Hasta La Creative!

San Francisco agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners restructured its agency leadership with Margaret Johnson becoming the first chief creative officer in the agency’s 33 year history.

Managing partner Derek Robson will also become president, effective immediately. Beyond these two promotions, director of account management Brian McPherson and director of new business Leslie Barrett will serve as managing partners with director of brand strategy Bonnie Wan and director of communication strategy Christine Chen also taking on partnership roles.

Don’t worry, founding co-chairmen Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein aren’t going anywhere: they will continue to take an active role in organizational efforts.

“We are reinventing our company every day, and these are the people who will formulate the big changes, come up with the big ideas that will keep us not just relevant but game-changing,” Goodby said in a statement. “Our new president, chief creative officer, and new partners will make a difference immediately—and down the line, five and ten years from now.”

Johnson joined GS&P some twenty years ago, following three years as an art director with The Richards Group. She went on to be named an executive creative director and, in 2012, the agency’s first female partner. While with GS&P she has worked with clients including Nike, Nintendo and Frito-Lay and presently works on Sonic, Nest, TD Ameritrade, Häagen-Dazs and Foster Farms. 

“Margaret has grown up at GS&P and has the DNA of the agency in her blood,” Silverstein told Adweek, adding, “She’s fearless and has led us with innovative creative thinking that taps into culture. She’s earned the admiration of our people and our clients, and there is no one else we would want to carry forth our legacy.”

Robson joined GS&P in 2005 following 13 years as a managing director with BBH, and later became a managing partner with the agency. Prior to that he served  in account planner positions with OgilvyOne and Ogilvy & Mather. In his new role he will serve as strategic leader while collaborating with other agency partners.

McPherson has been with GS&P for twenty years and currently leads the Frito-Lay, Adobe and Princess Cruises accounts. Barrett has spent nearly 17 years with the agency, recently leading new business efforts that led GS&P to add StubHub, the Golden State Warriors and GREE to its client roster while expanding its work on Comcast and Frito-Lay.

Wan and Chen will lead communications moving forward, with Wan on the brand side and Chen promoting the agency’s campaigns and “maintain[ing] rigor around how GS&P diagnoses business problems and approaches work.”

Eric Kallman was set to become the future co-leader of GS&P creative upon his ECD promotion last year, but he left to launch his own unit Erich & Kallman after approximately six months. That shop’s first work for Chick-Fil-A debuted last month.

Executive creative director Christian Haas has announced that he is leaving Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, AdAge reports. Haas does not have plans for his next full-time gig following his departure, although he is “advising a few startup clients and planning to freelance,” while the agency currently “is in discussions about the best leadership scenario for N.Y. going forward.” Comcast/Xfinity, which had been handled by both the agency’s New York and San Francisco offices, will will be run by San Francisco-based executive creative directors Adam Reeves and Nick Klinkert.

“I want to go somewhere I feel both excited and terrified — the feelings I had when I first joined Goodby,” Haas said. “I’m not leaving to go somewhere. I want to try something new and I want to take my time to find it.”

Haas arrived at Goody, Silverstein & Partners back in 2006, following over seven years at Organic. He was named a founding partner of the agency’s New York office in January, 2013, where he launched campaigns for the likes of YouTube, Google, Comcast and PledgeMusic. During his time with the agency, Haas was instrumental in making the Omnicom-owned shop a digital powerhouse while leading work for brands such as Sprint, HP, EBay, GE, and Got Milk. In 2010, Creativity named Haas one of its Creativity 50. Read on for Rich Silverstein and Jeff Goodby‘s memo to agency staff following the break. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last year, Goodby Silverstein & Partners celebrated the holidays with their “BIG: Color” spot for the NBA, which they sometimes refer to as “Carol of the Balls” (sounds a bit gross to me.) Following on the success of that spot, the agency has put together another NBA Christmas carol for hoops fans, this time taking on the ubiquitous Christmas song known variously as “Jingle Bells” and “One-Horse Open Sleigh.”

The spot, “Jingle Hoops,” (the folks over at Goodby are undoubtedly referring to it as “Jingle Balls”) features five of today’s biggest NBA stars – Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Steve Nash and LeBron James – wearing Special Edition Christmas Day Uniforms and shooting hoops rigged with jingle bells, to a certain famous Christmas tune. Since the song normally ends with a shout of “Hey,” they had LeBron finish things out with an enthusiastic dunk. It’s a simple idea, well executed (personally I think they did a better job than with “Carol of the Bells” last year), that I imagine most NBA fans can appreciate.

Personally, I think it’s a bit early for Christmas/holiday stuff (Can we please wait until Thanksgiving?), but that’s a losing argument since the entire world has decided that November 1st (and sometimes earlier) is the proper time to start the winter holiday onslaught. Given that, the song choice is kind of appropriate, since “One-Horse Open Sleigh” was originally composed for Thanksgiving.

The Special Edition Christmas Day Uniforms are part of the Adidas Winter Court collection and will be worn by NBA players exclusively during Christmas Day games. Interested parties can purchase the uniforms online at the NBA store. Credits after the jump. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Numbers have not been revealed but all day, we’ve been hearing from multiple tipsters that anywhere from 50-100 staffers have been affected by reductions today at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. But from what those familiar with the matter tell us, the numbers skew to the lower side and are not in the realm of the Sprint cuts. Anyways, read the San Francisco agency’s co-founder Jeff Goodby‘s note that was just sent to staff verbatim:

“You’ve heard the financial reasons for reducing our staff.  I just want to talk a bit about the human side of it all.

Please be assured: No one takes this process lightly.

As we often say, advertising is all about people and accounts.  David Ogilvy wrote, ‘The assets go up and down in our elevator every day.’  It is so true.  We value our people, and our humanistic environment, more than anything.

Strangely, that’s why, when we lose business or have cuts in fee, it is important to react thoughtfully, but expeditiously.  Companies that don’t are not prepared for the future, and they don’t serve the people who are still on staff.  They endanger present and future jobs.

We are optimistic about our plan to move forward, in terms of serving present accounts and getting new ones, and will share details next week. But we are also thankful for and deeply appreciative of the contributions of people who are leaving.

We will do everything to find them new situations.  And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves welcoming some of them back in the future.

Thanks for your patience about all this.

JG”

Perhaps JD Beebe can create a follow-up to this?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.