Goodby, Silverstein and Partners Named Adweek’s Agency of the Decade

December, 2009 by

Long known as a creative and strategic powerhouse for culture-penetrating TV and print work, Omnicom Group’s Goodby, Silverstein & Partners spent the second half of the ’00s reinventing itself for digital. Early in the decade, its best work included celebrated TV productions like the Super Bowl spots for Budweiser with the lizards and ferrets; E*Trade’s “Dancing Monkey”; the lyrical “Sheet Metal” for Saturn; and whimsical musical numbers for eBay. Mid-decade triumphs included “The computer is personal again” for Hewlett-Packard and the multimedia milk-deprived-aliens work for “Got milk?” After losing Saturn in 2007, the San Francisco shop went on a phenomenal new-business run, adding more than $2 billion in billings within a few short months, including Sprint and Hyundai. All the while, it was transforming itself from ad maker to content provider, producing “art that serves capitalism,” as Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein call it, in whatever form that’s required. Goodby was honored as Interactive Agency of the Year at Cannes in 2009 for its breakthrough work for clients like Sprint (“The Now Network”), Doritos (“Hotel 626”) and Nintendo (“Wario Land: Shake It!”). Retooled into a potent force for the digital age, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners is a true master of all trades, deserving to be called the decade’s best. —Eleftheria Parpis