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Nike has dropped the San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein from

its roster and consolidated its entire dollars 350 million account with

Wieden & Kennedy.

Nike gave no reason for the move, but a spokesman said: ’We think the

work Goodby has done recently is excellent, but we felt we needed to get

back to one agency, and Wieden & Kennedy was the agency we chose.’

The move ends a fruitful two-and-a-half years on the roster for Goodby,

which was first hired by Nike in March 1997 to work on clothing.

Since then it has expanded its role to as much as 40 per cent of the

sports giant’s advertising and won a Cannes Grand Prix for its work.

However, the relationship between Goodby and Nike has been bumpy, with

many Nike clients more used to working with W&K, Nike’s main agency

since the early 80s. According to Goodby’s co-chairman, Rich

Silverstein, Goodby had threatened to resign its portion of the account

in the past.

Silverstein claimed the business, which covered clothing, speciality

products such as skateboarding shoes and ads that were aimed at women,

had become less important to the agency and that there would be no

redundancies as a result of its loss.

’It was a nice little thing to have. You don’t want to lose it, but it

is probably better for us now - we’ll be able to go after a big youth

brand now,’ Silverstein said.

Nike was founded in 1964 by Phil Knight and in recent years it has seen

both its market share and share price tumble. Knight has commented: ’Our

problem has not been too much marketing, but too much ineffective

marketing.’