San Francisco, October 2nd, 2019

Based in San Francisco, Goodby Silverstein & Partners is a creative company whose mission is to create experiences that, though reaching millions and even billions, seem to speak singly to each one of us—an effect dubbed “mass intimacy.”

GS&P has created commercials and digital experiences for BMW, Pepsi, Budweiser, Frito-Lay, Comcast, E*TRADE, the New Yorker, Adobe and the California Milk Processor Board (“got milk?”).

The company is also well-known for a variety of artistic installations: Dalí Lives for the Dalí Museum, which brings Salvador Dalí back to life through artificial intelligence; OK Go music videos; the Cheetos Vision app; and the #IAmAWitness antibullying emoji (the first emoji for a social cause).

Derek Robson is a Partner and President at Goodby Silverstein & Partners. On this interview, he highlights experimentation as part of the DNA of the agency, trying to do things differently from other agencies.

What’s a regular day like on Derek Robson’s shoes?

Shoes are pretty important to me. I have a lot of them so it’s likely that I might go through a few shoes changes during the day (this is not a joke).

No two days are alike. The job is partly strategic and planning based and partly reactive to what’s going on in the agency at the time. You are constantly making decisions and problem solving. Most things that involve money seem to find their way to me at some point.

I spend a lot of time with my CFO David Spencer, because we share a large antique partner desk. I am also deeply engaged with all things to do with people so I am in and out of Jill Sammons’ (our Head of People) office. And I spend a good chunk of my time every day talking about new business with our Director New Business Julie Whitecotton.

What were the most important character-building experiences you’ve been through?

You don’t learn much when you’re successful, so I’ve found you learn the most about yourself and the people around you when things aren’t in good shape.

At GS&P we’ve had some roller-coaster years. We’ve had to hire 300–400 people at a time, and we’ve also had to close down offices and lay people off. Those are the times that test your character.

Also, you should never forget that you’re responsible for people’s lives and their livelihoods. That’s never something you should take lightly.

What attributes do you want people to associate your agency with?

I would like people to love our thinking and our work. We talk about mass intimacy as our secret sauce. Mass intimacy is a message sent to millions, but with the astonishing feeling that it is talking only to you. We believe when you get to mass intimacy, you unlock the secrets to the commercial effectiveness of the brand.

How do you work with and lead people who are not like you?

The obligation when you get to be president is that you have to recognize that everybody has a different management style. You need to recognize that people can lead in different ways and to respect the fact that the most important aspect of leadership is that you’re true to yourself and your authentic in the way you lead.

At GS&P leaders takes many forms. We’ve got incredible extroverts at one end, and we’ve got insightful introverts at the other end. They’re each as valuable as the other, and that’s what you recognize with a bit of experience: that you need all sorts of people in the room in order to create an effective organization.

How do you organize and prioritize your workload between production, strategy and finance?

It’s a bit like the force of a hurricane determining which things are going to turn into Category 5 storms and which things are going to peter out. You kind of get a sense of those things over time. The obligation is that you are always thinking a bit further ahead for the business rather than in the here and now while still staying engaged in what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.

What is the biggest challenge when it comes to grow an agency?

Malcolm Gladwell gave an answer in a GQ interview that I think is really applicable here. He was asked: Would you rather be right, or would you rather be interesting? And the answer he gave was, if you’re president of the US, you need to be right, but if you’re a journalist, you have to be interesting. I think in advertising you have to be both. You have to be right and interesting; it isn’t enough to just produce effective work that goes into the world. It has to be interesting too.

In your opinion, what would be the key difference between leading a digital agency and a product company (A.k.a Nestlé / Google)?

I think the differences are not as material as one would think. Because you get to a certain level, and actually what you are really doing is managing other people to do the work. The products and things you make may well be different, but actually the challenges and the issues that the business faces are fairly similar.

It’s all about managing personalities and serving the people that do the work. That’s what leadership is. When you get to a certain level in an organization, it’s like, can you get the best out of people since you’re not going to be the best person in the organization to do what you need them to do? You need to get the best out of the people who are running those things. I’m not the best account person or strategist. But you have to be able to get the best out of those people who lead those specific disciplines.

Since you joined GS&P, you’ve been working on positioning the agency for the future. What was your personal strategy to reach that goal? How did you share this vision with your teams?

When I started at GS&P, I set out to learn from the mistakes of my prior job at BBH. There I took over running the agency from somebody, and I took on all his direct reports and all his standing meetings. On Friday I was in a senior member of the agency’s leadership team, and then on Monday I was a running the agency.

At BBH, I never took the opportunity to step back and look at the business. So when I came here, I asked Rich and Jeff to give me 100 days to work out what the agency was about and what the issues were.

I became obsessed at that point in time with what the agency was making. My hypothesis was that the profile of the things that the agency was making was changing. So I had the person who was looking after the creative department look at a whole year’s worth of data on what we were physically making and who was making it.

What transpired was that actually the agency was going through a massive change. What we were known for—making television commercials—had become way less important in terms of the number of things that we were making.

The agency was moving quite quickly into digital, but we had only 15 percent of the agency that could make digital things. We were putting massive amounts of pressure on small amounts of people. So with that we decided that we were going to reconfigure the agency. Starting with the creative department, we paired people who knew digital with people who didn’t know it as well. We mixed people up in order to address our problems quickly.

I also learned that none of the partners had ever had a performance review, including Rich and Jeff. It was a massive problem because so much of the percentage of the cost of the agency was tied to those people, who were not being evaluated for their performance.

In your opinion, what will Goodby Silverstein look like in 5 years?

Does anyone know the answer to this question? John Wren told me never to have a five-year plan for advertising, so I’ve avoided even thinking about it. What I do know is that we’ll be experimenting and trying to do things never seen before. That’s in our DNA and that won’t change.

Please share some of your highlight moments in your career-path so far:

Rod Wright taking a gamble on me and hiring me to work at Ogilvy & Mather Direct in London.

Working on Levi’s “Flat Eric” campaign at BBH with Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth (both of whom went on to run Wieden in London).

Joining GS&P.

You count with a long-time experience working in the United Kingdom and in the US. What differences do you find most interesting in cultural and working terms?

From a work perspective, advertising in the US is a more serious endeavor because the stakes are higher. You’re dealing with much bigger budgets, and with that comes more pressure. Culturally, people are also more direct here about what they do and don’t like. People don’t lunch much here or drink after work.

What do you love about your job?

The variety—no two days are the same, and every problem you get is unique. It’s constantly evolving.

Three things I wish I knew when I left school:

1. Worry about doing the job right vs. the outcome of the job. Concentrate on what you have in your control and do that to the best of your ability.

2. Run to a problem vs. run away from a problem. Take on the most difficult problems because if you do and you tackle them, you will become invaluable.

3. Remember your job as a leader is to serve other people.

What issues are you paying attention to right now? What kind of news grab your attention?

Anything with English cricket. I’m always interested in anything that talks about the future of work—like what will happen to work in 100 years—because I think that’s one of the areas we are not concentrating on enough as a society.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

I would like to be the England cricket coach.

Thanks Derek!

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creative agencyDerek RobsonDigital agencyLeadershippartnersPresidentSan FranciscoUnited States