From Laptop to Cannes: Making "Luma Taxi" and "Luma Suds"

How a hybrid generative-AI workflow and the Luma Dream Brief turned two solo, cinematic experiments into official Cannes Lions entries.

I made two commercials completely by myself.

And now, thanks to an opportunity from the Luma Dream Brief, they are both headed to Cannes Lions as official entries.

The first spot, Luma Taxi, was born from an idea I’ve had in my head for ages: drop futuristic tech into the Old West, and play it entirely straight. No winking at the camera, no lengthy explanations. Just cowboys and cowgirls operating as early adopters to a new technology and never looking back.

The second spot, Luma Suds, pulls from a deeply personal canon of world-building. Having spent over a decade living in Tokyo, I’ve constantly looked for ways to subvert the gritty, cinematic Japanese crime drama. I wanted to create a laundry detergent commercial with literal life-and-death stakes, living in a dark, criminal underworld where yakuza family members keep lying about the nature of the red stains on their clothes. It’s always that damn “beet root.”

Both of these films were made by me, sitting in front of my laptop, orchestrating every aspect of the generative-AI production.

The era of the one-person studio is a reality now.

Here is a look under the hood at how they came together.

The Blueprint and the Build

Everything started with a script. From there, I wrote a brief outline of the world-building and tone, and uploaded those documents to Luma’s agents.

Then came the visuals. I started by nailing the look of the characters as stills before moving on to the settings. It took a lot of trial and error to achieve the gritty, lived-in, photorealistic worlds I was imagining, but Luma did a pretty incredible job of matching the aesthetic in my head.

As the visuals developed, I moved into Suno to start working on the music. Because each film plays in a very distinct genre, I had clear guardrails for the sound I wanted. I generated around 15 to 20 tracks, picked my favorites, and dropped them into the timeline on my free trial version of Final Cut Pro.

Once I had a music bed and my early generated footage, I started cobbling together a rough cut

The “Pixar Method” of Gen-AI Directing

My AI directing process is heavily modeled after the Pixar method. In Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc., he lays out a rigorous model for iterating and dialing in animated features. You start with very rough sketches cut together into sequences. Over time, the animation is developed and rendered in higher fidelity, replacing the original sketches. The point is that, from a very early stage, you can start to feel the pulse of your characters and the shape of your film.

I worked the exact same way with these edits.

I watched the rough assemblies over and over, diving into the problem areas, tackling the things that bothered me the most, and making those my priorities. This is where taste comes in. Something that only comes from experience lived and absorbed outside of the prompting box.

Honestly, there were moments I desperately wanted to include that the tools just couldn’t pull off. I wanted snappier back-and-forths between the characters, but AI “actors” aren’t quite there yet. So, I pivoted. I shifted my approach and leaned heavily into visual storytelling.

Iterating in Real-Time

Over the course of a week, I just kept staring at my rough cuts. Once the basic blocks were in place, I started finessing the transitions. Was the music connecting us? Were the cuts satisfying? How could I make it more surprising? These are the exact same questions I’ve been asking for the past 20 years while making commercials the traditional way. So many of those instincts and skills carry over directly into AI; the timeline is just massively compressed. It almost feels like you are rewriting the script over and over again until the film is done.

And in AI, there are no “re-shoots.” If you realize you are missing a shot in the edit, you can generate it and plug it in within minutes.

As the cuts got sharper, I zeroed in on the details. How could I land the end card and the product reveal? Were there facial expressions I wanted to try again? Did I need supporting sound effects? Was the footage getting repetitive? It was time to fine-tune and kill my darlings.

Solving for Story

With Luma Taxi, the spot was entirely driven by the narration. I wanted it to feel like an Old West fable, guided by a gravelly, unreliable narrator telling us exactly how things went down. The voice was designed using ElevenLabs. After about seven variations, I found the exact tone and texture I needed, a voice I definitely want to use again in future projects.

I fine-tuned that voice to match the rhythm of the visuals and the music until it felt seamless. If there was a gap that felt too quiet, I’d write a little more VO to connect the thoughts. My original VO ran long (as they usually do), so I just continued to watch the cut and perfect the narration all the way through production.

With Luma Suds, the trickiest part was executing the opening “problem” trigger: the young yakuza spilling wine on the godfather. I spent dozens of generations trying to crack that scene “in-camera,” but the physics and blocking never worked out. Even when I described exactly what I wanted, the AI actor would do something completely out of pocket, like grabbing the godfather’s arm and violently shaking it to spill the wine. Killing the tension and drama of that moment.

Instead of fighting the physics, I leaned into the reaction shots of the partygoers to tell that part of the story. It actually ended up playing up the gravity and consequence of the moment far better than a direct spill would have.

The Era of Post-Permission Cinema

Looking back at these two spots, the biggest takeaway for me is how much of traditional filmmaking still applies. The tools have changed, but the fundamental need for human instinct hasn’t. For two decades, I’ve relied on taste, timing, and problem-solving to make ideas work. Now, I’m applying those exact same muscles to a generative workflow.

We are stepping into an era of post-permission cinema. You no longer need a massive crew, a sprawling location shoot, or a bloated budget to bring a wild, cinematic idea to life and get it all the way to Cannes. If I had my choice and an unlimited budget, I’d always choose the traditional way. But I am aware that change is coming, and new lanes and forms will emerge from these tools. My approach is to get in there early, deeply learn and test the tools, and help push the boundaries of what is possible.

Most of the early AI work I’ve seen has not been for me. At first, I thought it was just for quick memes and fan fiction featuring Elon Musk. Getting deeper into the tools, I now see that you can make whatever you want. The tech bros will continue making their “Hollywood is cooked” spectacles, but when true artists get behind the keyboard, different tones and voices will be unlocked.

It’s an exciting time for makers. Where your ideas can now go directly into production. No client approvals. No messy group meetings watering things down. No uncomfortable compromises. If you have an idea, you can bring it to life in a very final and polished way. It has collapsed time and stacked disciplines in a way we’ve never seen before.

You just need a laptop, a clear vision, and the willingness to iterate until the story clicks.

The barriers are gone. Now, the only thing you need is a great idea.

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Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Two Commercials I Directed Are Heading to Cannes

My Luma Dream Brief entries “Luma Taxi” and “Luma Suds” are moving forward as real ads and official Cannes contenders.

I got a fun email this morning.

Two commercials I wrote and directed for the Luma Dream Brief have been selected to run as paid ads, and will officially be entered into the 2026 Cannes Lions. From here, any of the selected ads that win a coveted Gold Lion will split a share of a $1,000,000 prize pot.

The past year has been a grind and a blur in the AI film space. What started as a curiosity quickly gathered momentum. 2026 has seen one of my AI-commercials run on ESPN, and now two more are official ads for Luma AI, and heading to Cannes.

Anyway, here are my spots for Luma, now running as paid ads.

The first, Luma Taxi, takes us to the town of Luma where the horses have gone on strike and autonomous vehicles help the Old West mayhem go without a hitch.

And Luma Suds, the generational yakuza epic meets laundry detergent commercial of my wildest dreams.

Under the Hood: The Hybrid Workflow

For both commercials, I used a hybrid workflow I’ve been developing over the past year. AI filmmaking leverages powerful technology, but the best examples I’ve seen are far from the “just push a button” meme you see in your feeds. There is still a lot of room for human authorship and decisions to be made. Here is how these films were built:

• Writing as Storyboarding: It starts with rough notes and outlining, which then turn into a draft of a script. I usually start storyboarding at this phase, but I like to do it in writing. I’ll write out dense descriptions of the scenes and moments I have in my head, which naturally evolve into the core prompts.

• Generating the Blocks: Next, I start generating the key sequences. The prompting and results can still be like rolling a pair of dice, so a lot of re-rolling is involved.

• The Edit: Once I have the basic building blocks, I drop the clips into Final Cut Pro. From there, I start pulling selects and getting the spine of the story into a rough edit. It’s a lot of back-and-forth with the Luma model to fill in the holes and perfect key moments.

• Setting the Tone: Early on, I go into Suno AI (a generative music model) to start playing around with the tone of the score. I like to get music on the timeline to edit against. Even if it’s rough, I can always switch it out later with a more crafted version.

• Voice & Character: For the Luma Taxi spot, I created an original AI narrator in ElevenLabs. It had to be gravelly and period-accurate, a voice with enough authority to make even the absurd sound like a black-and-white legend. I was pleased with how it fit the genre and tone I was going for.

I sat with both edits for a couple of weeks, watching them through and making little tweaks to the timing as I lived with them.

With generative AI, there are always moments you wish turned out differently, or frames you wish matched the exact, specific vision in your head. But like any traditional commercial set with a hard deadline, at some point, you have to let go and put it out there.

I’m excited to have the spots out there and running as real ads. It’s all so surreal, and I already have a number of upcoming projects in the pipeline. Stay tuned.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

How I Became an AI Film Director After 20 Years in Advertising

From Nike campaigns to uncanny valley experiments to an AI commercial on ESPN—how Veo, Luma, and pure obsession unlocked a new way to make films without permission.

Still from Luma Taxi Dream Brief AI commercial. Written, directed, and produced by Andrew “Oyl” Miller. 2026.

For a long time, I stayed away from generative AI video tools.

What I saw in my feeds looked like memes and party tricks.

I’ve spent over two decades in advertising, writing and producing commercials and content for brands like Nike, PlayStation, IKEA, Amazon, and more. I had my routines, my established network, and my way of doing things. I’ve collaborated with and had deep creative discussions with legendary directors like Tony Kaye and Frank Budgen. I’ve been lucky enough to glimpse into a dream world of film, and I fell in love with the craft of it all. Yes, tools and taste are ever-evolving, but I deeply fell into a belief that traditional film techniques are the only way.

But then, last year, Google dropped a generative AI video model called Veo 3. I soon saw a random clip of an AI-generated character speaking, with near-perfect lip-sync.

That was the Big Bang of my rocketing journey through the AI film universe.

Suddenly, a lifetime of imaginary characters and dormant stories flashed through my head. Old directionless fragments and shards of ideas in dusty notebooks suddenly had new life. There was so much inside of me that had never found a proper outlet or received the official industry blessing. But when the sky cracked open, and I saw that a cluster of pixels could approximate life and human-ish performance, the writer in me started shaking. I didn’t know exactly where this was going, but I was suddenly, violently compelled to get these ideas out.

Welcome to the Infinite Sandbox in the Uncanny Valley

I started with the low-hanging fruit: Stormtroopers. As a lifelong Star Wars nerd, placing Stormtroopers into our everyday world was a cheap engine for endless gags. They went camping, they went to Cannes, they went to Burning Man. The possibilities were literally endless. It became a meme. Others jumped on.

But soon, I knew I needed to get my own voice out there. I saw AI not just as a way to create blockbuster spectacle, but as a potential platform for unique writing and voice. So naturally, I dipped into the 1980s.

I started thinking about archaic, crusty baseball coaches who hated the modern game. Men triggered by everything, armed with zero self-awareness and iron-clad beliefs from an ancient era. Being in advertising, I knew a funny character wasn’t enough. I needed a platform. I needed world-building.

That became Deadball Academy. Set in present-day Scottsdale, it’s a facility run by a group of coaches stuck in 1984 who bring in modern baseball prospects and corrupt them with deeply backward instruction. It’s a whole universe with lore and bizarre pockets of backstory. I quickly realized there was a LOT to mine here.

The episodes started writing themselves. Sometimes by hand, sometimes as fragmented dialogue and jokes in a notes app. When I strung together enough lines that made me laugh, I started building prompts. It became a new form of mini-screenwriting: establishing a setting, defining a character description, placing a line of dialogue, dictating the delivery, and always defining the cinematic camera look and movement.

Prompt. Prompt. Prompt.

Judge. Re-write. Edit. Curate.

The characters and voices came flooding back. Some were stuck in the uncanny valley; others looked insanely, undeniably good. Nothing was perfect, but it was allowing me to build a rip-o-matic for a cinematic universe that simply didn’t exist before.

Building in Public (and Becoming the Villain)

Whenever an idea outside of Deadball Academy popped into my head, I pursued it. I leaned into Midjourney to test visual styles. I used Suno to tap into my love of songwriting, generating rough, pounding tracks to score my films. Quickly, I was building up a workflow and stack of tools that let me operate a film studio right at my desk.

All the while, I was building in public.

And the internet reacted exactly how you’d expect. I started getting nasty DMs and anonymous trolls flooding my channels. I get it. AI is polarizing, and like it or not, I’ve become the bad guy to some people. But my curiosity, and the voices demanding to be let out of my head, wouldn’t let me stop. Sorry, not sorry. You don’t last in advertising without developing a bulletproof coping mechanism for intense criticism. I just kept pushing. I hear the voices, and the silent judgement, and I keep going.

I’m not looking for your approval. I’m looking for possibilities.

The Trojan Horse and the Million-Dollar Brief

Then, the inbound interest started.

One of those calls turned into writing and directing my first AI commercial, for cybersecurity start-up Proofpoint, which actually aired on ESPN. That is still an insane sentence to write, but it’s internet fact now. I’ve got the receipts. I partnered with the visionary team at ONLYCH1LD, and their openness to this new form was infectious. I even made a bonkers BTS gag reel using the “lead actor” from the Proofpoint spot, CLIFF DATAMAN. Yet another exercise in using the tools for world-building. I just keep leaning into the tangents I find most interesting.

Right around that time, an old Wieden+Kennedy colleague reached out about the Luma Dream Brief.

The AI film contest from Luma AI asked AI directors to use the Luma model to make an ad for a fictional Luma-branded product. Entries would go before a panel of advertising, film, and creative industry legends. Their picks would then be run as real ads for Luma, and officially submitted to Cannes Lions.

I’m not an awards hound, but I recognize how they contribute to career momentum. The thought of creating breakthrough work in an emerging film category was a strong motivation. On top of that, the contest also offered a one-million-dollar prize if the AI commercial ends up winning a Gold Lion.

As someone who has had some of my best work not given the blessing to submit to Cannes and other festivals, for weird, internal political reasons, the idea of no gatekeepers and a chance at entry appealed to me. Gatekeepers in advertising can be brutal. This contest arrived at the exact right time, offering a clean path to submit something with my uncompromised vision directly to Cannes, complete with a shot at a million dollars.

I dove into Luma’s tools and quickly built up a series of spots. What Luma did was validate my deepest belief: the best idea can come from anywhere. Committees, meetings, and endless feedback loops obfuscate that truth. Luma provided a cheat code to circumvent the murky layers of the industry. No feedback. No hidden agendas. No rubber stamps.

Just a clean shot.

If someone wanted to pair a multi-generational yakuza epic with a hard sell for laundry detergent, no one could stand in the way.

What’s Next?

This is where I stand in 2026. Turning a new page, letting my curiosity drive the way.

I will keep pushing, refining, and mastering these tools. But more importantly, I am looking to push beyond advertising. I’m looking to formalize series and put my voice out there in bigger, longer, more ambitious ways.

I have drafts of screenplays and novels waiting in the wings. I now see a world where AI filmmaking bridges the gap between a written page and a green light that I’ve been chasing for years at the end of a long and winding tunnel. Proof of concepts. Opening scenes. Theatrical trailers. That is the new brief.

My mission statement is this: I will keep making things that no one is asking for.

How can I use AI not just to increase my output or be more efficient, but to truly amplify my voice and get my stories made? It’s a crazy dream. It’s a lonely road. But the curiosity and possibilities keep me building. Studio Oyl.

What that means is I’m just a guy at a laptop, letting my fingers do the dreaming.

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director, Copywriter, and AI Film Director. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon, and IKEA—and is now one of the first people to direct a fully AI-generated commercial for broadcast television. You can check out his work on his website.

New Work: Evil Has Always Had A Name

A live-action short film for the launch of Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem.

I didn’t have writing a Resident Evil prequel short film and campaign line on my bingo card. But when it comes to writing long-form cinematic content, count me in.

Massive shout-out to Lucas McClain, Jonathan Marques, and Nomadic Agency for bringing “Evil Has Always Had a Name” to life in such a powerful and filmic way. 🧟‍♀️ 🍿 🔥

Directed by Rich Lee. Starring Maika Monroe.

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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, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

My First AI-Directed Commercial Just Aired on ESPN

From prompt to national broadcast: Teaming up with ONLYCH1LD to bring Proofpoint AI to life.

Here’s a fun one.

I just directed my first AI commercial to air on broadcast television. No set. No crew. No craft services. Just a brief, a core of smart creatives, and the tools to make it real.

This comes on the heels of CDing a very beautiful, and traditionally crafted spot for MLB Japan, shot on location in Tokyo with the Fridman Sisters and Stink. If I had my choice and an unlimited budget, I would make films the old-school way every time.

Welcome to 2026. With one foot planted in the traditions of film craft, and the other under the desk in my AI-powered portable studio, I bring what I’ve learned from nearly 20 years of experience in advertising to this new frontier.

My early AI experiments, like my original AI sports comedy series, Deadball Academy, have brought me a series of interesting meetings. One with the San Francisco-based production company ONLYCH1LD.

It was from these talks that the opportunity to direct my first broadcast AI commercial popped up. The timeline was aggressive and the plan ambitious. But with ONLYCH1LD as steady, experienced, and enthusiastic partners, we took the plunge and immediately started production on a spot for Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity company in Silicon Valley.

The vision for the spot was chaotic, comedic, and a little bit unhinged. An AI CEO walks calmly through an office under siege while Proofpoint’s agents extinguish fires, stop robbers, and prevent data theft, all with the energy of a Saturday morning cartoon directed by someone who grew up on Tony Scott.

Working with the team at ONLYCH1LD, the creative came together in a matter of weeks; a timeline that would have been impossible in traditional production. AI didn’t replace the creative process. It compressed it. The brief still needed a point of view. The script still needed a voice. And putting it together required a lot of human conversation.

After spending a couple of weeks “directing” the AI-actor, I had grown a little attached to that cluster of pixels. I even gave him a name: CLIFF DATAMAN. One thing led to another, and soon I had a full-on behind-the-scenes blooper reel, profiling Cliff Dataman’s “on-set” antics.

As I said, things got a little unhinged.

Via Ads of the World — Part of the Clio Network, March 2026:

ONLYCH1LD brings cybersecurity to life in its latest campaign for Proofpoint, turning an office under attack into a chaotic, comedic AI-powered spectacle. The fully AI-driven spot blends absurd humor with bold visual storytelling, showcasing how Proofpoint protects people, data and brands against cyberattacks.

“ONLYCH1LD has been a trusted creative partner for us, and they quickly understood the need to deliver something memorable that balanced humor with clear messaging,” shares Proofpoint CMO Joyce Kim. “Their team proposed a fast, intentionally over the top AI approach that allowed us to move quickly while still creating a bold piece that stands out.”

The campaign came together in just a few weeks following a marketing pivot by Proofpoint’s new CMO, who turned to ONLYCH1LD to reimagine messaging and tone. The :30 broadcast spot, currently airing on ESPN, features an AI CEO casually walking through a chaotic office while Proofpoint’s AI agents prevent data theft, extinguish fires and stop robbers in their tracks. ONLYCH1LD also produced a blooper reel and short clips for social media, giving audiences a look behind the scenes and amplifying the campaign’s absurd, cinematic humor.

“It’s funny, because I wasn’t really ‘on set,’ given a computer made this commercial. But had I been, I would’ve been thrilled with the commitment!” concludes ONLYCH1LD’s ECD Samuel Miller. “In reality, there was no reason to play it safe given the timeline and desire for memorability. We decided to go a bit over the top — or, as Oyl said, ‘bombastic.’ Oyl gave us the freedom to do that while still staying grounded in Proofpoint’s message. It ended up being this fun, controlled chaos — while still fully on brand. And kind of weirdly authentic in its humor.”

Andrew “Oyl” Miller is an advertising Creative Director and Copywriter. He spent 15 years working at Wieden+Kennedy on brands like Nike, PlayStation, MLB, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

A Love Letter to Japanese Baseball Fans

Across Japan, people are rising early and watching baseball before the rest of the house wakes up. They always have. They always will.

In celebration of Opening Day 2026. How can you not be romantic about baseball?

MLB Japan | “Breakfast Club” | Baseball Is Something Else

New work for MLB Japan with Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo. Directed by the Fridman Sisters.

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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, Amazon and IKEA. You can follow his insights and updates on his newsletter.

Luma Dream Brief Entry - Luma Taxi Commercial "Ride On"

For the last four years, I’ve spent my days wandering the Arizona desert, staring at the vast, empty horizon and dreaming of things that simply couldn’t exist.

In my head, it was always a collision of future-forward tech and the grit of the Old West. But in the agency world, those ideas usually die a slow, silent death. They get pushed aside by “logic,” budget spreadsheets, or that one tuned-out, nasally voice in the corner of the conference room asking, “But whyyyyyyyyy?”

Logic is a dream-killer.

But then the Luma Dream Brief gave me a preemptive green light and a license to dream. No pitch decks. No “safety” edits. Just a raw workflow and the tools to finally build the thing I’ve been seeing in the heat haze:

A frontier town in the Wild West, where the horses have gone on strike, and the cowboys are fighting for their lives on bucking autonomous vehicles.

This is Luma Taxi. In an alternate timeline of approvals, it’s a Super Bowl ad. In our reality, it’s a dual launch on Substack and LinkedIn.

In the spirit of Luma Taxi, Ride on.

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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, Amazon 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

NFT Branding: 101

The cat is out of the bag on the technical side of NFTs (or should I say Crypto-Kitty?) Every day, new services pop up that make it easy to drag, drop and mint your own NFTs. The barrier to entry to create your own digital items is low. And this has led to a flood of criticism that NFTs are a bubble. Who wants to buy all of this crap art?

But just because it's easy, doesn't mean it's easy to win in this space.

Take T-shirts. In the 1950s, if you wanted to sell t-shirts, you had to own or have connections to a factory that physically made them. Then there was shipping. Then there was distribution. Etc. Flash forward to 2022, and t-shirts have been "drag-and-droppified." Technology has eliminated the barrier and the middlemen. Does this mean that t-shirts are a bubble? Does this mean that people will no longer buy t-shirts just because now everyone can make them? No, they'll buy the shirts they want.

People buy t-shirts that fit their style, make them feel cool or fashionable or have some personal meaning to them. T-shirts are a form of self-expression. People will always need to express themselves and differentiate themselves from the people around them. Brands and creators that can use t-shirts as a vehicle to transport their own worldview and ethos, will sell. Generic knock offs., or random t's uploaded to Amazon will get ignored. As in all things; T-shirts to NFTs, it's survival of the coolest. Survival of who can create the most meaning and emotional connection.

NFTs aren't cheesy illustrations of animals. They are units of brand identity. They are signal boosters. Just because you can technically make an NFT, does not mean you're going to make it. The digital items that thrive are just like the t-shirts, lunch boxes, branded candy bars, hot sneakers and cool cars that people keep buying. The creators that imbue their NFTs with meaning and manage to mint culture, will make it. All others will fade away.

Maybe in 2017, the superstars who moved the needle in the space were the coders who technically enabled non-fungible tokens to be created. But in 2022 and beyond, the technical abilities have spread out and are no longer the differentiator. The value and importance of digital items will be in the hands of brands that can put their cultural cool into digital amber, preserving authentic meaning on the blockchain.

There will be low hanging fruit as always. A shallow, profit printing way to get involved at some layer. Think: world-beating IPs like the Disneys, the Marvels, and the imagery that you can put on a pair of underwear and socks and manage to sell out on autopilot.

There will be newcomers, like Bored Apes, who seemingly come out of nowhere, capture the cultural zeitgeist and manage to start up a legacy from ground zero.

There will be niches in every category you can imagine. Artists and musicians who connect with the heart and soul of their fans. This will create a symbiotic relationship where both sides will contribute and benefit from the increased exposure of the creators as they push further into culture.

Those who know branding, will win.

It could be personal brands, legacy brands or new cultural phenomenon brands.

But the ones who rest on their digital laurels at merely being able to technically show up at the NFT table, or who copy and paste derivative ideas onto the blockchain will be ignored. In our attention culture, we crave meaning, story and values. We look for things to cheer for. And we want easy ways to express our values. This is what branding is an onramp for. Without branding and meaning, NFTs are hollow vessels. A collection of directionless pixels taking up space on the vast sea of the distributed web.

Brands with sharp POVs and clearly communicated world views will have lasting power. Just because the medium of communication has changed, doesn't alter the basic rules of branding that have proved successful at each iteration of culture.

Brand your project or be forgotten.

Nike commercial about gender inequality in Japan receives backlash online

Article re-posted from Japan Today. By Oona McGee, SoraNews24

TOKYO—In recent years, Nike has shown that it likes to move people, both physically with their range of sporting goods and apparel, and emotionally, with their tug-at-the heartstrings advertising.

In Japan, the sporting giant is moving people once again, this time with a new commercial called “New Girl/Play New“, which shines a light on the plight of women across the country. The ad comes with the following thought-provoking statement:

“Growing up a girl in Japan used to mean one thing. Now it can mean everything. So, what do you want to do?”

This is the main theme of the ad, which reminds viewers of some of the traditional expectations and restrictions placed on women in Japan from a young age, while also showcasing some of the nation’s sportswomen and activists who are smashing traditional stereotypes, paving the way for the new girls of the future.

The commercial has English subtitles available, so click the white gear button next to the CC in the bottom right corner to turn them on, and take a look at the ad below.

The clip shows a pregnant mother and her family learning that they’ll soon be welcoming a new girl into their lives. While their instant reaction is joy, they’re suddenly reminded of the downsides of being a girl in Japan, with cut scenes to their future grown-up daughter looking over her shoulder in fear while walking alone at night, and attending a business meeting, where she’s allowed in the room but not allowed to talk. That last scenario is one that recently played out in real-life, when Japan’s ruling party decided to allow five female lawmakers to attend their all-male board meetings…on the proviso that they didn’t talk.

Japan ranked 121 out of of 153 countries on the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index, and the Nike ad reminds us that a report by the World Economic Forum in 2021 showed the average Japanese woman’s income was 43.7 percent lower than the average Japanese man’s income.

However, there is hope that girls really will be able to achieve anything in future, and there are some young sportswomen doing just that right now. Professional football player and female empowerment activist Ami Otaki appears in the ad, showing that women can carve a successful career for themselves by playing a traditionally male sport at a national level.

▼ High-school sumo wrestler Rizumu Kasai is a member of the men’s competitive high school sumo team.

▼ And 16-year-old baseball player Ayuri Shimano has played on all-male teams.

The ad also includes appearances by wrestler Miyu Nakamura and figure skater Marin Honda, along with a scene showing Momoko Nojo, an activist working to eliminate gender discrimination, playing the role of a future Prime Minister.

While the ad ends with a positive sense of hope for the future of women in Japan, it doesn’t shy away from presenting the problems that exist in the country. In fact, a quick look at the comments section under the video shows why ads like this are sorely needed in Japan, as many of the commenters appear to care less about the message of empowering women and more about the fact that Nike has aired Japan’s dirty laundry on a public stage.

“Currently Nike is hot on making hate speech against Japan.”

“This is a commercial that appeals for the elimination of discrimination against women, but it is a commercial that severely discriminates against Japanese people.”

“You should be aware that the real enemies are not men or women, but capitalists who incite discrimination.”

“Is this really made by Japanese people?”

“Sumo is a culture, and putting a woman in it is just a denial of culture, isn’t it?”

Like Nike’s last commercial, which looked at the problem of bullying and racism in Japan, this new commercial has also received more dislikes than likes, with 2,800 dislikes and 1,300 likes as of this writing.

Nike doesn’t seem bothered by the backlash, though, leaving the comments section open for the world to see, as if to further solidify their point that it’s tough to be a woman in Japan. And with female players continuing to be banned on the baseball field during the major high school baseball tournament at Koshien Stadium, and female sumo players banned from stepping into the sacred sumo ring at the majority of sumo stadiums, it’s fair to say Japan still has a long way to go in terms of gender equality. However, the more it’s brought to light, the more will be done about it, and ads like these are a step in the right direction towards improving the future for the new girls of tomorrow.

NAOMI OSAKA NIKE COMMERCIAL

With Naomi Osaka heating up during the Australian Open, I noticed the YouTube algorithm has started to suggest our Nike spot from last year. With her victory over Serena Williams yesterday, I saw a big influx in viewers from a video that was just sitting there. Nice to see it become relevant for a minute again.