12355: Going From Goodness To Badness.

Adweek reported three White men who co-founded Goodness Mfg. were hired to join Deutsch LA—which should have inspired the trade journal to write the headline: Going from Goodness to Badness. While Deutsch LA has already established itself as a culturally clueless and digitally delinquent shithole, the boys from Goodness Mfg. do show some promise via the 10 X 10 and Intel and National Congress of American Indians projects they produced. Regardless, the scenario underscores how the ad game continues to be fueled by money and an exclusive buddy system. The constant nomadic shifting of White bodies from shop to shop only leads to the commoditization of agencies—Deustch LA is as generic as Goodness Mfg., Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Leo Burnett, Arnold, DDB, BBDO, Droga5, etc. Plus, for co-founders to abandon their baby en masse is pretty sad. When clients change agencies upon the appointment of a new CMO, adpeople whine, sob and gnash their teeth. But when White adpeople nonchalantly move from job to job, essentially disrupting—and even destroying—agency hierarchies and structures, it’s just business as usual.

Three Founders of Goodness Mfg. Are Heading to Deutsch L.A.

Keister, Cianfrone, Adams named executive creative directors

By Andrew McMains

Three co-founders of Goodness Mfg. are taking senior supporting roles at Deutsch L.A.

Paul Keister, who was chief creative officer at Goodness, and fellow executive creative directors Bob Cianfrone and Tom Adams, will now be key lieutenants to Deutsch L.A. CCO Pete Favat.

Each will be an executive creative director and split his time between new business pitches and existing accounts. The agency, which is on a hiring binge with the addition of Sprint’s national broadcast business, now has 13 executive creative directors.

Three of them, however, already work on Sprint: Matt O’Rourke, Gavin Lester and Daniel Chu. So Keister, Cianfrone and Adams will contribute to other agency accounts, which include Volkswagen of America, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Target and Dr Pepper. They’ll start Jan. 12.

“These guys will be jumping in where needed on many pieces of business, but they haven’t been assigned to anything in particular yet,” Favat said. “Our business is moving at a faster pace than ever—we need to be in front of it.”

The hires come two weeks after the trio exited Goodness, the advertising arm of Trailer Park Inc. Keister, Cianfrone and Adams were among five former Crispin Porter + Bogusky staffers who started Goodness Mfg. in 2007. Trailer Park acquired the shop in 2010, giving the production powerhouse the creative juice it needed under CEO Rick Eiserman.

With those three co-founders now gone, Goodness has begun a search for a single creative chief to replace them, according to a source. In the meantime, group creative heads will step up on their existing accounts, which include Toshiba and Vail Resorts. Goodness expects to find its new chief early in 2015.