Stupidity is welcome

“Walk in stupid every morning.” This is how Wieden+Kennedy welcomes everyone that steps inside its office in London. It’s an invitation to all employees to leave everything they know (and, most importantly, that they think they know) outside of 16 Hanbury Street.

With that philosophy, W+K London created campaigns that became instant classics, like Honda’s “Grrrrrr” and “Cog”, and most recently the multi-awarded “Nothing Beats a Londoner” for Nike.

In a pharma agency, believe me, even if you don’t want to, you will walk in stupid every morning. And I can say this from the top of my 1 year and a half of daily stupidity at AREA 23.

With rare exceptions, the people who create pharma ads don't use the products they advertise. In a consumer agency, that’s usually the case. Most creatives have bank accounts, drive cars, use face moisturizer, shop online, drink beer, and eat fast food (more than they probably should). But thankfully, only a few have general pustular psoriasis, multiple myeloma, or gout. In pharma, personal experience and pre-conceived ideas have the same benefit as a placebo: none.

Whoever wants to create something relevant for the drugs that treat those diseases (or any other condition) must have curiosity, be willing to learn, and show a great dose of empathy.

To treat curiosity and the willingness to learn, agencies have developed a proven medicine. In pharma, most briefs include a class called medical 101, in which they teach the basics about the disease and the drug. Unless you are an MD who discovered your creative passion (a rare condition), everything will be a novelty. Your head aches when you must absorb so much content (this pain is called cephalgia).

After learning that the cystic fibrosis regimen includes a vest that pounds the chest of patients to loosen their mucus, the creative team David Adler and Pam Savage came up with Sick Beats, winner of two Grand Prix in the last Cannes Festival.

According to the dictionary, empathy is the ability to understand someone else’s feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It’s not hard to walk in the shoes of people wanting to buy a new car, a new house, or drink beer. But now try to picture yourself as someone fighting Alzheimer’s, overactive bladder, or aphasia. Talk about empathy!

By putting themselves in the shoes of patients who feel things that, luckily, most of us don’t, another creative team—Chris Bernesby and Joe Capanear—created a film campaign showing how hard it is to live with Nontuberculous Mycobacterial Lung Disease. Empathy awarded with a wooden Pencil by the D&AD and a Silver Lion by Cannes.

To wrap things up, let’s go back to Wieden+Kennedy. Dan Wieden, one of the agency founders, once gave a speech, saying something like this: “When you don’t know, you try desperately to find out. But the minute you think you know, you stop learning, stop questioning, and start believing in your own wisdom, you’re dead”. Since December 2020, I’ve never felt more alive. But you don’t have to work in pharma to feel the same. You just need to listen to W+K’s advice: walk in stupid every morning.