnt in how this all went down, but luckily this is Portland and we have a lot of bridges.

Until then, go get it Dame.

How the Nike Brand "Just Does It"

This article originally appeared on my SubStack.

I’ve worked with a lot of brands.

I’ve worked with brands in tech, sports, ice cream, travel, fashion, finance, automobiles, airplanes, food, pets, furniture, entertainment, music, crypto and NFTs. Those are the broad strokes.

And there is one brand I’ve worked with more than any other: Nike.

I grew up in Portland, Oregon and fell hard for the mystique of the Swoosh. I was an athlete (varsity basketball in high school, and baseball all the way through a pro tryout after college) and I loved creativity. Nike delivered creativity to athletes in spades. When my baseball career came to an end, I walked right into the shadow of the Swoosh and set out to figure out what the hell was going on there.

How come I had to buy Air Jordans? Why did Nike commercials rival Hollywood productions? Why did everyone I know have posters of Nike athletes on their bedroom walls? How did this company down the road in Beaverton go from selling shoes out of a van into becoming the coolest brand in the world?

My unbalanced curiosity led me to the halls of Nike’s ad agency Wieden+Kennedy. Since then, I’ve spent nearly two decades working on Nike campaigns. First in Portland, then in Tokyo, and now, as I type from Arizona.

Working with so many talented, passionate and experienced people at both Nike and Wieden+Kennedy over the years has been a particular education. All throughout that time I also worked on other clients, which has shown me Nike’s similarities and differences with other brands.

Almost all clients I’ve worked with have asked me what it’s like to work on Nike. Some clients even set the specific bar of hoping to make the kind of work that Nike does. You can even find clips on YouTube of Steve Jobs praising Nike’s advertising and brand strength. (Jobs used to actively hire former W+K employees with Nike experience to work on Apple’s advertising. A hiring principle that continues to this day.)

So, what is it that makes Nike able to function as such a potent brand? Even as it has expanded into becoming such a multinational corporate juggernaut? How has it retained its brand power? What has Nike and its agency partnerships done to keep its advertising and branding as the bar other brands aspire to?

There is no easy answer. But I can give my observations from my career of working with Nike and comparing it to other brands.

The standard is clear and extremely high. It’s not easy selling an idea to Nike. They’ve been going for decades and have executed a wide diversity of work in that time. When you are trying to come up with ideas for Nike Football or Nike Basketball, nothing you present can resemble anything they have done in the past. Each assignment demands a fresh and specific insight. On some campaigns, I’ve written nearly a hundred scripts, just to sell one. Other brands I’ve worked with have high standards, but clients are rarely deeply versed in the work that came before their time.

Nike is a belief system. Working on Nike can veer into cultish territory. There are beliefs and quotes that come from co-founders Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. “If you have a body, you’re an athlete.” There are also north stars that have been established in previous ad campaigns. Mantras like “You don’t win silver, you lose gold,” and “There is no finish line.” These beliefs become proof points that you can filter work through. Clients will look to these truths to judge your ideas. You need to understand what Nike believes, not just what you think will be cool. If you can ground your ideas in the brand beliefs and you’ll give your ideas a better chance. Many other brands I work with speak of core beliefs, but it feels more like an intellectual exercise. Some brands are always trying to reinvent what they stand for. Nike knows who they are.

The voice of the athlete is queen. At most brands, the buck stops with some senior client. At Nike, the athletes themselves wield incredible power. I’ve seen situations where a client was tepid on an idea, but once it got the thumbs up from an athlete, it was game over. Once an athlete likes something, it’s sold and you go make it. On other brands, sometimes it’s hard to actually pinpoint the final decision maker. At Nike, there is always the “threat” that an athlete will come in and make the call. This adds tension and focus to the whole development and approval process. Brands who do identify a single decision maker usually make the most singular and impactful work in my experience.

They take it personally. (aka everyone cares) Phil Knight famously doesn’t believe in “testing.” This has created a culture that empowers decision makers. For better and worse, clients at Nike are encouraged to develop their own taste and stand by their decisions. This can lead to very subjective debates. But the end result is that all of the work that gets made has real human spark and emotion behind it. Someone made the decision because they personally liked it. No putting it to a committee vote or anonymous room of people off the street. You can feel the human touch and quirk in the finished product. Some brands I’ve worked with operate as a democracy. They give the power to testers or take a vote and listen to the opinions of even the most disengaged participant. This is the opposite of taking it personally, and leads to watered down, please the masses type of work.

They’re competitive as hell. Nike’s operating system and business engine is competition. Being founded by athletes and coaches, everything is a win or lose proposition. Nike clients want to outshine each other. One hit project can make a career. This creates active excitement and immense pressure. There is a constant push to make the work better and finesse the details. It’s not a matter of making comments just to say something (something I have experienced on other brands that actively makes the work worse.) Nike clients are smart and driven, because they are in the game to win not just build a resume.

Everything comes back to sports. Everyone at Nike can talk sports. Even if a client isn’t an athlete themselves, they find a way to respect and honor sports. I’ve worked with tech brands whose clients didn’t really understand or appreciate the tech. I’ve worked with travel brands whose clients just saw the job as a marketing role. At Nike, everything ties back to a love of sports. Being nimble with references, historical performances, play styles and the latest rising stars will serve you extremely well. This passion permeates all levels of the work. This intensity of passion is hard for other brands to manufacture. At Nike, love of sport runs to its core.

They have a tight strategic playbook. Before a project comes up, the brief and strategy are super clear. Sometimes, as a creative, the strategy portion of the process takes too much time. But the end result is a clear target and set parameters to operate in. From there, judging and debating work becomes almost a legal exercise. Every detail of an idea must be justified back to the core strategy. This can be infuriating when you are in the weeds trying to get a project green lit. But the intention and purpose behind this is to make sure the work stays on target. Of course human opinion does enter the process, but with a defined strategy, arguments on both side need to have logic to them. I’ve never seen anything close to the level of rigor that working on Nike demands at another brand. In my experience, this comes from a lack of strategic clarity. Both strategic business thinking as well as creative strategy.

No one is just taking up space. I once presented a campaign to a blue chip tech company. The presentation was in a classroom setting. I was up front in the “teacher” position. Looking out, were THIRTY CLIENTS sitting in school desks. None of them looked at me. All of them were typing on their laptops. We somehow sold the campaign, but given the odd circumstances, it didn’t “feel like a win.” Contrast that to Nike, where I have routinely presented to one or two clients. Sometimes there are more stakeholders from other functions, but I’ve rarely presented to more than ten clients. This results in intimate presentations that feel more like conversations. Now, when these things go wrong, it can get really uncomfortable. But mostly, it just feels like a partnership. You know the other side is invested and leaning into the work. Reactions are natural and immediate. You know where you stand. And it’s not at the head of a class with rows of disengaged “students.” How that will ever lead to great work, I’ll never know.

Small talk matters. We’ve all been in those awkward pre-meeting moments. We talk about our weekends or what we ate for dinner. No one really cares, but it’s better than sitting in silence. With Nike, it’s all about “did you see the game last night?” and “Do you think LeBron’s gonna break the record?” Even in the idle chit chat, it’s a chance to show your love of sport and credibility knowing what’s going on. The end result: those head nods and approvals later in the meeting are a little easier to come by. I have seen fruitful small talk on other brands. Like the creative director I worked with who seemed to know IKEA’s entire catalogue and store layout even better than the clients. This also led to smooth relations and approvals.

Everything is marketing. (aka your product is marketing) This is a big one. Nearly every other brand I’ve worked on has treated marketing as a kind of add on. The marketing department is called in after a product has been developed and is tasked with selling it to the masses. At Nike, marketing is baked in to the genesis of every product. Even working at an agency, I was sometimes invited to meetings with product developers to brainstorm how the story of that product could come to life. I’ve also seen products at Nike that didn’t crack their' “story” get shelved. Nike demands that each product “says” something. That’s not something that’s added on later. It’s a part of the big bang of each product’s creation. One brand I’ve worked on stands out as coming close, and that is Airbnb. When I worked with them, they were very advanced in also seeing the benefit of a product feature coming with an innate story. Involve your storytellers early, folks. Your business results will thank you.

Everyone wants to be Nike. They’ve cracked the code and have been executing for decades. But it’s not as easy as setting the brief to “Make a Nike style commercial for (Brand X)” Nike is the result of all sorts of beliefs, elements and working styles that come together. It’s not a switch to be flipped. If you want to achieve what Nike has, you have to dig deeper. And maybe you need to ask your brand uncomfortable questions. What do you believe in? Do you care about the work or are you just here for your resume? Does your brand have a north star? Or are you just doing whatever worked at your last job?

Nike is a unique (and actually pretty funky and chaotic “in a good way”) organization. Not every brand will have the intrinsic elements that Nike does. But every brand can aspire to be better. Every brand can commit to being more personal and human. And everyone that works on other brands can apply what works at Nike to what they are doing on a daily basis. The main thing comes down to care and responsibility. If you are willing to let go or roll over when you feel a project going off track, resist. The more you can find a way to do things that you believe in and connect with, the more your brand will benefit. The best brands outside of Nike I have worked with, have had their own versions of what makes Nike successful. The good news is, every brand can get better. Even Nike. Make it your mission to figure out how.

"Artificial Writing"

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the most provocative technology since the dawn of the internet in the early 1990s.

A firebrand topic, AI has ignited debates across business sectors. It’s earned a place in the headlines of Hollywood’s recent writers’ strike, as fears rise of film and television content created entirely by robots.

So where do I fall on the issue of AI? Do I see doom or do I see boom? Neither. I see the evolution of computers. I see exciting new enhancements and abilities. I see new routes to human efficiency. If Steve Jobs noted the computer was “a bicycle for the mind,” I’ll offer some evolved plagiarism and claim that AI is “a motorcycle for the mind.” In that spirit, I’ve decided to hop on a few artificially intelligent Harleys and take them for a scenic winding drive up the coast, so to speak.

AI is a tool. Like spreadsheets are a tool. Like Photoshop is a tool.

When Photoshop came out, there were traditional art directors and visual types who considered it cheating. Over the years, best practices emerged and it became a vital part of the creative scene. The software itself moved to the background. Imitators popped up. Photoshop is now seen as a tool. It’s the same way I see AI.

If you’ve spent any time playing around with it, maybe you’ve gotten over the parlor trick of it all. Yes, it’s impressive to enter a short prompt and have your screen fill up with an academic sounding 5 paragraph essay in a matter of seconds. Or maybe you want to re-write your New Years family update in the style of Hemingway. Have at it. It’s the writing equivalent of Instagram filters. It’s amusing and changes the surface of what you created, but it still starts with you.

AI needs a lot of hand holding. Especially if you want to deliver something of substance. A lot of these AI fans I see are too easily impressed. With a critical eye, AI’s execution is super pedestrian. They can spit out generic bullet points or cop well-known literary styles. But there is no substance to it.

Sure, it will get better as we collectively thumbs up and thumbs down our results. But I have yet to see any written content that really lights me up. My reactions more range from “meh” to “huh.” Actually, my favorite bits of AI results are the so-called “hallucinations.” Little phrases or strings of sentences that really go off the deep end and relate in no way to what you asked for. Now, that is poetry. But on the whole, AI written content is derivative, shallow and un-engaging. A.K.A. it’s bad writing.

However my review isn’t all bad. (The visual and video side of AI has repeatedly turned my head.) I have found some use cases for this stage of AI. I basically treat it like a creative partner. It’s like being in a writers’ room. You can toss out half thought through ideas or ask for lists of options. Again, there is no genius coming back, but I’ve found it stimulates my thought and keeps the creative wheels turning.

With this in mind, I’ve create a quick breakdown of what AI can and can’t do. I’ll revisit this periodically, but here is the snapshot as of August 2023.

What AI CAN DO

1. Providing options for better decisions: AI can spit out a bunch of choices, fast. When you come to a turning point in a story or piece of writing, you can ask AI for dozens of options for what could happen next. Then it’s volleyed over to you to act as editor and determine what the best option is. It's like having a digital brainstorming partner, offering a range of options from a different perspective that can lead to more creative solutions.

2. Revealing the flip side: AI can quickly spit out very basic or “first thought” ideas. Doing this early on can save you time by showing you what the obvious answers are. So you can avoid them. Maybe the contrarian idea to some of these thoughts can turn into an unexpected way forward. By using AI as a "bad version" generator, it steers us away from obvious solutions and into more creative paths.

3. Laying the foundation: AI can assist in creating broad outlines and structures for various projects. It's like having a virtual architect that helps you build a solid foundation before delving into the details, ensuring a coherent and organized approach. With the thirty thousand foot view in place, it’s up to you and your human ingenuity to add spark and nuance to the work.

4. Enabling new perspectives: AI can help us zoom out and see the bigger picture, offering alternative viewpoints that we might not have considered. This fresh perspective can be invaluable for breaking out of mental ruts and finding innovative solutions.

5. Generating flash lists: AI can quickly compile lists of information, condensing complex data into easily digestible formats. In longer form writing like screenwriting or working on a novel, AI can serve as a shortcut to some of your research. By asking it to recall details from a certain subject or time period, you can then hand select details that will add texture and relevance to your writing. It’s like having a digital assistant that provides rapid summaries, aiding in efficient decision-making.

6. Emulating a blogging voice: AI can mimic the tone and style of a generic blogger, delivering content in a consistent and approachable manner. While it might lack the human touch, it can still provide valuable insights and information. This may prove helpful for a smaller company or an understaffed team that needs to generate a high volume of written content for discoverability.

What AI CAN'T DO (yet)

1. Crafting succinct and witty short copy: While AI can generate text, it often struggles to capture the nuanced brevity and cleverness that human writers can infuse into concise content. The art of crafting a catchy one-liner or punchy tagline still remains firmly in the realm of human creativity.

2. Producing high-quality scripts: Developing a script that resonates emotionally with audiences requires a deep understanding of narrative structure, character development, and emotional resonance. AI's ability to create compelling and captivating scripts, especially for intricate storytelling, is still a work in progress.

3. Conveying a personal essay: Writing a personal essay involves sharing one's unique experiences, emotions, and reflections. AI struggles to replicate the authenticity and vulnerability that come with personal storytelling, as it lacks the human touch needed to truly connect with readers on an emotional level. Perhaps as more personal versions of AI emerge, we will be able to train our own AIs to learn the stories and anecdotes of our individual lives.

4. Capturing human emotions and nuances: AI often finds it challenging to understand and convey the intricate web of human emotions, tone, and context. It struggles to replicate the empathy and intuition required to recognize subtle emotional cues and adapt communication accordingly.

5. Making subjective and intuitive decisions: While AI excels in data analysis, it struggles when it comes to making subjective choices that require intuition, gut feelings, and understanding of individual preferences. The human ability to make intuitive decisions based on non-quantifiable factors remains beyond AI's capabilities. There are so many examples of human creativity where a decision maker either made a mistake or made a wrong choice. This kind of surprise and illogical revelation is still all us.

Artificial Intelligence is undoubtedly a transformative tool that has woven its way into various aspects of our lives. From offering options and perspectives to generating quick summaries and even mimicking certain writing styles, AI is proving to be a versatile partner in our creative endeavors. However, it's important to recognize its limitations. While AI can excel in specific tasks, it still struggles to replicate the finesse of human creativity and emotion. As we continue to explore the dynamic between AI and human creativity, it becomes clear that while AI can enhance our capabilities, it's the unique touch of human ingenuity that sets us apart.

Embracing AI as a co-writer offers us an opportunity to leverage its strengths while cherishing our innate human abilities. The synergy between human creativity and AI assistance can yield remarkable results, allowing us to explore new horizons and streamline certain aspects of our creative process. As we navigate this evolving landscape, it's essential to understand when to harness AI's potential and when to rely on our human touch. By striking this balance, we can forge ahead into a future where technology and creativity merge harmoniously, enriching our work and expanding our creative horizons in ways we never thought possible.

At the end of the day (at least for today) AI is a tool. Where you point it and how you use it requires inspiration and creativity from you. As of today, you won’t be able to inspire greatness with the press of a button. The greatness is still inside of you. AI may be able to help you mine some of that as you work to turn it into gold.

The Work Is Never Done

Growing up, I had a very romantic idea of creative work.

I thought about the things I loved and considered their creation.

I imagined George Lucas etching the script to Star Wars in stone, and then going out and making it.

I pictured Jerry Seinfeld just showing up on set and turning it on once the cameras started rolling.

I assumed that’s how creative genius worked.

Whether it was Shakespeare or The Beatles or any work that has stood the test of time.

You show up, flip the switch and lay down perfection.

Greatness was about catching lightning in a bottle.

One single moment of creative spark that arrives fully formed.

What became concerning was, this wasn’t anything at all like my creative process.

I would meander, make mistakes, start over, doubt myself, pick myself up.

The doubt grew louder and louder.

Maybe I just didn’t have that intangible “it.”

Of course, I was only looking at work on the surface and judging the final product.

I needed to go deeper and see how people made creative work.

This is exactly the crash course I would get at Wieden+Kennedy.

The advertising agency famous for making Nike ads.

Campaigns like Spike & Mike, Lil’ Penny and Hello, World sat on my creative top shelf.

There was something about them that were iconic.

They were examples of creative excellence.

I started out in Wieden’s ad school and could go right to the source.

Susan Hoffman was my first creative director.

She was tough, but she was also inspiring as hell.

What I quickly learned from her is that work gets to a high level by constantly pushing.

The actual creative process is messy, chaotic and impulsive.

The details of a great idea don’t all arrive at the same time.

But what does that mean?

It means that when something bothers you, you do something about it.

Maybe the logo doesn’t sit right.

Maybe the cropping of a photo feels off.

Maybe you just wrote a better headline in your head.

Maybe the VO is missing punch at the end.

It could be anything.

If something is off in your gut, speak up.

Stop the process.

Put how you feel into words.

Even—especially when it’s uncomfortable.

To let things slide that don’t fit your taste is to drop the ball.

When you are a creative, you are a guardian of quality.

Your job is to raise the bar.

Not turn a blind eye.

Susan taught me this lesson over and over again.

One time we were working on a simple brochure.

It was already at the printers and ready to deliver.

But I had worked out a layout and line I liked better.

I showed it to Susan and then she reached out to the producer.

Stop the presses.

The producer was not happy.

The deadline for changes had passed.

But Susan stood firm.

The changes needed to be made.

Unhappily the producer relented.

The job was finished.

The lesson was learned.

Over my career these uncomfortable moments marked the time.

It’s a constant clash of creative vision and the limits of time, space and budget.

But the job is to push.

Maybe especially when it’s not popular.

You don’t have to be a jerk about it.

You can stay diplomatic and professional.

Over the course of a project, there are tons of decisions to be made.

Maybe each one makes the project 1% better or worse.

If you keep on all those details, you can turn an average project around.

I’ve learned more about how my favorite things were made.

It was never, ever a straight line.

George Lucas toiled, restarted and scrapped Star Wars for nearly a decade.

Jerry Seinfeld is a perfectionist workaholic who needs every word to sit perfectly.

The Beatles toiled, experimented, played around and worked hard to put it on record.

The work is never finished.

And every moment and pang in your gut is a chance to step toward your vision.

Ignore these internal calls at your own peril.

It’s true whether you’re working on a social post a sixty second commercial or a feature film.

The work and attention to detail remains the same.

There is always something you can do to make it a little better.

The road to mediocrity is paved in convenience and efficiency.

The road to greatness is long and winding.

Realize this and you’ll be ready when the choices come.

The first step is realizing you have a choice.

Make it better.

Or let it slide and move on without you.

If you do the latter, you’ll build a creative career full of regrets.

Giannis' TED Talk on Failure

Giannis Antetokounmpo sent shockwaves through the media with his post game comments the other day.

After his Milwaukee Bucks were eliminated from the NBA Playoffs, a reporter asked him bluntly, “Is this season a failure?”

Visibly shaken, Giannis sighed, rubbed his head before composing himself and going off on a response for the ages. In his impassioned reaction, he argued that there is no failure in sports, and that it’s all a part of the journey to achieve excellence.

I think by showing his frustration, it’s clear the season was a failure. He is after all, arguably the best player in the NBA and his Bucks are recent champions who marched through the season and claimed a number one seed. The expectations were clearly to win a championship, and they failed to do that.

However, it’s not a failure, full stop.

The interesting bit in sports is how athletes respond to seasons where they come up short. Some hide and disappear. They duck the smoke. They make excuses.

Then there are those who turn failures into pure motivation. Those who hate to lose with every fiber in their being. And it doesn’t just stop there. The most elite competitors internalize their failures and come up with an action plan to come back stronger.

Take rookie Kobe Bryant, who famously shot multiple airballs down the stretch of the Lakers playoff game against the Utah Jazz. What was Kobe’s response? He literally called up a high school gym and asked to have it open when his plane arrived, at 2 in the morning. He took no down time to process his failure. He immediately continued his journey. He was compelled to figure out how to make sure that what just happened would never happen again. Kobe failed on that one night, but he also set signposts in the ground that pointed him towards his next success.

Or take Michael Jordan, who was bullied and bodied by the Detroit Pistons in the late 80s. His response? To hit the weight room, try new training tactics and build his body and mind to conquer the beast next time. As history shows, he achieved success in that mission.

Failure is not the end of the story. Unless you let it be. Failure makes some competitors get smaller. Others let failure turn them into a monster.

We know Giannis has a strong work ethic and a strong mentality. He looks up to the fierce competitors who came before him. He’s a student of the game. While he is dismissing the idea that this season was a failure, the story doesn’t end here. My money is on Giannis turning into even more of a problem when we see him next season. He’s committed to the journey and the process of trying to achieve excellence. He won’t disappear on us after this disappointing end to the season. You can already see the wheels turning. He’s not satisfied. And we know based on how crazy his career has developed, he’s about to do something about it.

This is not a full stop failure. This is dot dot dot, to be continued energy.

Giannis’ post game press conference will go down with similar moments from Kobe and others. It’s possible that we’ll see this as a turning point in his career. He was already a legend, but moments like this can spark new trajectories. At one point, after winning three titles alongside Shaq, Kobe was already a myth. After he experienced some down seasons going solo, and even a tough Finals loss, a new Kobe started to forge himself.

Giannis is on a similar path to immortality. This is a temporary setback on the path to something greater.

Giannis has a lot of basketball left to give. And with additional fire, we may end up seeing a player with more depth, more passion and able to will his team to even greater heights. As a fan of the game, it’s a bummer to see Giannis exit the playoffs early. But I’m excited to follow what his response will be. Giannis’ narrative just got even more intriguing.

Nike Proves It Builds Differently With New Web3 Platform "Dot Swoosh"

Nike is quietly building an industry giant in plain sight.

This week, the iconic footwear brand announced the launch of a new platform, Dot Swoosh, to support its continued up-leveling in the digital and virtual space.

While web3 and NFTs have been slaughtered in the recent bear market, Nike has been steadily building and showing a long term conviction in the power of web3.

If we look back in history, Nike is always first when it comes to innovation. They led the charge with redefining athlete sponsorships back in the day, by not just using them as corporate sponsors, but by elevating them to god-like cultural figures. See: Michael Jordan.

Nike was also early in playing with having a simple web page. When other companies didn’t understand the new technology, Nike was playing with it. The same came be said with YouTube. When it was just considered a place to watch trivial cat videos, Nike dropped its athletes into the mix and created viral sensations that transformed how people thought about the platform and what it can do for a brand. See: Ronaldinho Crossbar Challenge and Kobe Jumps an Aston Martin.

Nike did stumble when the Amazon-ification of the world first rolled out, as they still leaned too heavily on traditional retail and distribution. However with the appointment of CEO John Donahoe, former CEO of PayPal, the company completed a full pivot to a digital offense and its direct to consumer business has started to really drive profits.

Maybe this led to Nike’s early bet on the metaverse.

With the splashy acquisition of RTFKT in 2021, Nike signaled belief in the emerging web3 space. A space that makes a natural fit for Nike with its easy analogs in digital and virtual fashion. They even filed all the right patents for creating virtual footwear, “Cryptokicks”, and entire platforms based around the buying and selling of virtual shoes and apparel.

A big issue at play here, is Nike now has a direct path to tap into the robust sneaker re-selling market. How it used to work was people would buy exclusive kicks from Nike, and then turn around and sell them for three, four, ten times more in high end sneaker shops or online. This is big business. And one that Nike can’t get its claws into. However in a world where every physical sneaker comes with a virtual “twin”, there will effectively be a receipt or proof of ownership for every pair of shoes you buy. Cutting out the cheap knockoff market and adding a layer of authenticity to re-selling.

Imagine if you had proof that you owned the first Air Jordan? Or Air Max 1? This kind of social proof, is exactly what the promise of NFTs is built on. People will find value in the virtual authentic sneakers, just the way they pay 10x for sneakers they never intend to wear, but hold onto for investment purposes. Before today, it was a black market. From today, we can see Nike is intending to build a platform and peer-to-peer marketplace where you can buy, sell and trade those virtual sneakers to others.

This has never been done, and it’s hard for the uninitiated to imagine. But it’s basically the fashion and physical goods equivalent of Steve Jobs pulling out an iPod and saying “music will never be the same.” Only in web3, there is this notion of creator royalties and smart contracts that truly have the potential to level the playing field. If Nike can continue to operate in an open source, web3 ethos, this could be a seriously game changing move.

It potentially gives an individual creator the ability to create a Nike shoe, and sell it for others to use across the metaverse, in popular video games, in Roblox, in Fortnite, in a million other games and services and avatars not invented yet. Nike has enable digital sneakers, digital products to go live and have ownership tying back to the individual creators. Not only Nike will benefit from this. In web3, because of the nature of the smart contracts, the financial incentives are spread out.

No longer will you just be a consumer of shoes or jerseys, you will now be a part owner. It’s like a mix of owning the product and a share of the company. It’s a new behavior that is still undefined, but what Nike is signaling and building is nothing short of revolutionary.

It’s like, if you used Amazon back in the day when it launched, and every time you bought something, you also earned a fractional share of Amazon stock. That’s the promise of web3’s mantra: Read. Write. Own.

And in Nike’s case, for fans of the brand, you might also say Read. Write. Own. Just Do It.

If you are interested in Nike, shoes, fashion, digital or simply the evolution of business, ignore this move at your own peril.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation and IKEA. You can check out his work on his website.

My Next Chapter

I spent the last year exploring the branding and storytelling possibilities at the intersection of sports, web3 and NFTs at Dapper Labs. I was the first copywriter hired by Dapper, and helped define the brand positioning and voice for pioneering web3 projects like NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day and UFC Strike.

After 14 years at Wieden + Kennedy in Tokyo, I moved my family to the other side of the world to take on a new challenge in an emerging industry. It was a thrilling, chaotic ride in a startup culture where everyone was driven to do something that's never been done. It always felt like we were a step away from a breakthrough.

While at Dapper, I worked with passionate coworkers as we wrestled with daily challenges amidst industry uncertainty. I was able to write words for Magic Johnson, Patrick Mahomes, Klay Thompson and other sports icons. I'll take the good, the bad and all of the learnings as I move to my next chapter.

From today I'm available for freelance and full-time Creative Director and Copywriter opportunities.

You can email me at oylmiller at gmail dot com.

You can also find me on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.

Thank you, Dan Wieden

“I feel so damn sorry for you,” were the first words Dan Wieden said to me.

I had somehow been invited to interview for the ad school Dan and Jelly Helm had started in the W+K headquarters called 12, and we were told to show up for lunch at this little restaurant in Portland. As soon as I walked in the door, Dan was there and he gave me that first line.

Dan went on, “You’re going to have the hardest year of your life. Susan Hoffman is going to kick your ass. She’s the toughest one we have. She makes us all cry. I can’t imagine what she’s gonna do to you.”

After the exchange, my heart was pounding and I was even more intimidated than when I walked in. I didn’t know what to say. Dan put his hand on my shoulder and added “I’m a little jealous of you too,” with a trickster twinkle in his eye.

That was my intro to Wieden, the man and the agency (and the brilliant Susan Hoffman). Provocative and kind.

The next year was hard as Dan promised, but it was also magical and life-changing. I got to experience the chaos, passion, debates, sky high standards, kindness, all nighters and messy humanity of the place Dan and Dave created. There would be more encounters with Dan like when he would stop by to offer some Jedi wisdom to 12, take us to lunch, share an elevator, randomly walk up and ask “what are you working on?” and that one time we sat in an empty agency and just watched a basketball game together.

The time I was privileged to be around Dan and the 14 years I spent at W+K, taught me the value and depth of his proudest creation: the culture. Yeah, we made some ads, but it’s the late nights, laughs, production grinds, legendary parties, stupid jokes and crazy respect you have for the talented misfits you work with that stay with you forever.

Thank you for everything, Dan.

You continue to move us all, dude.

Spotify to Integrate NFTs

How do you onboard a billion users into web3?

That's the question every NFT startup is asking themselves every minute of the day.

And sure, perhaps one of those startups will crack the code or come up with the killer app that ushers the masses into web3. But a more likely scenario is already established giants entering the web3 game and offering their hundreds of millions of users an enhanced (and profitable) experience using NFT technology.

Imagine YouTube suddenly enabling NFTs and issuing some kind of token based on your lifetime viewing hours on the platform. Or imagine Facebook converting all of the times your content was liked and issues a similar token. Suddenly users will have thousands of dollars worth of NFTs just sitting there and waiting for them to convert. Perhaps the haters will still hate, but history shows that most people love free money. And that's what NFTs are turning out to be in a lot of cases.

Spotify is the latest web2 giant to throw its proverbial hat into the web3 game as they've announced that NFTs will be integrated into the platform. We have yet to see the details of how this will take shape. Will they let artists mint NFTs that lead to gated merch? Will artists be able to mint unheard tracks and demos as NFTs? Will every single track eventually be an NFT? We'll see in the coming months what they have in store for the platform.

The interesting thing I see with music NFTs is how they fundamentally change how musicians are compensated. With the actual smart contract of the NFT, royalties become fair and automated. A fixed, artist favorable percentage will flow back to the artist. This already is a huge course correction to an industry that has famously undercut the very people creating the value. However looking at how smart contracts can revolutionize the music industry gets even more intriguing.

In the past, musicians would collaborate with other musicians and enjoy a split in royalties. Or one artist would ghost write for another artist, and get a cut of the pie. What music NFTs offer, is the chance for this collaborative spirit to work at an unprecedented scale. Instead of artists needing to work with lawyers to broker royalty collaborations with other artists, the collaboration rights are already built into the smart contract of the NFT. This opens up a wild new way that collaborations could work.

With music NFTs, artists can sell their tracks, or samples, or stems, and their listeners will be able to collaborate with them and participate in a fair share of the profits. Imagine an artist minting a track as an NFT. Their fan buys it and has the rights to use it as the track on their TikTok video. As the video is played, it generates royalties that will be split between the artist and the fan. Imagine if the TikTok video goes viral and gets millions of views. Add this royalty multiplier to the NFT and the smart contract is rewarding the artist and the fan automatically. Now imagine an artist creates a hit song that thousands of fans use to create their own content. Suddenly the artist is getting a whole new stream of revenue from every fan who is creating content using the song. This model doesn't exist now, but is precisely what music NFTs can offer.

As Spotify enters the NFT space, they could be the ones to establish the ground rules on this new model. They could empower artists on their platform to mint songs as NFTs and earn additional revenue beyond their streaming money (which has been much maligned). By adding a new way for artists to make money from their music, they could incentivize artists to stick with the streaming service as they pivot meaningfully into the NFT space. This would be the equivalent of Netflix pivoting from DVD sales into the streaming game. This could be the first meaningful web2 to web3 transformation. And with the pivot, 400 million Spotify users could turn into newly minted NFT users overnight.

Of course, YouTube or Facebook could also make the pivot to web3 and bringing their billions of users along for the ride. At some point, they will all make the switch. Maybe at first in a small, experimental way. Or maybe they will boldly go all in with a splashy token airdrop that announces their pivot and rewards all the NFT naysayers with fat stacks as a balm for their potential hate. Once people see how NFTs don't really change things, and that they only empower people to profit from doing what they are already doing, the tides of sentiment will change on NFTs and we will officially enter the widespread adoption of web3.

And once we go full web3, we will never go back to an era where we didn't own our content and where we didn't have the opportunity to be co-owners of artists content. We are about to enter the era of artist to fan mass collaborations. We don't know what this will mean, but the possibilities are fascinating.

ApeCoin Marks The Start of NFT Execution Season

Roadmap season has officially ended.

With the launch of the Bored Apes Yacht Club affiliated coin token, ApeCoin, we are officially moving into the next phase of our shared NFT journey. Trading on the meteoric success of their illustrated profile pictures of apes, Yuga Labs is looking to build out the business. With their recent acquisition of Larva Labs and the Cryptopunks franchise, they are clearly looking to become the Amazon of NFTs.

The ApeCoin will trade on all major crypto exchanges tomorrow, which marks the first mainstream NFT project to launch their own coin. Smaller projects and artists have launched social tokens before, but this is the most famous project in the space making a big bet.

Details around the utility of the coin are vague, but the creators and holding company have gone out of their way to emphasize a community centric distribution. Previous holders are rewarded with tokens. As is an independently formed DAO. As is a flow of profits going to the Jane Goodall foundation.

There are promises of utility and ability to spend and earn ApeCoins in an upcoming suite of currently in development games. On paper it seems roughly to be aping a similar model as trailblazing play-to-earn darling, Axie Infinity. What the Ape themed games are, remains to be seen as there have been no leaks at this time.

The launch of an entire financial ecosystem is a big play. It's the first tangible round of infrastructure utility from the NFT superstar. For a year now, Bored Apes have dominated headlines and become a poster child for the NFT space with outlandish sales prices and a continuous string of celebrities aping into the project. Holding a Bored Ape has become the ultimate status symbol of web3. It either denotes you were crazy early into the space and were able to mint them at around .08 ETH. Or it signifies that you can afford the seven digit asking prices. Either way, Bored Apes took the momentum of Cryptopunks and came out of nowhere to become the bluest of chip projects.

Now the metaverse will watch and partake of the token era of Bored Apes. No doubt there will be an immediate spike as the ApeCoin represents the first widespread entry point into the Ape-verse. The fate of the ApeCoin will be decided by the quality and breadth of the ecosystem Yuga Labs is able to build out. If the upcoming games prove to be on the level of adoption and financial appeal of an Axie Infinity, the ApeCoin will no doubt continue to see a value boost. Within the ecosystem they can also offer tangible benefits like being able to buy gated merchandise with only ApeCoins. Or having future Bored Apes booster NFTs or airdrops exclusively set aside for hoarders of the ApeCoin.

Other projects will be watching what Yuga Labs does here. Will NFT projects launching their own coins simply be a repeat of the ICO bubble of a few years ago? Will be become oversaturated with derivative token projects now? Of course it's possible that meaningful projects, with passionate communities will be able to support their own distinct coins. Imagine traditional companies eventually offering their own tokens that act as loyalty programs. Imagine Nike or Starbucks giving you tokens for every purchase and letting you spend those tokens on exclusive, gated products and benefits. It's like a mailing list and rewards program on steroids. Marketers are going to go wild for this. And if these programs and implemented so that actually value and desired access are set as the rewards, it will create a win-win for brands and their customers.

The power of the blockchain is that it is transparent and trackable. Brands will be able to reward exactly those who are most invested in their communities. No more blind mailers. No more wasted resources. If a wallet holds your project, you can reward that wallet. This maximizes the value for both sides.

So check those exchanges tomorrow and see how the ApeCoin fares on it's initial offering. Tomorrow it will be traded on hype and speculation. The future value of the ApeCoin will come down to the execution and value that Yuga Labs is able to build into their ecosystem. Will this be a novelty in the history of NFTs? Or is it an important inflection point that will determine which of these blue chip projects has the business model and demand to still be around and vital in ten years?

Branding 3.0

In my career in advertising, I remember encouraging brands to take a look at YouTube when it just launched. They laughed at me. I didn't understand media, they said. It was small time, they chided. TV was king, they assured me. I took my lumps and dug deeper into offering them more "traditional" campaigns.

It didn't take long for the early "virality" of YouTube to spin its way into the consciousness of brand managers. Suddenly I started getting briefs to "make a viral video." Oh, the clients loved this. They'd see a group of no name kids who kicked a football against the cross bar, and suddenly they'd "re-imagine" the idea with famous global football stars. Narrative was dead they said. YouTube was all about the quick, magical stunt. Kobe Bryant jumping over a car. Wayne Rooney hitting targets with the ball. The only goal of YouTube was to game the system and make a video that got passed around.

This is the phase we are at with the emerging web3 and NFT scene. Brand managers are looking for 24-hour derivative turn arounds that result in pfp projects and virtual beer/deodorant/pizza. I get it. It's intoxicating to join the hot, new conversation that your audience is aware of. Just like it was exciting to "make virals" back in the day for YouTube. But savvy brand marketers will realize that behaviors and possibilities are changing radically. It's a fundamental shift. It has implications for your business, not just for making a cheap "WAGMI" joke on a Tuesday afternoon.

Eventually, YouTube didn't go away. It grew into THE platform for digital video. People flocked to YouTube for everything. To learn things. To relive their childhood culture. To laugh. To sing. To feel. YouTube ate all of digital video. It was no longer about being "viral" or trying to capture or fake some unbelievable stunt. YouTube just became a platform to tell stories and give information on. Eventually all the marketing budgets starting pumping into YouTube as the place to get your TV ads seen. Showing up early on YouTube, this didn't come as a surprise. It was easy to see that what YouTube was on launch, wasn't what it was going to always be. It ushered in a new fundamental form of online behavior. Suddenly video was king. And it hasn't gone away since then.

This is where we are at in web3 and NFTs in March, 2022.

Brand managers are looking to make "viral" projects. They are thinking about the next two weeks, and that's it. What they are failing to realize, is that NFTs, and the underlying technology, is doing what YouTube once did to online behavior. NFTs let you own your presence on the web. No more like buttons. No more hearts feeding straight into a marketing algorithm that prints money for their holding companies.

For the first time, users, individuals and people matter.

That's what NFTs represent.

You have to look past the headlines and the easy memes about bad drawings or right-click-and-save crusaders. This is just the first volley. This is "everything has to be a viral video" phase. No. This is just the first chapter. It's the early innovators playing around and casually defining one form or use case. From here, the pie gets bigger. From here, behavior gets normalized. From here, the jargon goes away and "digital ownership" starts to become tangible.

People in charge of brands need to realize that the digital world is evolving. It's not just a passing lightweight meme. The fundamentals are changing. The visionary and the first movers will catch this early, and they will start building out their actual business models to fit into the evolution of our digital lives.

That's exactly what Michael Jordan and his son are doing with HEIR. They have founded a web3 and digital culture company that will bring elite athletes and their fans closer together. This is an actual business. This is not a weekend project. HEIR will use Jordan's legacy as a centerpiece, and then build their business around this generation's co-signed athletes to offer digital products (NFTs), access and physical merchandise. To align with this, they have filed a series of relevant patents to stake their claim to the space strategically. Nike has done the same thing. The smart businesses are not just going for the one-off campaign or cash grab. They are adapting their business to where digital behavior and commerce are leading us.

It's easy to be a hater. It's easy to look at the stupid, amateurish videos that first came out on YouTube and dismiss the entire platform. How is it premium? How can it compete with TV advertising? But for those who look deeper and consider the operation and potential in emerging technologies, they give themselves a chance to see a longer runway. And those who get their first and create a tangible impact early, will be able to define the space and position themselves and their companies as first movers. This in itself is a branding win. The Nike's of the world are consistently early to emerging technology and it has helped them to control and distribute their message, brand and products consistently with where culture is gathering.

If you're spinning your wheels trying to come up with the perfect blockchain pun to post on Twitter, you're probably not gonna make it.

So keep your antenna up as these evolutions in technology speed up. If you pay attention enough, see what is being done, you'll start to see gaps where you can do something differently. That's where the wins for a brand lie. And unlike media only innovations, the emergence of the blockchain brings together media and business possibilities.

If you haven't realized, every brand is a tech brand now. The winners will be the ones who opt in earliest.

Limewire: From mp3 Piracy to NFT Marketplace

Millennial music pirating darling Limewire sprang back into headlines this week after decades of dust and silence. The once foundational music piracy service, was buried in lawsuits and eventually out-scaled by legitimate streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify.

However, as we've seen, companies and IPs can undergo radical transformations and reimaginings in the web3 era. And so, next up is Limewire, who according to new management is fully pivoting into music NFTs. While there have been a host of web3 native music NFT platforms coming into the limelight, none of them have yet to reach a widespread adoption or traction. Could a former major player have the brand recognition needed to jump start the official beginnings of the web3 music revolution? It's only a matter of time until someone gets a critical mass of artists on board, sorts out the smart contracts and begins allowing artists and listeners to participate in the growth and profits of musical acts.

In their initial volley, Limewire is looking to launch with artists unreleased, live and bonus tracks. Effectively giving artists an easy route into NFTs, by only requiring them to test out the platform with their forgotten or cast aside tracks. If the traction gains momentum, you could imagine artists starting to launch new albums onto the service and finding out what the financial and fan reach rewards might be. Musicians, long unfairly squeezed for mere pennies per stream on Apple and Spotify, represent a key demographic to demonstrate the freeing powers of digital ownership. And abstract concept that needs its Robin Hood moment. If a struggling musician or group of musicians could come out and declare that they have become profitable off of their music NFTs, that could create a watershed moment similar to how struggling visual artists have found success in the initial phase of jpeg based NFTs.

Expanding into music, would also allow NFTs and web3 in general to prove that an "NFT" is really just a bit of coding, with the power to raise any sort of digital content. This isn't about the shoddily illustrated animals that have dominated early NFT branding. NFTs are simply like "html" or "http", they are a protocol, like web pages that can be applied in infinite ways. To say that you "don't like NFTs" is like saying you "don't like websites." Do you not like all websites? Do you not like the internet? NFTs, like webpages or the internet are not one thing. They are simply the underpinnings that allow for passage of digital ownership. I feel like once music NFTs rise into public awareness, the depth to which people understand the emerging technology will grow. This is simply the evolution of the internet and a new frontier of what is possible with digital behavior.

When you "buy" an NFT, you are not "buying an NFT." That's like saying you "bought a receipt" when you bought a piece of art or a book. The NFT is simply the record of the transaction. There is nothing inherently valuable in that. It's just the record of who paid what for what asset. The record of ownership, combined with the digital asset is what gives NFTs their power and value.

In the future with music NFTs, you could imagine it working like this. Say an unheard of artist released an album on a music NFT platform like Limewire. Fans would be able to buy a share of the album or an individual track. From here, fans would then be able to "stake" their album and generate passive income every time the album or tracks were streamed. The artist themselves would generate the highest percent of income every time the track was streamed. If the artist happened to blow up and get millions of streams, the early owners of the music NFT would see their investment rise. The initial NFTs would be more valuable based on the popularity that the artist gained. If the artist didn't blow up, there would still be proportionate profits based on the size of their fan community.

Imagine an already established artist like Kanye West dropped a music NFT. Let's say Donda 3 was dropped onto Limewire. It would be like any high profile NFT drop, and there would be a massive queue of people trying get get one of the limited edition NFTs, that would allow them to earn profits based on the crazy amount of streams they imagine Donda 3 will receive. With the staking of music NFTs, the longer you stake, the more you stand to gain. So if you consistently buy blue chip artists on their release, you will create a steady stream of income based on the number of streams they get. Currently, all of that action is going back to Apple Music and Spotify. The artists, unless they have separate deals directly with the streaming services, get mere fractions of pennies per stream. It can not support their careers. Web3 stands to use smart contracts to guarantee sizable profits go back to the creators of content. Whether they be visual, motion or music artists. Their name and contract is baked into the NFT, and every time someone interacts with or buys the NFT, the profits automatically go where they are deserved. No record labels. No middle managers stealing profits. It's all out in the open.

Record companies and streaming services could adapt to web3 and get in on the profits by creating their own native web3 music platforms. That way they would be able to offer distribution and a more fair deal to artists to stay involved in the process. Of course, artists like Kanye would be better served to create their own web3 music platforms, where they have the scale and power to recruit other acts, give them a fair deal, and get percentages of all of the action. Major athletes like Michael Jordan and LeBron James are already establishing their own web3 native brands, which will give them massive scale and influence in the space. All public creators need to be taking this seriously, as the earliest ones to get in will profit the most and dictate the ground rules of web3.

Limewire will be one of the first public tests of music NFTs. It will take a combination of major acts and independent artists to move the needle in this space. But due to the nature of smart contracts, a more profitable future is guaranteed to artists in web3. And the interesting addition is that early fans of artists, also stand to profit alongside the music they like. This is the nature of web3 and potential benefit of merely participating and engaging with the new era of digital culture.