MADC hosts Jeff Goodby and Eamonn Dixon for a lesson in building campaignable campaigns
At MADC’s latest Art of Craft evening, advertising legends Jeff Goodby, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, and Eamonn Dixon, Executive Creative Director at GS&P New York, explored what separates an ad from a platform built to last.
The conversation spanned four decades of advertising, from the iconic ‘got milk?’ to the deliberately absurd world of Cheetos. Two very different campaigns, but both built around ideas with room to grow.
For Dixon, Cheetos is a lesson in making the ridiculous feel inevitable. You have to be smarter to be stupid. The campaign’s absurdity was never the point on its own. It was a creative expression of a clear idea, shaped by the thinking behind it and the discipline to keep pushing it.
Goodby took the audience back to the insight that unlocked ‘got milk?’: you only think about milk when you don’t have any. That simple observation turned the absence of the product into the campaign itself, proving that sometimes the most powerful creative territory is hiding in plain sight.
The conversation also moved into the business of running an agency. For GS&P, Goodby described the mindset as being a ‘next play’ agency. Keep looking forward, move quickly and don’t get too comfortable with what you’ve just achieved.
It was a fitting note to end on – because whether you’re building a campaign, an agency or a career in advertising, the work is never really finished. There’s always the next idea, a new problem to solve and another opportunity to make something worth talking about.
VIEW THE PRINT MAGAZINE + PAST ISSUES ONLINE. SUBSCRIBE NOW.
Register for FREE HERE and receive the Campaign Brief Daily Bulletin and/or the global Best Ads Best of the Week Bulletin. Subscribe to Campaign Brief Magazine.
#More Creative News #No paywalls #No annual membership fees
Subscribe to Portfolio & Reel for current listings of Australian and NZ ad agency and production company leadership and key personnel