CREATIVE AGENCY THE GOODWINS FIGHTS FOR THE GOOD

The young creative agency The Goodwins has more than withstood the difficult Corona year 2020 and is growing from twelve to now 16 employees thanks to new clients such as Deutsche Telekom, WWF and the rental platform Grover. "We are just continuing to hire and will soon be a team of 20 people," says co-founder and CEO Tim Stübane in an interview with MEEDIA.

The biggest new customer for the small agency, which opened in mid-2018, is the Bonn-based Telekom Group. It is developing sustainability communications for it following a pitch. The Goodwins is thus acting for the telco provider in line with the Berlin agency's brand essence, which is: "We fight for good to win." The first projects for Telekom have already been completed and are likely to pop up in social media these days.

Also after a pitch, WWF is betting on The Goodwins. The environmental protection organization is commissioning a campaign from the advertisers to draw attention to Earth Hour 2021 on March 27 and get as many people, cities and companies as possible to participate. The campaign for WWF's most important and visible project will launch in the second half of February.

For the technology rental platform Grover, the agency has taken on a comprehensive task for brand and communications development. The brand part has been taken care of, and Stübane's team is currently working on the design of the communications measures. Their start is to take place in the spring. The operator behind it, Grover Group GmbH, has its headquarters in Berlin and is managed by CEO Michael Cassau.

For Gesicht zeigen e.V., The Goodwins is coming up with a kind of research campaign on the subject of democracy - not purely as a form of government, but as a way of living together in general. First, teenagers are approached about the topic, and in a second step they are interviewed. The agency thus provides communication and market research from a single source here - not pro bono, as is often the case with clients from the sector, but as a paid project. Beyond that a solar energy enterprise sat down on the customer list of the citizens of Berlin. It may not be named yet, several projects are already started.

As with Telekom, sustainability is the core theme at Ebay Kleinanzeigen. The Goodwins won the portal last year and, as lead agency, designed a new communication line for the client. The claim: "Let's act!"

Co-founder Franka Mai sees the campaign for Ebay Kleinanzeigen as a highlight in 2020:

"For us, a strategic-creative bull's-eye that brought the agency's positioning to life and ensured strong visibility. The case conveys part of our philosophy: sustainability communicated in such a joyful and light-footed way that it gains acceptance and becomes part of pop culture, as well as being able to move masses. The great success of the campaign confirms The Goodwins' approach."

On top came a cooperation between Ebay and the Gesicht zeigen-Verein with a campaign against hate on the net. The slogan: "Stop hate. Make it fun."

In addition to the aforementioned clients, the portfolio also includes industrial companies Fischer and Stihl. For chainsaw manufacturer Stihl, the team led by Mai and Stübane rolled out the company's largest consumer campaign to date in 2019 - which was also global in scope. Stihl's professional expertise was transferred to the garden consumer segment and the battery-powered Compact tool series was promoted. However, the company, headquartered in Waiblingen-Neustadt in southern Germany, contributes significantly to the unsustainable clearing of rainforests across the globe with its large chainsaws.

Mai comments:

"Every technology, every tool can be - and unfortunately is - misused. Stihl grew up in the forest. The term sustainability comes from forestry. Forest maintenance and thus a healthy forest need the right tools. Stihl supplies these tools in outstanding quality. The causes for the inconceivable clearing of forests lie somewhere else. It's a cheap and convenient reflex to try to find someone to blame in this way. One can and should also prune fruit trees with a chainsaw, for example. That helps the tree grow and yield."

Stihl's Goodwins order is predominantly for Garden Tools. And those tools are making people spend more time outdoors in nature. "This is good for people and has a positive impact on social interaction."

The three founders of The Goodwins used to work in high-ranking positions at large agencies. Franka Mai and Tim Stübane worked at Ogilvy in Berlin, she as Head of Strategy, he as Managing Director Creation. Mirko Stolz worked as managing director of creation at BBDO, also in Berlin. All are owners of the agency, in equal shares. About a year after its founding, the fourth member of the group joined, Maurice Pfleiderer. He was once managing director at the flagship agency Springer & Jacoby and then active for ten years as an independent sustainability expert. At Goodwins, he signs on as managing director of consulting.

One of the recent additions is Jakob Cantz. Since the beginning of January, he has been relieving the creative managing directors Stolz and Stübane as Senior Creative. With his expertise, the agency wants to keep its creative quality high - despite growth. Previously, the 31-year-old worked at Metadesign, Serviceplan and most recently for five years at Scholz & Friends Berlin. There he was responsible for the traffic safety campaign "Runter vom Gas", the client Metropole Ruhr and new business. From now on, his new office will be located in a former East Berlin daycare center, together with the film production Trigger Happy, the music company Tracks and Fields and the innovation consultancy PCH - with an accompanying garden and communal kitchen.