When You Work @Wieden, You Wear It Proud

photo of Renne Gleeson’s shoes by Mark Coleman
Last week on the plane to Atanta, I noticed the account guy from Wieden sitting in front of me was wearing Nikes. Makes sense. Today, during the opening presentation at inVerge, there was no missing Renny Gleeson’s red Nikes. During his talk, Renny also managed to mention W+K clients Nokia and Coca-Cola, albeit in a natural way. When you work on a brand day and night, it seeps in. No way around it.
[UPDATE] Now that I’ve listened to all the speakers (sadly, I missed Joshua Green this morning, although I saw him speak last fall in Cambridge), it’s time to process some of what was said here in the Armory. I’ll do my main recap this weekend on BFG Blog, but here’s a bit of what Renny offered.

• The human ability to interpret decreases greatly with the loss of audio and/or visual cues.
• The number of connections one has is less important than the quality of the connections.
• Social media comes with an implied social contract. There are obligations and expectations from the word go. Brands are often oblivious to these obligations.
• Social media provides an “illusion of proximity.” There are many more ways to connect today, but are brands (or individuals for that matter) equipped to deal with the increased level of interaction?
• Social media is hard to quantify. It’s the medium’s biggest challenge, as brands, for the most part, are still stuck on eyeball metrics.