Susan Hoffman joined W+K in 1982 as employee No. 8 and has been instrumental in defining the culture of the agency for the last 40 years, setting the bar for creative excellence and ground-breaking work.
During her tenure at W+K, Susan has held creative leadership and management roles, injecting her unique perspective into some of the agency’s most memorable ads, such as Levi’s “Go Forth”, Chrysler’s “Born of Fire”, Old Spice’s “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”, Nike’s “Revolution”, “If you let me play”, “Da Da Ding” and many more. In addition, Susan established Wieden+Kennedy 12, the agency’s first experimental ad school that launched in 2004 and brought up some of the most successful creative talent for a decade.
Since W+K’s inception, the agency has won 451 Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including a 2022 Mobile Lions Grand Prix for Google’s “Real Tone” technology, and a Creative Effectiveness Lions Grand Prix for the Nike campaign “Crazy Dreams” in 2021. Wieden+Kennedy London also won the inaugural Social & Influencer Lions Grand Prix in 2018 for the epic “Nothing Beats a Londoner” campaign.
Philip Thomas, Chairman of LIONS, said, “We’re delighted to present this year’s Lion of St. Mark to industry trailblazer Susan Hoffman. Susan has been instrumental in driving the industry and creativity forward over the last forty years, with an impressive body of work that reflects her unique perspective and ability to challenge the status quo in order to harness creativity as a force for progress for people, business, and society.”
Susan Hoffman expressed her gratitude for the award, commenting, “It’s hard to believe I was the first female creative at W+K. People ask me why I’m still here. My answer—Dan and David. They cared about the people and the power of creativity, and not themselves. Giving people a voice was their mantra. To quote Dan “The biggest advantage you have in this business is your own voice.” This belief gave not only me but everyone who has come through the doors of W+K support and confidence to find our own voices. These diverse voices are our secret sauce and what makes great work. Dan and David passed us the baton to inspire more people to understand this. Don’t drop it.”
The Lion of St. Mark award will be presented to Susan Hoffman at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, where she will also speak on stage in the Lion of St. Mark stage session, taking place on Friday 23 June. The festival will run from 19-23 June in Cannes, France.
Cannes Lions is offering a Creative Brand Marketer Pass exclusively for brands, designed to help brand marketers learn how to unlock creativity with learning opportunities, insights, and exclusive networking invites. LIONS and WARC have also launched Creative Impact, a co-curated stream of content aimed at marketers that will run every day and across multiple stages as part of Cannes Lions. Attendees will learn how to apply creative effectiveness in their own work amid a challenging climate for marketing budgets, as well as how to tackle the urgent need to prove the role creativity plays in supercharging sustainable commercial growth.
