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It came as no surprise that a Nike campaign won the film Grand Prix

at Cannes this year. After all, Nike has been one of the most-awarded

clients at the festival for a long time. It didn’t raise any eyebrows,

either, that an American advertising agency carried off the top

prize.

No, the big surprise last week was that Goodby Silverstein & Partners -

and not Nike’s long-standing agency, Wieden & Kennedy - won

advertising’s most coveted international accolade after 12 months on its

roster.

Shock and consternation in equal measure originally met Nike’s

appointment of the San Francisco-based Goodby a year ago. Until then,

like Leagas Delaney and Adidas, Wieden almost seemed to be a part of

Nike, growing up with the company.

Again, like Leagas and Adidas, the sportswear giant was quick to

reassure Wieden that its position was secure. After all, it was only

handing Goodby a small, no name piece of business - ads for outdoor

activities such as skateboarding and mountain biking. Exactly what it

won the Grand Prix for, in fact. Other accounts have since gone to

Goodby - women’s sportswear, Niketown, Nike F.I.T. and its secret Alpha

project.

Rich Silverstein, co-chairman and creative director of the agency,

attributes its success to being able to get right under the skin of a

subject. It’s a gift that’s obvious in Goodby’s Cannes-winning films,

which looked at what would happen if other sportsmen were regarded as

pests in the way skateboarders are. Silverstein professes to be a great

admirer of Wieden and its work and will not be drawn on Goodby’s heady

success at his rival’s expense. ’We just put our head down and work, and

if people like us, that’s good,’ he says.

But then Goodby has made a bit of a speciality of being number two on

the roster. ’We’re the second agency of Budweiser, we’re the second

agency of Pepsi. It seems to have worked out that a giant client looks

to use us as a second resource,’ he adds with masterly understatement.