Q&A with Goodby Silverstein & Partner’s co-founder Jeff Goodby

Jeff Goodby sat down with Miranda Ward on the sidelines of the Reset conference in Sydney this week to talk about whether Goodby Silverstein & Partners should have opened an office in Sydney when it won the Commonwealth Bank account in 2007, what he makes of the state of creativity locally and how if he were starting an agency today it would specialise in social media amplification.

Having worked in Australia for nearly five years with the Commonwealth Bank from 2007, what have you made of the state of creativity during your visit?

I think it’s gotten stirred up a lot since I worked on CommBank, in good ways. Obviously a big couple of Cannes winners that have happened since I worked for CommBank and agencies like The Monkeys have really prospered in a lot of good ways. The clients in banking, the ANZ campaign, things like that have prospered. There’s a lot of energy to do good things here and it’s a country that’s not so big and unweildy as in the US. You can still make a difference here with clients.