Jeff Goodby: The Got Milk? Man

For more than 30 years, Jeff Goodby co-founder and co-chairman of Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, has been creating virtuoso ads for a long list of iconic brands and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 2006. He feeds Simon Wakelin with nourishing campaign tales, particularly the one about marketing a certain popular bovine secretion.

“I love the feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen next,” says Jeff Goodby on what keeps him inspired in adland today. “I remember opening our agency with one phone sitting in the middle of the floor. Whenever it rang we’d all charge for it hoping it was new business – only to discover it was any number of friends calling us to see what we were up to.”

Goodby grew up in Rhode Island with no intention of entering the world of advertising. Instead he headed to Harvard University, and wrote for The Harvard Lampoon while focusing on his studies:

“I used to love looking at magazines like Communication Arts because they simply inspired me,” he recalls. “After graduation I spent a few years as a political reporter in Boston before I decided to head out west to San Francisco.”

Goodby arrived looking for journalism work but couldn’t get a job. His frustrations led him to open the Yellow Pages and call every ad agency in town for a position. After no luck he sought the advice of a creative director at McCann Erickson who told him to display a sense of humour in his resumé. Along with a portfolio he crafted a compelling biography in the form of a mock encyclopedia entry, written posthumously.

“That was really good advice,” he admits. “It got me a job right away.”

His first job as a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson lasted for a couple of years before receiving a phone call from the legendary Hal Riney one day. Goodby didn’t know who Riney was at the time until a fellow copywriter kicked him under the table and told him he’d “just received a phone call from God”.

Subscribers to shots.net can read the full interview here or in the new issue of shots magazine, issue 145. To subscribe to shots click here.