Ogilvy & Mather Sydney increases creative firepower with ex-Goodby CD, Chris Ford, as ECD

June 29 2010, 5:42 pm | BY Kim Shaw | 16 Comments

Thumbnail image for chris_ford.gifCB EXCLUSIVE: Ogilvy & Mather Sydney has announced its most significant commitment to creativity yet, with the appointment of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco creative director Chris Ford to the position of executive creative director.

The position has been vacant since April when the then ECD Bruce Matchett was lured back to Asia, to the ECD gig at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore + Malaysia.

The highly awarded Ford will move from the US to Sydney mid-July with responsibility for overseeing all creative output across the Ogilvy & Mather Sydney group. He’s spent the last 11 years at Goodby and has 20 years experience in the creative field, winning numerous awards and working on top brands including Absolut, Adobe, Budweiser, The Glenlivet, Quaker Oats and Tivo.

Screen shot 2010-06-29 at 11.15.19 PM.pngScreen shot 2010-06-29 at 11.18.58 PM.pngScreen shot 2010-06-29 at 11.22.12 PM.pngHe worked on the world’s most awarded ad of 2009, the Comcast Rabbitcommercial, and another example of his work – Saturn’s ‘Numbers’ – hasbeen archived in the Museum of Modern Art.  He also wrote, produced anddirected the award-winning independent feature film The VillageBarbershop (in his spare time!).

Ogilvy Sydney managing directorMike Daniels, who previously worked at Goodby, Silverstein &Partners, says Ford was “an incredibly exciting appointment for our Group.”

“Chrisbrings an incredible quality of mind to creative work. He’s focused onsolving clients’ business problems with creative thinking – all of hisawarded work has been for serious brands – and his job is to furtherelevate the quality of our creative output,” Daniels said.

“Betterand more effective creative work is the core to our clients’ successand obviously to our own. Chris has proven experience across allmediums, both digital and traditional, as evidenced by the highlyrecognised integrated ‘Comcast Town’ campaign.”

Ford said of hismove to Ogilvy Sydney: “Leaving Goodby, Silverstein after 11 years islike leaving family. It’s emotional, and you only do it because youfeel like there’s something else you have to go out and do in theworld. For me, that something else is the opportunity to work with aguy I genuinely trust who wants to make his agency great, set in acountry I have always had a tremendous curiosity for. Those two things,along with the agency’s list of great brands make a pretty compellingargument for change.”