I’m just back from one of the D&AD President’s Lectures by Dan Wieden and David Kennedy. I very much like the brilliant work that their agency has consistently delivered during the past 25 years and for that they’ve got all my respect and professional admiration.

The lecture was death boring though. It lacked of rhythm, both guys seemed to be pretty uninterested about it and I didn’t get much clear from their sometimes vague answers (the format was an interview conversation). I really had hoped for something more inspirational. Shame.

But the highlight of the night was about to come; when in the Q&A round Ron asked this in front of over thousand assistants:

I’ve just seen your Honda TV commercial, the one where a series of objects cause a chain of reactions. Some few months ago I went to the Tate Modern and I saw an extraordinarily similar piece created by Fischli and Weiss. I was wondering whether you invited the artists to work with you or asked them for their permission to produce your execution.

What a pair of big balls – I thought.

They didn’t answer to the question. One of his Creative Directors did it instead. Poor guy.

Check out the Fischli & Weiss work (The way things go, 1987):

And now the commercial that W+K did for Honda:

Discuss.

(This post goes specially dedicated to Flo. I just know how much he would have loved to be there).

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