San Francisco’s Goodby, Berlin--Agency of the ‘90s?
When the cutting-edge San Francisco ad agency Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein won the $25-million Carl’s Jr. ad business last week, one West Coast fast-food industry executive joked: “I suppose ol’ Carl Karcher will get on the air now and deck Ronald McDonald.”
Far from it. The ad agency’s co-founder and creative head, Jeffrey Goodby, says Carl’s Jr. commercials will now take great pains to show Carl’s as a swell, folksy, family-run restaurant chain. And Carl is expected to play an even bigger role in the ads instead of simply signing off with a goofy line or two.
“The most important thing to capture is the fact that there is a real person behind the restaurant,” Goodby said. Sounds like pretty tame stuff coming from an agency with a reputation for sometimes using its creativity to raise a ruckus. In recent years the ad firm has raised eyebrows by:
* Creating a spot for the San Francisco Examiner that featured Publisher William Randolph Hearst III dropping a TV set--tuned to a local newscast--off a tall building.
* Airing an ad for Honda Dealers of Northern California that features a mock legislator from Southern California proposing that the Pacific Coast Highway be widened to 10 lanes.
* Producing billboards for the Oakland Invaders of the former United States Football League that warned commuters if they didn’t buy tickets to the games, “We’ll break your face.”
Nobody’s face got broken. But Goodby, Berlin has emerged with a face that advertisers seem to love. The agency, which has also crafted elegant print ads for Royal Viking Line and humorous TV spots for Supercuts, ranks among the hottest in the nation. It may be the agency to watch in the ‘90s. Last year, Advertising Age named it Agency of the Year. This year, the magazine refrained from picking any agency because the caliber of ads was generally so poor. Said Goodby: “I guess that still makes us the reigning Agency of the Year.”
Certainly, Carl’s Jr. executives think so. “They’re good at being funny. They’re good at teary-eyed advertising. And they’re good at creating powerful ads,” said John Farrar, vice president of marketing at Carl Karcher Enterprises, the Anaheim-based parent of Carl’s Jr.
The agency was founded eight years ago by three hotshots who formerly worked for the ad firm Hal Riney & Partners. They got together in an old warehouse with no money, one client and three employees.
Since then, the agency has doubled its annual billings every year, and today hovers around the $100-million mark. It has 65 staffers--with an estimated 20 more to be hired to help with the Carl’s Jr. business.
“I’d like to become the best agency in the world,” said Goodby, 39, echoing the words of Los Angeles ad legend Jay Chiat, whose ad firm Chiat/Day/Mojo grew in 20 years from nothing to become a $1-billion business. “But I’d like to do it in less time than it took Jay.”
Indeed, the agency expects to open an office in New York this year to service clients New Yorker magazine and the National Basketball Assn. And while it has no immediate plans to open a Los Angeles office, Goodby doesn’t deny that is his eventual goal.
“Who wouldn’t want an office in the second-largest city in the country?” posed Goodby.
But some say the partners will sell out before that happens. Goodby doesn’t deny reports that the giant French agency Eurocom has negotiated to purchase Goodby, Berlin.
American Isuzu to Split Account
American Isuzu Motors, which last week fired Della Femina McNamee’s Los Angeles office, says it plans to divide its ad business between a media buying service and an agency. Agency prospects include Dailey & Associates (Los Angeles), Davis, Ball & Colombatto (Los Angeles), Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein (San Francisco), Wieden & Kennedy (Portland), the Bloom Agency (Dallas), Earle Palmer Brown (Baltimore) and Fallon McElligott (Minneapolis).
Briefly. . .
Claremont-based Food 4 Less Supermarkets expects to name an agency to handle its estimated $15-million ad business by early June. . . . Dep. Corp handed its estimated $8-million ad business to Los Angeles-based Cohen/Johnson from Venice-based Chiat/Day. . . . Nissan has canceled much of its network TV advertising this summer trying to raise $50 million for dealer-incentive programs. . . . Attendance at this week’s annual meeting of the American Assn. of Advertising Agencies is expected to be down 21% from last year . . . Fresca, the soda that hasn’t been available in the L.A. market for years, re-enters this week by re-positioning itself as an alternative to sparkling water.
