-Well, this is one way to find out someone is leaving an agency after 26 years. Wieden+Kennedy’s Jeff Selis is leaving the agency to go freelance. Among the creative set, he is a very well-known quantity and the production mind behind some of the agency’s most memorable work, leaving a legacy that helped shape the legendary shop. Marni Beardsley, a former W+K executive now at Swift, got the band together for a tribute film (she plays Selis in the 16:30 minute video).
Agency namesakes Dan Wieden and David Kennedy make appearances along with a veritable who’s who of W+K alumni and current staffers like Jamie Barrett, Mike Byrne, Roger Camp, Janet Champ (who created one of history’s greatest ad campaigns, period, with Nike’s “If You Let Me Play”), Susan Hoffman, Mark Fitzloff, Mira Kaddoura, John Jay, Jayanta Jenkins, Jim Riswold, Jimmy Smith and others.
Beardsley cashed in some favors, too, bringing in some impressive A-listers. Kathy Bates, directors David Fincher, Cary Fukinawa, Errol Morris and Joe Pytka, Nike design legend Tinker Hatfield, Dustin Hoffman (no relation to Susan, we think), Gilbert Gottfried (who played Susan Hoffman), Portland musician and bon vivant Thomas Lauderdale, former Nike CEO Mark Parker, Tiger Woods and more.
Yes, it’s a long video (with much salty language, so NSFWFH), and it’s kind of inside baseball. But it’s a lovely tribute for Selis and some good fodder for ad nerds out there. It also shows that dude has a hell of a Rolodex. Selis’ brother Sam directed and edited the—fine, we’ll call it a “film.”
Of course, it makes us think what kind of video tribute AgencySpy would get if we decided to go freelance. We’re not entirely sure who would take part, but we can guess it might include several shots of middle fingers pointed our way.
In all seriousness, good luck, Jeff.
-Proper journalism. Erik Oster looked at the problems facing San Francisco’s ad community related to racism.
-Adobe released a study on the state of creativity. A few numbers: 91% of creatives say that the pandemic and nationwide civil unrest inspired them to incorporate real-world issues into their work, with 82% noting that what’s been going down of late forever changed how we create.
-Flying Amazon security cameras and Microsoft’s $7.5 billion gaming deal on GeekWire’s latest podcast.
-Hope … everyone votes. Shepard Fairey (you remember the Obama poster everyone had, right?) is going in a slightly different direction in politics with, wait for it, Snoop Dogg. The Corona/chronic pitchman (he does tons of other things but, you know, alliteration) is the portrait for a new online voter registration drive, #VoteWithSnoop.
-We wrote about Sue Kim‘s fabtastic (yes, it’s a word … a portmanteau of fabulous and fantastic) The Speed Cubers. Now, we have the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube, measuring 9 millimeters.