The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has today announced that Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, founders of Goodby Silverstein & Partners, will be honoured with the Lion of St. Mark Award at the 2019 Festival.
“The Lion of St. Mark is a special award that honours those who have made a significant and outstanding contribution to creativity in advertising and communications over a lifelong career. Jeff and Rich have had such a profound influence, not only through their much celebrated and creatively ground-breaking work but also by inspiring others to create great work too. Their legacy is truly remarkable, and we’re delighted to celebrate and reward them for their achievements,” says in a press release Philip Thomas, Chairman of Cannes Lions.
Both men started their careers in journalism, Goodby as a reporter and illustrator at The Boston Herald American, Time Magazine, and Mother Jones, and Rich as an art director in the heyday of Rolling Stone Magazine. After meeting at Ogilvy & Mather under Hal Riney, they started GS&P with Andy Berlin in 1983 and won their first Cannes Lion for the Mill Valley Film Festival. They went on to win numerous Lions across all metals and brand categories, encompassing an unprecedented variety of styles. Campaigns included: ‘Got Milk?’, the Budweiser lizards, ‘Invent’ for Hewlett-Packard, the E*Trade chimpanzee, Polaroid’s ‘See What Develop’, NBA’s ‘I love this game’, ‘Skateboarding’ for Nike and campaigns for Sega Games.
Most recently GS&P received Gold Lions for ‘I am a Witness’ (the first emoji for a social cause), the ‘Dreams of Dali’ VR experience, Chevrolet’s Sonic Launch with OKGO, and Cheetos Museum.
Much of GS&P’s work has entered into the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Commenting on the award, Goodby credited GS&P’s staff and culture, “The people who have gone through GS&P have changed our industry more than Rich or I could ever have on our own. A spirit of humanity and forgiveness has made this place a launching pad for things never done before, over and over, always with new people. We are proud of the ideas we’ve incubated, the friendships that have been formed, the clients met and the families that have been made possible by 35 years of this stuff”.
“This is an amazing honor”, Silverstein added. “What makes Jeff and me most proud is that we’ve provided a respectful space for so many talented people to make intelligent work, raise families and have fun all at the same time”.
In 2005 Goodby was Jury President of the Titanium Lions Jury, he presided over the Film, Press & Outdoor Lions Jury in 2002 and served on the Film Lions Jury in 1993. In 2009 Silverstein served on the Titanium and Integrated Lions Jury.
Previous Lion of St. Mark Winners
2018: Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and Creative Director Ogilvy South Asia and Prasoon Pandey, Director, Corcoise Films
2017: David Droga, founder and Creative Chairman, Droga5
2016: Marcello Serpa, former Partner, AlmapBBDO
2015: Bob Greenberg, Founder, Chairman and CEO, R/GA
2014: Joe Pytka, Director, PYTKA
2013: Lee Clow, Chairman, TBWA\Media Arts Lab, Director of Media Arts, TBWA\Worldwide
2012: Dan Wieden, Co-Founder and Global Executive Creative Director, Wieden+Kennedy
2011: Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director, Founder, BBH
