2022 Inductee

Jerry Goodis

(1929 - 2002)

Agency Builder

Jerry Goodis was a folk singer-turned-advertising maverick, an outspoken businessman with an eye for creative talent and a scrappy salesman with a sharp marketing instinct – remembered as much for his colourful personality as for his work through his agency Goodis, Goldberg, Soren.

“He could be prickly, overly candid and outrageous,” says Doug Linton, the former chair of Ambrose, Carr, Linton, Carroll, who also previously served as CD and president at Goodis’ firm. “He shook up the business and pissed people off. He loved it. He was the enfant terrible.”

Goodis’ career in advertising was prefaced by the mark he first made in the music business. He was one of four founding members of the Canadian folk group The Travellers, formed in 1952, who were best known for their Canadian interpretation of Woodie Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

Years later, he, the band’s musical director Sam Goldberg and Goodis’
half-brother Albert Soren made the jump to advertising.

Goodis was an outlier from the beginning. His agency opened up in an industrial area, rather than downtown. He was a Jewish man whose personality and mode of operation was the antithesis of the establishment. And he was charismatic in an industry that wasn’t always known for being so.

“If he was pitching to a bank, he would want to show prosperity; if he was pitching to a nascent company, he would show his lean and hungry side,” says Alan Gee, director of business and brand development at Gee Beauty, who first worked for Goodis as a freelance and then full-time AD. “That’s a skill of people who understood the cut and thrust of growing a business and how
to relate to your audience.”

While a campaign for Hush Puppies helped put the agency on the map, Goodis, Goldberg, Soren would go on to produce memorable and long-running slogans.

There was “At Speedy, You’re Somebody,” which focused on the treatment of customers, addressing the poor service that people would receive from competitors when they brought their car in for repairs. “Harvey’s Makes Your Hamburger a Beautiful Thing” targeted adults with its pick-your-own-toppings option, a personalization no other burger chain was offering at the time. The agency also produced WonderBra’s “We Care About the Shape You’re In” and Swiss Chalet’s “Never So Good for So Little.”

The work environment under Goodis was both convivial and challenging. “He was very mercurial; he was hot or cold; he loved or hated you,” recalls Gee. “It was a running joke around the place: What he wore would telegraph what his temperament would be. If he was wearing bold things, he was exuberant. If he was wearing a gray suit, you didn’t go in and speak to him.”

Despite a fluctuating temperament, Goodis had a gift for attracting and cultivating talent. Many who worked for Goodis went on to start their own agencies, like Gee, or become creative directors. “He inspired people, he was a great salesman, he believed in good work and he believed consumers were smarter than most,” says Linton. “He championed work with artistry and wit that created a dialogue with you. He brought together a multiplicity of people who grew under him.”

Before his passing in 2002 at age 73, Goodis penned three books: 1972 saw the launch of Have I Ever Lied to You Before?, the same title used for a 1976 doc about Goodis, produced by the National Film Board. GOOD!S: Shaking the Advertising Tree and his autobiography Battles
of a Marketing Warrior were both published in 1991.

Throughout his own career in advertising, Gee recalls how firms were more focused on retaining clients and the bottom line than on the internal workings. But not Goodis.

Adds Gee, “To a lot of creatives who knew him over the years, Goodis was that charismatic guy who loved creative work, and celebrated the creative process and the people who did it.”