I tried to write something about this and found myself stumbling at the pitch. The following words were tailored by Mira Kaddoura.

“You can check out the site to get a sense of what the festival (www.canneslions.com) is like but in a nutshell it was a such a trip! It’s called the Cannes Advertising Festival. It’s one week a year to recognize the best advertising in the world along with a series of lectures and events about what’s going on in the industry. Luker was a judge for the Film category (spots) so he was there the whole week but Sheena and I only got on a plane Friday afternoon to get there for the last night for the film ceremony after we found out we were short listed.

It is a real circus and a big deal for most people around the world (kind of like the World Cup and how there’s a lot of pride in having your country win). We kind of work in a vacuum here and aren’t really affected by the industry and all it’s craziness. We just keep our head down and keep working away while the whole world is in awe of WK.”

Check here for a list of all of the winners.
http://www.canneslionslive.com/film/win_2_1_01322.htm

The tally is 13 golds worldwide, 3 of which come from WK Portland. A silver and a bronze for WK Amsterdam. Honda won client of the year from the WK London office. Congratulations to Dan Wieden, Mira Kaddoura, Sheena Brady, Shannon McGlothlin, Alberto Ponte and Steve Luker.

Here are two of the Gold medal winning spots.

Every year at this time we hear David Stern give the roll call of the finest basketball talent in the world and which teams have the right to sign them first for next season in the NBA. This year, the Trailblazers hit paydirt with the first pick. They chose a 7′ 0″ tall Greg Oden from Ohio State University. Blazer fans are thrilled with this news and the city of Portland is rolling out the red carpet for it’s newest celebrity. The first person we want to greet Greg when he gets to town is none other than Don Coe.

If you have ever been to Wieden+Kennedy after regular business hours you will recognize Don. Don makes sure that the building is safe and will walk the ladies to their cars if need be. Today this ad is on the back page of the Oregonian. Thanks for picking him up Don. Be sure to give him a few pointers about how to be a class act.

We have a roll call of our own. These are the players who make ads like this happen overnight.
Studio: Ken Berg
Studio Manager: Jeremy Jiracek
Art Director: Ken Berg
Creative Director: Mike McCommon, Tyler Whisnand
Art Buyer: Krystle Mortimore
Retoucher: Kyle Pero
Ryan Haskins is the media guy

Whether you’re a Duck, a Beaver, some other varmint or a popular condom brand, you can probably appreciate when your team wins a national title. If you live in the state of Oregon, you know this is a pretty rare occurrence. So when the Oregon State Beavers swept the UNC Tarheels last night to win the College Baseball World Series for their second year in a row, it’s kind of a big deal (e.g. a Ron Burgundy kind of big deal).

Anticipating this victory, the Nike team worked over the weekend to put a WIN ad together that will run in tomorrow’s Oregonian, sports section.

Kudos to Caleb Jensen and Jimm Lasser (along with McCommon, Tyler Whisnand, Reme and Frediani) for donating their Sunday to celebrate this proud moment in Oregon sports.

Give a shout to Robert Wodzinski, Studio’s new multi faceted intern. Robert comes to us from PNCA where he was studying Web and Print Design. He also has a degree in English with an art minor from NIU. Robert has a good collections of url’s to take a look at. On top of Making things visually, he also grabs any instrument he can get his hands on. A bassist originally, He can jump on a piano, play guitar and can play a wicked obo if provoked.

http://jpegmess.org
http://jpegmess.org/facedot
http://hippygifteconomy.blogspot.com
http://del.icio.us/jpegmess

Robert is located over by Anne Bowman in the center of the studio. Say hi when you find yourself over there.

Last year, the students of Wieden + Kennedy’s 12 school used over 100,000 thumbtacks to create a wall mural that spells out “Fail Harder,” a message that underlines the importance of failure during the creative process.

While failing is all well and good, it’s important to remember that the path to success isn’t just through failure, it’s through succeeding.

Right around the corner from failure is it’s rival motto: “Succeed Easier”. Not only is it a more positive spin, but it’s also lazy and salty.