Goodby, Silverstein

Rich Silverstein is a purist. The 57-year-old art director still proudly uses the first drafting table he bought in art school, back in the '60s. "You can't find a pen and pencil around here anymore," cracks Silverstein, describing the way technology has changed the working tools of advertising. "I'm the only person who has a pencil sharpener in his office." Until two years ago, his office was missing the most ubiquitous tool today: a computer. "I like walking around, talking to people face to face," says the Parsons School of Design graduate, describing his hands-on style. For many years, the agency co-chairman resisted adding a computer to his office, which houses shelves of art books and the bicycle he rides to work everyday, he says, because "I felt it would slow down my thinking."Silverstein, who still sketches his designs by hand, wasn't the only one who had to adjust to the requirements of the digital age. The entire shop had to shift its perspective. In recent years, the Omnicom shop had been suffering the persistent weight of its reputation for well-crafted, often funny, storytelling commercials and elegant print. Its work, particularly on the Web, wasn't being talked about in competing agencies' halls or in new business consultants' client briefings. "It's like you are a trout in a river that is moving at a certain speed, and the river is changing around you, as you are figuring the thing out. The business was changing around us," describes co-chairman Jeff Goodby, 55. "We were still winning prizes for this and that, but we seemed less relevant, less talked about."After some soul-searching and restructuring, hiring and inspiring, the 23-year-old agency posted a 20 percent revenue gain to $102 million, while mastering what every agency is striving for: adapting for the future. It transformed itself from a TV-centric shop uncertain of its skills in the fastest-growing medium today, the Web, to an integrated agency whose interactive work now boasts the level of storytelling and craftsmanship of the agency's most award-winning case histories. For maintaining its creative excellence during a thorough transition in 2006 and posting its best-ever gain, Adweek has chosen Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as the U.S. Agency of the Year.The San Francisco-based shop's evolution was driven by its unyielding desire to be the best, coupled with a nagging feeling that it wasn't living up to its own reputation. It was plagued by a "disease," says vice chairman Harold Sogard. "We had Crispin envy. They were hot, and we were used to being the hot ones. There was jealousy there. Also, there was a fear, 'Are they hot because we're old and passé?'""Silverstein had it worse," chuckles the affable Goodby, a copywriter paired with Silverstein since 1979, when the two met at Ogilvy & Mather. Silverstein, according to colleagues, became the most vocal about the competition. "Crispin was kicking everyone's butt," says Silverstein. "We couldn't have that." It was an ego-bruising for the creatively proud agency that even in its best years succumbs to self-criticism. Crispin's star had been shining so brightly in recent years, particularly in its new media endeavors, it had overshadowed Goodby's best accomplishments in the increasingly important arena. "I love the stuff that [Crispin] did and was jealous about the amount of notoriety they were getting," admits Goodby, a Rhode Island native who graduated from Harvard and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. "I was used to being one of the most famous agencies around. I liked that feeling." Though Goodby hasn't gone head-to-head with the Miami agency in new business for many years, the shop's competitive spirit ignited an urgency for change. "Any runner knows that he or she will run faster when they are running next to someone," explains Sogard. "We were using Crispin to pick up the pace." There was much hand-wringing at Goodby and Silverstein's weekly lunches, says Goodby. "We're in this business to do great work and have people pay attention to us," he says. "I'm proud that our agency makes money, but making money is not the reason we're here. It was a matter of pride."What stung further was the sense that prospective talent doubted the agency's ability to change with the times. "I felt like I was having a little bit of a harder time getting the best people to take jobs here," says Goodby. "It took two phone calls instead of one. And I don't like to have to make those extra phone calls."Creative director Guy Seese, who joined last January from Cole & Weber in Seattle to lead creative on Motorola and Saturn, says when he first heard from the agency, he felt some hesitation about joining the fabled shop. Although its reputation was irrefutable, he questioned, "Is Goodby going to be able to turn the corner?" remembers Seese. "Are they going to become a fully integrated agency?"Seese's concerns were alleviated when the partners mapped out their vision for the future for him in late '05. "That was one of the biggest reasons for my joining," he says. "Being a part of it, this renaissance as it were."To get the agency moving in the right direction, about 16 months ago Goodby and Silverstein took the 75-member creative department to an off-site gathering at a local photography studio. It was a platform to discuss the shop's strengths and weaknesses, the work it was doing and wanted to do, where it wanted to be in the future and how it was going to get there. "We wanted to develop a much wider creative capability and a much more vigorous department," says Goodby. "There was an attitude change," says partner and cd Jamie Barrett. "It went from 'we have to do a world-changing TV campaign' to 'we have to do a world-changing campaign.'"The sentiment seems to have permeated the agency. At Cannes in June, the agency won one gold Lion for its "Comcastic" Web site for Comcast, two gold Lions for it's "Got Milk?" "Brittleactica" Web site and interactive campaign, a silver Lion for a Discover Card banner ad and a bronze for a Specialized Web site. From a financial perspective, the agency, which became more selective in its pitches, grew its business with new and existing clients. It won Frito-Lay's Doritos account after a shootout in January against three other Omnicom shops, and in June added its new vegetable and fruit chip, Flat Earth; a global assignment for the PC division of Hewlett-Packard (a client since 1996); and Rolling Rock from Anheuser-Busch (a client since 1995). And Motorola assignments (for Q and internal branding), won in late '05, ramped up in early 2006. Former client Foster Farms returned to the shop, and existing clients such as Adobe and Comcast, which moved its digital phone assignment to the agency last year, also increased spending. Additionally, the agency won the HD DVD consortium business and, in December, American Century Investments. "They delivered work that we think is going to tell our story in an interesting way," says Susan Stewart, vp of brand advertising and sponsorship at American Century. "We were very impressed with their creative instincts and very thoughtful approach."A great catalyst for change, say the partners, was Derek Robson, who started last January. In anticipation of the retirement of president Colin Probert at the end of '06, the agency hired Robson, 39, from Bartle Bogle Hegarty in London, as managing partner; he joined managing partner Robert Riccardi in absorbing Probert's responsibilities. "It was very risky to put a new person into [the partner] mix," says Sogard. "Colin in particular was very cognizant of that and took it as a personal mission to find someone who could institute change, as he said, 'without sharp elbows.' And Derek has been just perfect."Upon joining the shop, the boyish looking U.K. native who has a penchant for suits with pocket-squares decided he was going to put his planning skills to work to conduct an internal and external analysis of the agency. The process included having frank conversations with the partners and staff and new business consultants to see what kind of work needed to be done. The talks confirmed the perception that the agency was still considered TV-dominant. "Existing clients and prospective clients were always surprised that we had any capabilities beyond traditional media," says Barrett. The agency hired a PR company, named an internal communications strategist, revamped its Web site and crystallized its mantra, "art serving capitalism." However, it wasn't just the industry at large that needed to take a closer look at the agency's creative output, noted Robson, but the agency itself. One of the exercise's most eye-opening discoveries was the fact that 40 percent of the agency's creative output was in nontraditional media, yet its resources were heavily skewed towards the traditional. Despite the agency's growth to 345 employees, with 75 additions made last year, its operational habits had barely changed. And the creative chaos the agency had once thrived on was now draining its resources. "It was a big agency with small-agency processes," says Robson. The lines at Goodby and Silverstein's doors were too long. Creative teams were spending too much time on work that wasn't getting sold. There were too many jumpballs on creative assignments, and a number of its creative stars were overtaxed, working long hours. "That's not the kind of agency we are," says Robson. "The agency takes pride in having a balanced working environment."To better manage the resources and work load of the creative department, the agency added department managers.To help foster more integrated solutions, Goodby unified its media and account planning departments into one strategy unit to encompass both traditional planning and media strategy. The planning and media experts now collaborate with account management to research and develop a brief for the creative development. The agency also made a concerted effort to expand its talent base with people who have wider skill sets. It bolstered its digital production department, and added a digital animation studio to its in-house capabilities. And while a big hiring spree in '05 came from talent that had produced winning Super Bowl ads, key hires last year came from the digital arena, such as group cd Christian Hass, a group cd at Organic in San Francisco, and art director Pete Conolly, a U.K.-based digital video expert new to advertising, to work on HP. In fact, the agency's employee of the year was Hasham Bajwa, a junior account executive who joined the agency a couple of years ago and showed so much enthusiasm for the digital space he became the agency's resident new media strategy expert. "The talent is more intriguing to me partly because it can come from anywhere," says partner and cd Steve Simpson, who oversees creative on HP. In previous years, he says, the agency might not have found someone like Conolly, who was previously director of UCLA's Creative Technology Lab. "He had done installations, Web design, and he had done an experimental film. We hired him on the basis of his personal work, not advertising work."A turning point in the agency's digital production was the Comcast work overseen by Barrett and cd Will McGinness. In addition to the Cannes honor, the Comcastic site also won two bronze pencils at The One Show Awards and a yellow pencil at the D&AD Awards. The successes on the business, which is a heavy broadcast account supported by micro-sites, helped boost the agency's confidence in the area it felt weakest, interactive. Last year, Barrett estimates the shop produced 100 spots for Comcast, which advertises its Internet, voice and video-on-demand services. To promote the company's high-speed Internet service, it created an integrated campaign starring "The Slowskys," a couple of turtles who are anti-fast. "The [third] quarter was the best the company has had in many years," says Marvin Davis, Comcast's svp of marketing. "We are doing extremely well at growing our subscriptions. And we've been able to do that without discounting."Yet the campaign that most demonstrates the shop's evolution was created for an account that helped establish Goodby's stellar TV reputation, its 13-year client the California Milk Processor Board. In the Star Trek-inspired series, aliens now ask "Got milk?" as they search Earth for the "white wonder tonic" they need to remedy their various health problems. TV spots and two Web sites told the story from the perspective of aliens (planetinneed.com) and dairy farmers who share their tales of missing cows (cowabduction.com)."This was the first campaign that was presented to us with an interactive component that was fully integrated with the TV," says Steve James, chairman at the Milk Processor Board. "It was part of their ongoing effort to stretch our marketing dollars and reach consumers where they are."Pitching Hewlett-Packard's global personal computers business, Goodby presented the winning idea that "The computer is personal again" and illustrated the idea with spots that featured celebs talking about their PCs' contents. Inspired by Conolly's personal video work, each spot shows a locked frame of the artist's hands as he talks about the content of his computer, and animated graphics follow along. The campaign includes viral, outdoor, print, an interactive Web program, "Change Artists," a 30-minute show with the CEO and CIO of a Fortune 500 company, and an MTV show called Meet or Delete, a modern dating game where prospective partners examine the contents of others' computers. "We needed advertising that was very high impact," says David Roman, vp of worldwide marketing communications for the personal systems group at Hewlett-Packard. "Goodby has proven to be pretty versatile. They have a lot of depth as an agency."For Rolling Rock, the shop invented a faux controversy in which an A-B marketing director is compelled to apologize for the bad ideas he's forced on the public, such as ads featuring a pool party with a "beer ape" and a bottle shaped like a woman. It used the Internet to seed the "bad" ads and broadcast work to send consumers searching. Andy Goeler, vp of imports, crafts and specialties at A-B, notes the bad ads drew 3.2 million hits. "[The agency] understands the consumer and its media consumption habits. You see their breadth of understanding in the work," he says.One of the agency's most frustrating accounts in recent years has been Saturn, which it won in 2002. While the agency began the relationship with some award-winning TV work, recent years have seen the spots turn to beautifully produced car clichés of winding roads. "We continue to keep searching for ways to get the message that we have these great new cars embedded in an advertising context in which the Saturn culture is also being reinforced and celebrated," says Goodby. The agency's most innovative solutions for the GM brand last year came from beyond broadcast. It showcased Saturn using Google's new geo-targeting technology, Earth, to deliver specific content to consumers. And to promote the new Green Line, the agency created an interactive installation at Wired's NextFest. It was the experiential type of work that Keith Anderson, associate partner, director of interactive and design, hopes to see the agency do more of in the future. "It combined all the things we learned about interactive, and all our talents. It is the ultimate way of communicating. People experience the brand. Any time you can trigger different senses, it becomes something that you remember more and feel like something that you are a part of," he says.The year's work proved that the agency has turned a page in the history of its evolution; the agency's creative output is now split evenly 50/50 between traditional and nontraditional. And although there was a lot of internal change, the agency's milk client says its service didn't suffer. "They've done a lot of work internally to stay ahead of the curve," James says. "But it was perfectly seamless to us. Which is the way we like it."

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Goodby, Silverstein

Eleftheria Parpis

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Eleftheria Parpis