Goodby Silverstein & Partners celebrated International Women’s Day by gushing over performative promotional work produced for its client, Argent, featuring a film written by Jeff Goodby.
Okay, just to clarify, International Women’s Day was saluted by a White man who waited over three decades to grant a White woman partnership at his White advertising agency.
Feels like perfectly patronizing performative PR.
Advertising Age reported on The Academy, a “new” advertising school from Goodby Silverstein & Partners that feels deceptively like an old heat shield. While the story hyped the alleged attempt to create a breakthrough enterprise, a closer look shows the White advertising agency is regurgitating a standard diversity ploy: educate kids of color. Sorry, but fabricating a racial and ethnic pipeline is usually a pipe dream. The tuition-free angle probably translates to a tax break for GS&P. Not surprisingly, the guys behind The Academy appear to be White men—including a ≈20-year advertising school veteran. One guy described the other’s contributions to the scheme as “100 pounds of gasoline thrown on a match.” Um, somebody explain to the co-genius that gas isn’t measured in weight.
Oh, and students will be tutored in San Francisco versus Sweden.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners’ New Advertising School Aims to Fix Industry Problems
The Academy at GS&P is now accepting applications for the class of 2022
By Parker Herren
Zach Canfield, director of talent at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, has been visiting advertising programs for nearly a quarter of a century. For many years, his school visits were done in the company of other agency recruiters, but he’s noticed a shift recently. Now, not only are agencies reaching out directly to students, but in-house brand teams have joined the recruitment rush.
“There’s a lot more people and, frankly, there aren’t a lot more students at the schools,” Canfield said. “You could see that the well was drying up a little bit.”
That’s why, for the last two and a half years, he’s been developing The Academy at GS&P, a year-long, tuition-free, in-house school to train the next generation of marketers. Hosted at the GS&P headquarters in San Francisco, The Academy will train young people and marketing newcomers the basics of advertising, without the fluff.
“We’ve done an incredible amount of surveys and data and digging on people who graduated from school,” Canfield said. “Asking them what were the most important classes they took? What were the classes that weren’t a good use of their time? What do they wish they had learned more of in school? What were they not prepared for?”
On top of teaching copywriters how to write and designers how to use Adobe, the program is able to offer students access to GS&P’s roster of creatives and facilities. Students will have access to the agency’s motion animation group, musicians and editors, as well as classes taught by agency partners Rich Silverstein, Jeff Goodby, Margaret Johnson and a host of guests. Plus, Dan Balser has stepped in as the school’s director, after nearly two decades at the Creative Circus, a two-year ad school in Atlanta.
Canfield describes Balser’s contributions to the program as “100 pounds of gasoline thrown on a match.” In addition to a decade on the creative side at agencies like Ogilvy and Publicis, Balser has spent the past 18 years as a program director at the Creative Circus, mentoring nearly 2,000 marketers who have gone on to top-tier gigs at agencies like Droga5, TBWA\Chiat\Day, BBDO New York and GS&P.
“The opportunity here is an agency that’s committed to doing this in a way that allows us to meet the students where they are, meet the agency where they are and the industry where it is,” Balser said. “So, it’s an opportunity to redefine what a junior or student portfolio looks like, to really look towards the present and the future versus looking at the way things have always been done. It’s a thrilling opportunity to be able to do that.”
But the team isn’t just trying to build portfolios for a small cohort of future ad workers — it’s trying to repair a tear they see in the industry. As agencies and clients recognize the need to give voice to representation, marketing schools aren’t keeping up with the demands of the industry, according to Canfield. The Academy at GS&P is what he and Balser hope is the beginning of an abundance of accessible learning opportunities for creatives from other big agencies.
Balser recalled his days working for Fuji Film and described how not a single company meeting passed without mention of its rival, Kodak. He says the same mindset is present in advertising schools: competitive scorn for peers. Balser and Canfield want the opposite for their new wave of training.
“We want to change education. I want more schools like [The Academy] to happen. I think this is a model of what the future of advertising education should look like,” Balser said. “To me, honestly, this is the beginning of an evolution."
Canfield added that “the school is our little attempt at trying to help make the industry better.”
Applications for The Academy at GS&P are available now on the program’s website. The school will open its doors to its first class in February 2022.
Um, during this current moment of racial protest and turmoil, why the hell are Xerox and Jeff Goodby gushing over the wonders of White?
Quartz reported on a Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity event featuring Goodby Silverstein & Partners Co-Founder Jeff Goodby interviewing former Adweek Editorial Director Michael Wolff on his latest book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Who thought this discussion would be of relevance and importance to advertising enthusiasts? Sure, Wolff likely turned it into a pseudo-case study on PR, sales and social media. Yet the spectacle really showcased old-fashioned hucksterism, given Wolff’s first visit to Cannes in 2011 left him looking disinterested and out of place. Seven years later—and seven years removed from the advertising industry—Wolff is suddenly a celebrity at the industry’s premier awards gala. On the other hand, Goodby has already publicly displayed his disdain for President Donald Trump, so his participation in hyping Wolff’s book isn’t surprising. Although it is disturbing to see Goodby continue to share his political perspectives in a professional setting. Maybe Carl Warner was right after all in his contention that Madison Avenue presents a hostile work environment for allegedly underrepresented conservatives.
Adweek asked creative leaders for the best advice they ever got in their careers. Here’s what Goodby Silverstein & Partners Co-Chairman Jeff Goodby said:
“Start over.”—Jeff Goodby, Co-Chairman, Goodby Silverstein & Partners
“Very often people—we just fall in love with our ideas that we can’t let them go—so we try to force them down a client’s throat,” Goodby says. “I think that learning to go, ‘OK, I’m just going to leave that alone. I’m gonna start over and come up with something else’ takes a lot of faith in yourself to do that. But I think many times you look back on it and go, ‘Shit, I’m really glad I did that, because that first idea wasn’t that good.’”
Hmmm. Why won’t Goodby and other alleged creative leaders apply such advice to addressing the industry’s dearth of diversity? Instead, when tasked with actually doing something about the exclusivity, award-winning trailblazers regurgitate all the contrived and clichéd “solutions” that have historically failed to deliver measurable and meaningful change—the idiots embrace the first ideas that were never very good and run with them. What’s more, they execute the ideas believing that no one has ever done it before. If Cannes introduced a Diversity Lion, saluting attempts by advertising agencies to ignite progress, all submissions would lose and/or be identified as scam ads.
Stacy’s Pita Chips celebrates Women’s History Month with limited-edition bags, a donation drive and more. Goodby Silverstein & Partners created the campaign, which makes at least one bag’s proclamation—“Men Of Quality Do Not Fear Equality”—particularly pathetic and hypocritical. After all, GS&P originally and continues to ask, “Where Are All The Black People?” Plus, the 30-year-old White advertising agency only named its first female partner less than five years ago. For GS&P, cultural cluelessness is in the bag.
Advertising Age reported on another anti-Donald Trump film created by Goodby Silverstein & Partners Founders Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein. What’s worse—a presidential candidate constantly displaying conscious bias or two White admen constantly displaying unconscious bias? Bashing Trump trumps diversity.
Responding in part to the phenomena of Black Lives Matter, Advertising Age interviewed Translation Founder and CEO Steve Stoute, Amusement Park Entertainment CEO and Chief Creative Officer Jimmy Smith, 135th Street Agency Founder and CEO Shante Bacon and MING Utility and Entertainment Group President Tara DeVeaux. Here’s an excerpt from Stoute’s statements:
At the root of any societal issue is human truth, especially those truths we find hard to confront. The advertising business has always been about telling stories around human truths, and making those stories accessible to and consumable by the masses.Today, the truth is that racism is alive and well in this country. The truth is that due to ignorance, lack of education and socially conditioned prejudice, the value of a black life is still being questioned.
How can we as a community come together to speak out against racial injustice, when we perpetuate that very injustice within the walls of our own agencies? We can never properly use the power of this platform as long as the industry continues to perpetuate the same cycle while justifying a lack of diversity not only throughout hiring practices, but in the work that we create.
Just take a look at the numbers—only about 5.85% of the advertising world is made up of African-Americans, and it is the only minority group to have seen a decrease in representation over the last four years. African-American men are one the most underrepresented groups in the entire industry, at just 2.58%. It doesn’t have to be this way.
I want to challenge all agency leads to execute a company-wide diversity check and strategize on creating pathways to improve the diversity of their staff and by extension, the creative. This is not just about diversity in terms of race, but a diversity of perspective.
African-Americans, women and other minorities have so many barriers to entry, and if those walls were torn down, they would bring so much to this community and to the work. In these trying times, we must come together to end racism in all of the places it lives. We cannot be afraid to start that fight in our own backyards.
Does Advertising Age’s decision to create and publish such content help from a diversity standpoint? It’s hard to say. In an industry where cultural cluelessness is so prevalent, White people might not even know how to process the color commentary. Not sure why Advertising Age kept the conversation segregated. Given the Wieden + Kennedy response to recent events, it would have been interesting to get Dan Wieden’s viewpoint—which would hopefully be more thoughtful than gasping, “Now that’s fucked up!” Or maybe have Jeff Goodby wonder, “Why are all the Black people getting shot?”
Campaign reported DDB Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Amir Kassaei implored Muslims to wage a “holy war” on terrorism via Twitter. Gee, can’t this warmonger limit his wrath towards conspiring judges at Cannes? But seriously, Kassaei crossed a professional line that wouldn’t be tolerated in legitimate business fields. His comments create an arguably hostile workplace for Muslim DDB staffers; plus, the call to arms could fuel the ignorance of other small-minded employees seeking murderous revenge. Then again, Omnicom sister agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners freely forces its anti-Trump political views on staffers and the public—despite the fact that Jeff Goodby has been a registered Republican. Of course, when bleeding heart activists like Kassaei and Goodby are asked to fight for diversity, you’ll barely hear a tweet.
Amir Kassaei calls for Muslims to wage ‘holy war’ against terrorists
Following the attack in France, DDB Worldwide chief creative officer makes a personal, angry plea on Facebook
By Douglas Quenqua
Amir Kassaei, chief creative officer of DDB Worldwide, took to Facebook this morning, hours after a truck loaded with weapons killed at least 83 people in Nice, France, to call upon Muslims to wage war against radical Islam.
After declaring his own atheism, Kassaei says the time has come for Muslims to rise up against the “animals” who commit murder in the name of their god. If that means war, he says, then it would be the only war worthy of the title “holy.”
As a litany of shootings and terrorist attacks have played out around the globe in recent weeks, a number of agencies and brands have performed small acts of protest or advocacy. Last week, Both Wieden+Kennedy and Hill Holliday turned their Web sites into statements of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Earlier this week, Coca-Cola ran an ad in USA Today and on digital billboards that said, “We live as many. We stand as one.” And following the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June, several agencies quietly began working on anti-gun campaigns that have yet to debut.
But Kassaei, who has a reputation for being outspoken, is among the few individuals from the industry to make his voice heard. Though he posted the statement to his personal Facebook page, rather than the one he maintains for business, Kassaei, who was born in Iran and raised in Germany, quickly shared it with his 18,000 Twitter followers.
DDB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
AgencySpy published a post titled, “GS&P Launches Interactive Multi-Screen Hip-Hop Video Sponsored by Doritos.” While Jeff Goodby apparently continues to be baffled by the lack of Blacks in the advertising industry, he doesn’t hesitate to hijack hip hop to sell snack chips. Brilliant.
Adweek reported Goodby Silverstein & Partners elevated White people—including a White woman—as part of the agency’s succession plan. In 2012, Margaret Johnson became the first White woman to be named a partner at the White advertising agency. No word on any minority promotions from diversity crusader Jeff Goodby.
Goodby Silverstein Names Its Next Generation of Top Creative Leadership
First step in founders’ succession plans
By Noreen O’Leary
Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein may not be retiring just yet, but they have made their first major move toward securing a succession for the agency’s creative leadership.
Today, the Goodby Silverstein & Partners founders made Eric Kallman an executive creative director, joining ecd Margaret Johnson in running the San Francisco office’s creative department.
“This is a true reflection of how we are really working right now,” said co-chairman Goodby, 63. “Rich and I will continue in our roles as advisors and guiding hands. But Margaret and Eric are now the ones with ultimate responsibility for the work on each of our accounts. They have brought a renewed life and energy to everything we do.”
Johnson is an 18-year veteran of the agency known for award-winning work for Häagen-Dazs, HP, Nike and Logitech. She became one of the shops’s five partners in 2012.
Kallman joined GSP a year ago as creative director and associate partner, after working as an ecd and partner at Barton F. Graf 9000 in New York. Prior to that stint, Kallman worked at Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, and TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York, where he started his ad career. Over his career, Kallman has made himself a big industry name with campaigns for Old Spice (for which he created “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”), Skittles, Career Builder, Coca-Cola, Kayak, Little Caesars and Ragú.
Paul Caiozzo, who joined GS&P’s New York office as ecd in May and helped to win one of the office’s first clients, The New York Post, will continue to run the NYC creative department. (He was also the creative lead on GSP N.Y.’s Comcast spot “Emily’s Oz” which ran during the Oscars last month.)
“Margaret, Eric and Paul are the next generation of creative leaders for the agency,” said co-chairman Silverstein, 65. “I’m not going anywhere. I love coming up with ideas and playing off the young people around here but we needed to find the right people to grow the company and keep it young in spirit. We had Margaret and we just needed to find the right yin to her yang, which we did in Eric. They couldn’t be more different but they’re the right balance.”
Johnson gets credit as a strong organizational thinker and visually-driven designer in her approach to advertising. Kallman’s award-winning humor and ability to attract young talent helped earn him the promotion.
Silverstein will continue to work on accounts like Cisco and Adobe while Goodby remains involved with Comcast and California Milk Processors Board. Another agency priority for Goodby is to more actively mentor staffers. “It’s been too much sink or swim around here, too much like the Marines.”
(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)
AgencySpy published a post titled, “Translation Wins The NBA,” drawing comments that included displaying the whiny LinkedIn announcement from the sore losers at Goodby Silverstein & Partners depicted above. The White advertising agency apparently revised the announcement, retracting the whininess (depicted below).
The LinkedIn revision underscores at least two points:
1. Traditional ad agencies are digitally ignorant.
2. Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein are culturally clueless jackasses.
The first point was demonstrated in this case by GS&P posting a shitty message and thinking a quick change would make their ignorance disappear. Sorry, boys, but the World Wide Web has a way of exposing your true colors for eternity. Getting busted by AgencySpy regulars merely makes your stupidity even more embarrassing.
The second point has been demonstrated repeatedly by Messrs. Goodby and Silverstein over the years. Yet this latest instance is particularly pathetic.
What exactly was the intent behind originally stating that “Advertising is a weird business” in the LinkedIn announcement?
Was Goodby expressing deep-rooted annoyance that NBA CMO Pam El hadn’t heeded his self-centered sage advice on conducting account reviews? Heaven forbid Goodby might consider that his White Manifesto could have turned off El.
Was Goodby crying foul over Steve Stoute beating him at his own game by capitalizing on a relationship to help secure business? As MultiCultClassics previously noted, GS&P has consistently exploited relationships to snag accounts. When Chevrolet unceremoniously ejected the White advertising agency from Commonwealth, did Goodby post a snarky announcement targeting McCann? Doubt it.
Worse yet, does Goodby believe an inferior opponent beat him? Or there were some egregious flaws in the review process? If so, it clearly indicates how far Goodby has fallen—on professional, personal, spiritual and other levels.
At this point, Goodby should be quite accustomed to ass whuppings from seemingly lesser foes. GS&P was disconnected on Sprint by Team Sprint, quashed on Quaker Oats by Juniper Park, zapped on Propel Zero by Fathom Communications and chopped on Chevrolet by McCann. Being benched by the NBA in favor of Translation is just a continuation of the new normal for White advertising agencies such as GS&P. Better do something about it—or get used to it.
Most disturbing is the fact that Goodby has officially feigned concern for diversity—especially the dilemma of Black underrepresentation—in the industry. However, he appears oblivious to the profound progress exhibited by his latest defeat. Specifically, a Black-owned ad agency was not only allowed to compete against White shops for general market billings, but it actually won the business. Can Goodby see beyond his narcissism to realize his loss is a gain for adland?
C’MON WHITE MAN!
Advertising Age reported the NBA alley-ooped its account to Translation, and the beleaguered shop slam-dunked over 20-year incumbent Goodby Silverstein & Partners. Did NBA CMO Pam El take Jeff Goodby’s sage advice when making her decision? Probably not. To his credit, Translation Founder Steve Stoute has shown strength in his ability to create and capitalize on relationships. He apparently used such skills to once woo Anheuser-Busch InBev U.S. Marketing VP Paul Chibe and win beer business. Stoute’s ties to El when she worked at State Farm—as well as his connections to the New Jersey Nets—were clearly enough to outplay GS&P and R/GA in the shootout.
Goodby certainly can’t cry foul, as he’s benefitted from relationships to originally nab Chevy; plus, he’s picked up lots of business for being an indentured servant in Omnicom. And if Goodby’s still asking, “Where are all the Black people?” well, one of them just beat his ass in hoops.
NBA Taps Translation After Review
Incumbent Goodby Had Been Working With NBA for 20-plus Years
By Maureen Morrison
The National Basketball Association has tapped Translation to handle creative after a review.
A spokeswoman for the league confirmed the win, calling the shop the “primary agency” for creative. The scope of the work, however, is yet to be determined, the spokeswoman said.
The account had been at Omnicom’s Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the NBA’s agency of record since 2007, though the shop has worked with the association for more than 20 years. The review process was overseen by Hasan & Co.
Goodby declined to comment. Translation couldn’t be immediately reached.
It’s not immediately clear whether the review will result in another agency of record relationship or whether the association will move to soliciting work on a project basis from the winning shop.
The review began less than three months after Pam El was named the NBA’s new chief marketing officer. Previously she had been at State Farm for 11 years, most recently as exec VP-marketing. Ms. El is familiar with Translation through State Farm; the shop handles some advertising for the marketer.
Goodby’s last campaign for the NBA was the work themed “Everybody Up,” which began in the current season. Ms. El said in October that the league will be more aggressive in its marketing moving forward, an effort to lure more casual fans.
In 2013, the NBA spent $93.6 million on measured media, a figure that includes ads promoting the NBA TV cable channel, as well as plugging the WNBA, according to Kantar Media.
Forbes published a perspective from Goodby Silverstein & Partners Co-Founder and Co-Chairman Jeff Goodby titled, “A Survival Guide For New CMOs,” where the adman essentially presented a pep talk on how to become a better Chief Marketing Officer. Gee, can’t imagine the average CMO is interested in employment tips from an old-school White advertising agency creative director. After all, Goodby technically works for CMOs, not vice versa.
There are a few basic—and blatant—flaws with Goodby’s desire to play sensei to prospective bosses, revealing the inherent character defects of Old White Guys and narcissistic nimrods. (This is presuming that Goodby wasn’t actually writing an invitation of sorts, indirectly indicating the qualities and characteristics he longs for in a CMO buddy—in which case he would still come across as an Old White Guy and narcissistic nimrod.)
For starters, only a fool seeks to change others. Your first priority must be to change yourself. In fact, it should be the sole goal, as we really can’t control other people’s actions and attitudes—unless we have the authority to fire them. While there are advertising agency executives who have boasted firing clients, the overwhelming majority realizes they are servicing—and even serving—at the pleasure of a CMO.
Related to the point above, we must always begin by honestly examining our own contributions in a professional relationship. That is, are we doing everything possible to ensure premier profitability*—in every sense of the term—for all parties? And more importantly, are we causing problems that hinder success?
Unfortunately, advertising agency executives such as Goodby inadvertently erect roadblocks and dilemmas for CMOs, primarily because of ties to holding companies. Thanks to WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe, IPG and the rest, agencies experience the same challenges as advertisers: e.g., the imperative to hit quarterly earnings, reduced and limited resources, unrealistic deadlines, consensus and committee thinking, clumsy hierarchies, revolving door management shifts, unclear priorities, dysfunctional partnerships, etc. Additionally, the holding companies have commoditized agencies, rendering shops generic. Agencies ultimately bow to the holding companies’ whims, which are every bit as awful as the bullshit dumped on advertisers by their overlords.
Omnicom, Goodby’s parent Death Star, is a master at the game. How else can one rationalize Goodby Silverstein & Partners being replaced as AOR for PepsiCo’s Propel Zero by Fathom Communications? Or the shuffling of the Quaker Oats account through Omnicom sister shops? Or the insane maneuverings in the Commonwealth debacle? Sorry, but Goodby is a mere puppet in the modern political proceedings, making his CMOs preaching and pontifications pretty pathetic.
In the survival guide lecture, Goodby also veered into a sad tangent regarding account reviews, decisiveness and speed. Goodby wrote:
Almost all CMOs of any stature have loads of ready opinions about which campaigns they admire. They all have strong thoughts about who the best four or five agencies in the world are. But the moment they move into a new job, they totally forget all this and act like they’ve just landed here from the planet Zork.If you need a search consultant to help you make this decision, fine. Tell him or her that you want to have an agency in a month. One month. Tell the agency you want the new campaign a month after that. Watch. It will happen. And it will be good.
Um, Goodby sounds like a citizen from the planet Zork. Holding companies and conflicts prevent staging shootouts starring “the best four or five agencies in the world.” Hell, Omnicom routinely organizes closed competitions between sister shops. Plus, the aforementioned commoditization and generic issues result in reviews with a hodgepodge of rivals. For example, the NBA is currently pitting incumbent Goodby Silverstein & Partners versus R/GA and Translation—which undoubtedly has Goodby banging his head against the wall.
Goodby’s speed statements—“Tell the agency you want the new campaign a month after that. Watch. It will happen. And it will be good.”—are outrageous. Whatever happened to fighting for time to properly craft messages? Most agencies fail to generate good work with a decent production schedule in place. Goodby Silverstein & Partners’ campaigns for Sprint and Quaker Oats were hardly breakthrough. The agency’s cross-cultural milk campaign sucks. Are these examples of churning crap out in a month? Goodby should take a moment to rethink his words.
“A Survival Guide For New CMOs” reflects Goodby’s corporate cluelessness and outdated beliefs. Maybe it’s a mid-life crisis composition, allowing Goodby to air his frustrations of coping with constant chaos. Harkening back to the glory days of tyrannical clients positions the adman as a doddering dinosaur. CMOs with the potential to become the next Steve Jobs can be counted on one hand—and Captain Hook’s notorious hand at that.
The 2014 Jeff Goodby is no 1983 Jeff Goodby. He acknowledges today’s CMOs cover more responsibilities than ever—responsibilities that Goodby Silverstein & Partners do not comprehend or influence. Yet Goodby is apparently still living the delusion that the universe revolves around big ideas exclusively hatched by the White advertising agencies.
Goodby’s condescension and prima donna tone hurt the pitch. The adman missed an opportunity to inspire. “A Survival Guide For New CMOs” could have been “GS&P Amazingly Extends New CMOs’ Lifespans” or “How New CMOs Can Win Trips To Cannes.” He needed to show how Goodby Silverstein & Partners help turn new CMOs into rock stars. The focus should have been on Goodby’s performance and the wonders he and his agency bring to the party, as opposed to recommending what his bosses ought to be doing.
Finally, why the hell is Goodby advising CMOs on job security? In recent years, Goodby Silverstein & Partners lost Quaker Oats, Propel Zero, Sprint, Hewlett-Packard, Chevrolet, Corona Light and Modelo Especial. And the agency is not alone in having billings and business yanked in 45-month intervals. Account reviews are as common as corny jingles. In the end, the short tour of duty applies to both sides of the equation. So it’s kinda crazy for a traditional White advertising agency executive to be explaining job security to his employers.
To summarize: Transformational change begins with you, not them.
*Addendum: Premier Profitability is a term intended to cover a range of objectives. The word profitability goes beyond sales figures and financial gains to include profiting or benefiting in professional and personal ways. Careers should advance and happiness should ensue. The creative content has to generate awareness, entice responses, build relationships, provide entertainment, deliver information, win awards, etc.—it must delight and impress the creators, agency partners, clients, consumers and industry peers.
Campaign published a piece by High50 Editor-in-Chief Stefano Hatfield titled, “Talking about my generation,” which examined the growing and potentially profitable “superboomers” being ignored by most advertisers. Wondering why brands are not actively wooing an audience that controls 79 percent of U.K. disposable wealth, Hatfield speculated the following:
Can it be as simple as the fact that the average age of an employee in the UK ad industry is 33 (IPA Agency Census 2013) or that only 6 per cent of its employees are over 50?
Wow, 50-year-old employees are yet another minority in the ad game—although excluding mcgarrybowen, it’s unlikely that the elder workers control 79 percent of Madison Avenue’s disposable wealth. Then again, the holding company honchos might control over 79 percent of the wealth. Regardless, given that the U.K. advertising industry appears to mirror the U.S. advertising industry in terms of diversity, it’s safe to presume the boomer percentages hold up for American adpeople as well. In short, Old White Guys may be the industry’s new endangered species.
Sound the alarms! Order the Chief Diversity Officers and Diversity Development Advisory Committee members to start scouring inner-city assisted living facilities and nursing homes for candidates pronto. Why hasn’t the 3% Conference launched a 6% Conference spin-off (hell, Cindy Gallop could run the thing alongside her porn program)? The AAF can add grey to its Mosaic Center, while the 4As introduces GAIP—Geriatric Advertising Intern Program. ADCOLOR® should hand out a Silver Fox Award presented by AARP and Depend. And God only knows what senior citizens like Dan Wieden, Jeff Goodby and Sir John Hegarty could bring to the party. Battle stations, boomers!
The New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott reported on a new campaign for the California Milk Processor Board that demonstrates cross-cultural marketing—yet ultimately displays cultural cluelessness. It’s a total market approach that’s total bullshit. Or cow shit, since the commercials are trying to sell milk.
BTW, the commercials suck, which hardly helps promote the cross-cultural/total market propaganda. The only thing tying the spots into a campaign is the injection of the iconic “got milk?” tagline. The individual executions—“Champion” and “Brave”—are contrived, clichéd and crappy. Seriously, these could be the worst installments in a collection that has featured breakthrough ideas for many years. If this stuff is indeed representative of cross-cultural thinking, one could easily argue in support of sticking with segregation. That is, let the Whites and minorities continue to toil in their respective advertising agency silos.
What’s most bewildering is that the two shops responsible for the commercials—Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Grupo Gallegos—typically do award-winning work. Did the cross-cultural collaboration lead to committeeism? Or could it be that deliberately catering to all markets waters down the milk?
California Milk Processor Board Executive Director Stephen James explained, “This is the first time our agencies have worked as a cohesive team on creative strategy, creative execution and media planning. … It’s happening now as a result of a coming together of trends, in California especially, that seem to be getting more and more pronounced. … Terms like ‘the Hispanic market’ and ‘the general market’ seem so quaint at this point because you’re seeing such a cross-pollination of media, language, food, culture, you name it. … We’re looking at Californians as they evolve into one market.” Wow, James has obviously been drinking something much stronger than milk. If the Hispanic market and the general market seem so quaint, why does James continue to employ separate shops? Why was collaboration necessary? Couldn’t one agency have handled the total market solo? Hell, a roomful of monkeys could have outperformed GS&P and Grupo Gallegos on this initiative.
According to the NY Times story, Jeff Goodby “was the lead creative director for the campaign, overseeing creative employees of his agency and Grupo Gallegos.” Um, when did Goodby become qualified to lead such an endeavor? Handing him the reins is like asking Donald Sterling to emcee the ADCOLOR® Awards. Goodby’s role underscores how the cross-cultural/total market trend is essentially a thinly veiled attempt to give complete control to the White agencies. It’s not progressive; rather, it’s absolutely regressive, as well as repressive, oppressive and depressive. Besides, Goodby failed to establish harmony in a White coalition, so believing he could run a multicultural affair showed utter ignorance and insanity.
Goodby stated that in the “Champion” spot, the Black mother, Black girl and Black decathlete were cast so they could “easily be Caribbean Hispanic.” Huh?! Anyone who has ever produced work for Caribbean audiences knows Goodby’s culturally clueless contentions are laughably incorrect. The man deserves a sixth appearance in the C’MON WHITE MAN! series.
“We flew [Grupo Gallegos] teams up [to San Francisco] and vice versa,” Goodby said, “to work together in the same room on the ads.” Why? Grupo Gallegos has historically hatched spots that nabbed Cannes Lions, as has GS&P. This team-up resulted in awfulness that stinks worse than grossly sour milk.
To wrap up, somebody owes Pepper Miller an apology—and kudos for being downright prophetic.
Selling Milk to All Audiences, With a Unified Campaign
By Stuart Elliott
THE California Milk Processor Board, like many marketers, has one agency creating campaigns for the general market and another creating campaigns for ethnic audiences, in this instance Spanish-speaking consumers. Now, in a shift indicative of a movement on Madison Avenue known as cross-cultural marketing or a “total market” approach, the board asked its two agencies to collaborate on a campaign encouraging all Californians, regardless of ethnicity or the language they speak, to buy and drink more milk.
The campaign is to begin on Wednesday with two television commercials, each with soundtracks in English and Spanish; plans call for the spots to be followed by radio ads, digital ads and social media content. The ads are the result of the teaming of the board’s general market agency — Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of the Omnicom Group — and the Hispanic agency Grupo Gallegos in Huntington Beach, Calif.
The board has worked since 1993 with Goodby, Silverstein, which created the familiar “Got milk?” slogan that the board licensed for national dairy marketing efforts from 1995 until earlier this year. Ads from Grupo Gallegos, the board’s Hispanic agency since 2005, carry the theme “Toma leche,” or “Drink milk.”
“This is the first time our agencies have worked as a cohesive team on creative strategy, creative execution and media planning,” said Stephen James, executive director of the board in San Clemente, Calif. “It’s happening now as a result of a coming together of trends, in California especially, that seem to be getting more and more pronounced.”
“Terms like ‘the Hispanic market’ and ‘the general market’ seem so quaint at this point because you’re seeing such a cross-pollination of media, language, food, culture, you name it,” he added. “We’re looking at Californians as they evolve into one market.”
That expresses a philosophy of those who advocate the total-market approach: As the American population becomes more diverse, they prefer to focus on the similarities among consumers rather than the differences.
“Total market is where things are headed,” said Michael Fernandez, chief executive of Factory 360, an agency in New York not involved in the milk campaign. “You’re marketing in a ‘Modern Family’ world, not an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ world.”
The commonality celebrated in the campaign, Mr. James said, is that “the most important job” for the target of the ads — parents who buy milk, particularly mothers — “is making sure their children have a healthy future: a universally powerful force that transcends culture and language and ethnicity.”
In one commercial, a bedraggled woman speaks to a girl in a shopping cart in the milk aisle of a supermarket. “I’m you, from the future,” the woman tells the girl, who replies disappointedly, “You’re me?” The woman says: “I know. Drink this.” As the girl drinks milk, the woman exclaims, “It’s working, keep drinking,” races out of the supermarket and transforms into a champion decathlete. “We did it,” the woman shouts to the younger version of herself back in the store, where the girl’s mother is frantically filling the cart with milk.
The mother, the girl and the decathlete, who are black, were cast so they could “easily be Caribbean Hispanic,” said Jeff Goodby, the co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein. He was the lead creative director for the campaign, overseeing creative employees of his agency and Grupo Gallegos.
“We flew their teams up” to San Francisco “and vice versa,” Mr. Goodby said, “to work together in the same room on the ads.”
The other commercial also plays with the passage of time. It begins with a firefighter of no discernible ethnicity pouring himself a glass of milk as a mother is heard talking to her young son, who is scared of the dark. “Let’s think about some people who make you feel brave,” she says, and when the boy replies, “Firemen,” the firefighter is shown rescuing a boy from a house fire and reuniting him with his mother. The commercial ends with the on-screen words “What you say with a glass of milk lasts forever.”
A lot of the “soulful, emotional tone” of the commercials “came from working with the guys at Grupo Gallegos,” Mr. Goodby said.
The lead strategic director for the campaign was Andrew Delbridge, chief strategy and engagement officer of Grupo Gallegos; he oversaw employees of his agency and Goodby, Silverstein.
“For milk, what we and Goodby had done was to take parallel paths toward the same goal,” said John Gallegos, president and chief executive of Grupo Gallegos. “This is about today’s market, and tomorrow’s, recognizing that in California we’re on the front edge of what’s happening in the rest of the country.”
“There’s a fine line” in adopting cross-cultural marketing, Mr. Gallegos said, in that “if you try to say too much to everybody, you wind up saying nothing.” Still, “our philosophy has always been that it’s one marketplace,” he added. “You have to go forward with one collective voice.”
To that end, Mr. Gallegos is making Marty Orzio the agency’s chief creative officer; Mr. Orzio, who had been serving on an interim basis, was chief creative officer of general market agencies like Energy BBDO and Gotham.
“You’ve got to put the best talent on client assignments,” Mr. Gallegos said, “talent that understands the U.S. as a whole.”
The budget for the campaign is around what the milk board typically spends, a bit more than $10 million on an annualized basis. Plans call for the ads to run through January, Mr. James said, “and then we’ll see what the results are” before deciding whether to ask the two agencies to collaborate again.
Blog Action Day 2013 is focused on the topic of Human Rights. For a quick primer, scan The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948.
Has the dearth of diversity on Madison Avenue ever been properly framed as a human rights issue? Certainly not in recent years, despite the occasional intervention of the New York City Commission on Human Rights. Rather, today’s diversity discussions tend to dwell on the standard “it’s a good business decision” angle, emphasizing the importance of building staffs that reflect and relate to the U.S. audiences targeted by most major advertisers. Unfortunately, the popular, polite and passive route doesn’t succeed for a couple of reasons.
First of all, the standard “it’s a good business decision” angle has not been proven. In fact, Whites might argue that based on indicators like awards and account assignments, exclusivity works just fine. Because the advertising industry has been predominately Caucasian forever, it would be extraordinarily difficult to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that a diverse company could produce better creative.
Secondly, in situations involving human rights, politeness has never led to dramatic progress. This has been proven time and again. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stressed non-violence; however, they were not polite in their protests. Polite people are not typically thrown into jails or assassinated. On Madison Avenue, politeness will get you promoted to Chief Diversity Officer or elected to Diversity Advisory Committees—plus, you can win prizes like ADCOLOR® Awards and Pioneers of Diversity honors—but you won’t truly impact change.
The second point is particularly sobering and even offensive when considering the advertising field. The greater society usually comes around to showing respect to rabble-rousers such as Gandhi and Dr. King; conversely, adland has traditionally blacklisted (pun intended) revolutionaries while crowning Whites who essentially expressed the same opinions.
For example, Dan Wieden exclaimed the industry was fucked up in the area of inclusiveness, and he ultimately nabbed an ADCOLOR® trophy. Harry Webber pretty much said the same thing in 1969 and hasn’t been welcome in a White agency since. And although he’s made unprecedented contributions for diversity and equality, as well as produced award-winning campaigns, Webber has yet to be invited to an ADCOLOR® gala.
Jeff Goodby wondered, “Where Are All The Black People?”—and he received praise and accolades for asking. Sanford Moore has posed the question for decades and is still waiting to be thanked for his inquiries and groundbreaking achievements.
John Wren, Michael Roth, John Seifert and other advertising leaders have admitted there’s a lot of work to do in order to end the separate-but-unequal conditions. Lowell Thompson and Hadji Williams offered identical observations and suddenly found a lot less work.
Shunning the industry’s real heroes for human rights makes us look a little inhuman—and it definitely ain’t right.
Where Are All The Black People? has undergone a makeover, de-emphasizing the W in Where and altering the title to read: Here Are All The Black People. Ironically, all the Black people in advertising actually could be accommodated by a single New York City venue. The Advertising Week Official Guide features an ad where Black now covers Hispanic, Native American, Indian and Asian—but doesn’t include African American. At the website, the speakers for the September 23 event are TBD. And a quote from Jeff Goodby reads, “I loved this event. One of the most moving things I’ve done all year.” Not sure his words will hold up for 2013.
Advertising Age reported Princess Cruises named Goodby Silverstein & Partners as its new lead agency. The cruise line has been handling its marketing in-house—and the company website looks like it was created in a shithouse. It’s unclear if the assignment involved a pitch, as the hiring of GSP appears to be the sole decision of recently appointed SVP of Marketing Gordon Ho. Ad Age noted that twenty-five years ago, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein reached a major milestone when landing the Royal Viking Cruise Line account, besting mentor Hal Riney after a shootout. Today, GSP is in a titanic network, sailing off with a third-rate cruise account. Lower the lifeboats.
Goodby Silverstein & Partners Gets Princess Cruises Account
Marks a Return to the Category; Omnicom Shop’s First Big Account Was a Cruise Line
By Rupal Parekh
Twenty-five years ago, Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein got their first big break when they landed the Royal Viking Cruise Line account, which at the time spent $10 million, almost all of it print advertising.
Back then, it was a big deal—especially because they won the business in a pitch against Hal Riney, their ad mentor. Fast forward to today, and Goodby Silverstein & Partners is getting back into the cruising industry.
The Omnicom Group shop has been named lead agency for Princess Cruises and will be responsible for an integrated marketing push that launches in early 2014.
GSP was brought on by a new top marketer at the cruise line, Gordon Ho, who joined in June. He earlier in his career spent 18 years at the Walt Disney Company where he last served as executive vice president of worldwide marketing for its $4 billion Disney Studios Home Entertainment division.
“In looking for a new partner to help with our advertising and marketing growth, we wanted an agency with solid experience and proven results,” said Mr. Ho, svp-marketing, in a statement. “The team at Goodby Silverstein & Partners not only brought a strong reputation, but most importantly impressed us with their strategic thinking and the creative direction they presented to not just differentiate but distinguish the Princess Cruises brand.”
Princess has been handling the bulk of its marketing in-house though a few years ago it was working with California-based shop Ignited. The move to bring on outside advertising help comes not only as Princess is facing increased competition both in the form of promotions and new product offerings across the cruise line industry, but also as cruising overall has taken a PR hit as Carnival Cruise Lines has faced several high-profile mishaps.
“I’m not a spokesman for the industry but if you’re going to take your family to Alaska, it’s a great way to do it,” said GSP’s co-chairman, Mr. Silverstein. “In general, there’s a lot of things you can see on a cruise that you just can’t see another way. It’s a romantic way to see the world to be floating on the water. We live in places where electricity is everywhere and to be on the open water and have nothing but dark and stars—where else are you going to get that?”
He added that Princess hasn’t done “major brand advertising in some time, so we have a chance to reintroduce this brand to the travel industry and the world…with travel there are a lot of choices, and it’s our job in advertising to explain why our option is relevant.”
