It sure seems to look that way as the Goodby camp isn’t really making us think otherwise (calls to him were transferred elsewhere, vague email replies, etc.). To remind you, Erik Vervroegen joined GS&P two years ago from TBWA\Paris–where he served as president/ECD–and subsequently worked on accounts including Commonwealth Bank of Australia. During his time at the San Francisco agency, though, he perhaps most notably served as ECD on the AIDES work including the recent “Willy the Tourist” clip. If you’re out there Erik, give us a shout.

After a two-month search (seems like seconds by today’s pitch standards), TD Ameritrade has picked Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as its creative agency of choice. GS&P beat out Mullen and now replaces Ogilvy, which has served as the Omaha-based financial company’s AOR for 14 years.  Read more here.

Since late Thursday, numerous tips rolled in regarding cuts being made at Goodby and now, we’ve received confirmation that it is indeed true from none other than Jeff Goodby himself, who tells us, “Our staff was not well-aligned to the work we have here.  Hiring so many people for Chevrolet, we invariably miscalculated and overhired here and there.  We have also parted company with a number of smaller clients — Propel, Sierra Mist, Intuit, and Logitech — the staffing of which  we needed to reduce. It is always a saddening event to undergo these changes.  We don’t hire bad people.  But we feel the company is better formed to serve present clients and win new ones.”

Despite the Chevy hiring miscalculation, GS&P’s Detroit office is very much intact and these cuts are part of an agency “adjustment.” Approximate numbers, departments affected, etc. weren’t disclosed though tipsters are saying 35-40.

Sure, this may not send people to the hospital like Kanye West‘s video for “All of the Lights.” But, if you’re hanging out on your office desktop, we recommend watching this new spot from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners on full-screen mode.

It seems that Sprint’s “Now Network” nickname is being dropped (at least in these spots) for “All. Together. Now.” A look at the campaign’s website reveals that Sprint’s Unlimited plan means a sad, blinking pug or a senior citizen smiling with floating balloons behind her. You can even call or text Veatrice to wish her a happy 100th birthday! While the site leans more toward the unlimited calling and texting aspects of the plan, TV spots like “Anthem” are more about viral video capabilities. Isn’t it time you used your HTC EVO to watch more people falling off of tables? Credits and the second spot, “Birthday,” after the jump.

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Goodby’s recent “Where Amazing Happens” spots for the NBA were a little creepy, weren’t they? How did some kid from “the future” travel back in time to tell Steve Nash (who was rocking a 90s fade at this point in time) that he would become arguably the best point guard in basketball history? If you see the young face of Nash, even he can’t believe someone would be telling him his name would go down in the record books next to John Stockton and Magic Johnson.

Above is the inside blue-screen look at the spots, merging an old video of Nash with some kid from present day who boosts the future star’s ego. Looks tricky, doesn’t it? Technology has come a long way since the days of Forrest Gump. If you’re anything like me, the first time you saw the ads, you thought aloud, “No way that’s not real!” So give Goodby, Park Pictures director Chris Sargent and a52 some credit for making this odd experiment come together. Nash really comes off as a hell of an actor, doesn’t he? Maybe because he’s real. The end result, which launched earlier this year, below:

via Ball Don’t Lie

Meet Smutley the Cat, a sex-crazed cartoon feline that humps just about everything in sight. If an animal has a pulse, Smutley will have sex with it and totally ignore using protection. It doesn’t even look like Smutley asks for consent most of the time, but somehow he roams the streets free from police.

Of course, Smutley is fictional, and unsafe sex is exactly what this spot from AIDES, the French association tackling HIV and AIDS, and the creative folks at Goodby are trying to fight against. Goodby partnered with multiple illustrators and animators for the above online spot, which definitely would not fly on U.S. broadcast television. This isn’t the first time AIDES used a somewhat shocking campaign. If you recall, just last year, AIDES and TBWA Paris released a spot titled “Graffiti” which featured a cartoon penis chasing around bathroom stall sketches of women and vaginas. Truly, Europe’s sense of sexual humor is bit different than what we consider appropriate for PSAs here in the States.

AIDES’ YouTube page states that the organization’s challenge with the spot was to “de-dramatize the somewhat embarrassing, if not plain awkward, moment when ‘rubber protection’ needs to be discussed.” Well, perverted anthropomorphic cartoons cats everywhere may have found their calling and a use for their nine lives. Credits after the jump…

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In order to combat the staggering nine percent unemployment rate in the U.S., Rich Silverstein, co-namesake of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners along with his wife, Carla Emil, have pledged to create one new job, and they’ve encouraged other businesses to do the same.

By creating the “One Job for America” campaign, Silverstein and Emil are using social networking and word-of-mouth tactics to get other business to make a pledge and create one job to battle the dour economic situation. On the campaign’s website, businesses across the country can take the pledge by filling out a brief form. Later, companies will report to the campaign, detailing one job they created and who they hired.

In a blog on The Huffington Post today, Emil went into detail about “One Job for America,” saying, “It’s a leap of faith, I know. But if you do this and tell someone else about it and they do it too and so on who knows what we can accomplish. The spirit is to generate new jobs. We want companies to start hiring again. And we want people to be hopeful again.”

Credits follow after the jump.

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Sources familiar with the matter tell us that Goodby, Silverstein & Partners beat out Imagination as well as Lloyd & Co. to take on global agency duties for the Women’s Tennis Association in 2011. We hear that one more agency may have been involved in the WTA pitch. We’ll hopefully have more info on this shortly…

Well, here’s a bit of news that makes us feel all warm and tingly as the week draws to a close. Our pal Stuart Elliot at the New York Times reports that Barbara Lippert, former Adweek scribe, has joined Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as, wait for it, “curator of popular culture.” Yeah, we don’t know what’s up with that title either, but Lippert will nonetheless serve as the agency’s “part trend-hunter and part agency ambassador” according to Jeff Goodby, who apparently got wind of her Adweek situation from, yep, AgencySpy.

Here’s an excerpt: “Ms. Lippert, in a separate phone interview, said that she was contacted by Mr. Goodby last month after he ‘read on Agency Spy that I was fired,’ referring to the industry blog that is published by Media Bistro.” Hey, we can’t complain about the shout-out and we’re just glad things worked out for Barbara. Oh yeah, and thanks for reading, Jeff!

Though the sight of Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein in drag is a bit startling at first, you eventually warm up to the GS&P namesakes’ rendition/butchering of “I Got You Babe.” The iconic creative duo have quite the sense of humor, whether tweaking the lyrics to Sonny & Cher’s karaoke staple a tad, riding bikes together in Palm Springs or just getting naked. Yep, their bond is that bizarre. While they give it one hell of a shot, we think the pair faces some stiff competition from these ladies.