Franki says relax

Doing brilliant work is really quite hard,” says Franki Goodwin. And she’s in a good position to know. 

The all-important John Lewis Christmas ad is a case in point. In 2025, the brand’s festive offering, Where Love Lives, saw ‘Rave Dad’, as he was affectionately dubbed, having a moment that didn’t disappoint. Where Love Lives followed the British department store’s earlier work from that year, Tableau, a colourful oner celebrating 100 years of John Lewis’ ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ promise.

“It takes a while to learn the language of advertising."

Christmas Double, EE’s jovial festive debut with an emotional rug-pull to match any in the John Lewis Christmas archive. The British Heart Foundation’s In Living Memory, colloquially known as ‘the red bench campaign’, caused a few moist eyes in January of this year, too. Truth be told, all this creative work has packed an emotional punch. 

So, what makes it hard when it looks effortless? “It takes a while to learn the language of advertising,” she explains when we meet at Saatchi & Saatchi’s London headquarters in Chancery Lane. “Just like when you learn any language, you don’t feel fluent or able to express yourself. We’ve got to understand what we’re trying to say and what we’re trying to achieve with the objective of the work we do. It’s exciting but it’s hard. What we do is very precise when you do it well.” 

Above: John Lewis's most recent Christmas campaign, Where Love Lives. 

The lure of the Saatchi brand  

Goodwin has been at Saatchi & Saatchi for 13 years though says she never wants to feel like “part of the furniture”.  She was brought in by the founder of Outside Line, Lloyd Salmons, when Saatchis bought the digital agency for £8 million in 2012. Salmons, who had worked with Goodwin as a digital designer, offered her a role at the agency which, she says, was “the only ad agency I’d heard of. The power of the Saatchi brand goes beyond advertising.” 

“There’s a creative confidence that comes from winning awards."

Sea Hero Quest for Deutsche Telekom, changed everything. It shined a spotlight on Goodwin and her creative partner Will John, now Saatchi & Saatchi London’s Executive Creative Director. A lively mobile game for the German telco, Sea Hero Quest had another remit beyond entertaining players: collecting masses of data for scientists researching dementia.  

It won a host of industry awards including nine Cannes Lions and three D&AD pencils. “Winning at Cannes put us on the map within Saatchis as well as in the industry,” she recalls. “There’s a creative confidence that comes from winning awards: it imbues young creatives with a sense of possibility and it gives them a platform and profile.”  

Above: Sea Hero Quest, for Deutsche Telekom; the campaign that changed everything. 

Coming of age  

Goodwin’s creativity blossomed at The Glasgow School of Art. “It was experimental and they never put anyone in boxes. It gave me this ‘you could do anything’ feeling.” It was a pivotal time for British culture, particularly in Scotland. In Goodwin’s first year, 1996, Trainspotting came out, and was set in her home city, Edinburgh. “It was an exciting time, with Shallow Grave and Trainspotting. Everything felt possible on the British indie scene.”  

After graduation, she worked in design, then made the decision to leave with no job to go to. “I was young and scared and thought I’d made terrible choices because I didn’t want to design annual reports for a living.” Her friend Jonny Green invited her to work on a film project in Venice. “I went from being a disgruntled designer to a creative director in the space of two weeks.”   

“There’s no jump you’ll ever do like going from ECD to CCO."

Following Venice, she collaborated with Green on Franki&Jonny, a boutique brand and digital agency for independent films, and today has an executive role at Western Edge Pictures (WEP) alongside her husband, Vaughan Sivell. “Saatchi & Saatchi is very much a full-time job and I have a consulting role at WEP. It’s a husband and wife team so a lot happens at the end of the day and at weekends.” Reflecting on her career, Goodwin says: “I’ve done everything the wrong way round. I started my own company no one had heard of for eight years, and then went into the biggest ad agency in the world.”  

How was the leap from Executive Creative Director to Chief Creative Officer in 2022? “There’s no jump you’ll ever do like going from ECD to CCO. You’re looking after your own bit and then you have keys to the rest of it. You’re responsible for everyone and suddenly you’re in the press. I’m not Pep Guardiola! It’s a huge privilege to lead a brand like Saatchi & Saatchi, but it was a big step.” 

Above: Stormzy in Apple iPhone's Big Man.

A new home for New Creators  

One of her first remits as the newly-installed CCO in 2022 was overseeing the New Creators Showcase (NCS) at Cannes, a must-see component of the festival programme for more than three decades. This year, NCS is swapping the glitz of the French Riviera for the grit-chic of Shoreditch, becoming part of SXSW London.   

Goodwin comments: “It feels like a good time to do it. SXSW has always represented the converging of creative disciplines and the intersection of innovation, music and film. It also gives us a little more space to create a networking event. Ever since I inherited NCS, I’ve been trying to make it a gateway as much as a platform because the job of the ad industry is to enable creative careers like mine.  That’s  how we get diversity of talent: by removing prejudice against commercial work and making it a great place to experiment, build your network and realise crazy dreams."

“It’s good to step out of the bubble and remind yourself that advertising is part of a bigger creative industry."

Goodwin finds that wearing two hats, one at Saatchis and one at WEP, works for her. “It’s all one creative life,” she says. “It’s good to step out of the bubble and remind yourself that advertising is part of a bigger creative industry. Over the last 20 years, I’ve watched those industry silos break down. There’s no crossing streams anymore; it’s a big ocean.”

As a case in point, Goodwin cites Stormzy, better known as a rapper, singer and songwriter, making his  acting debut in 2025 as the star of Apple’s 20-minute film Big Man. This was part of Apple’s ongoing Shot on iPhone campaign that Goodwin praises: “Shot On iPhone started off with the iPhone 6 to demo the camera. It’s evolved into short films. The message of Shot On iPhone is consistent, the idea is strong but subtle, and the medium has changed because the tech has evolved. The Stormzy one is fabulous.”  

Above: Heart Failure, directed by Will Wightman, whom Goodwin picked as her Innovator. 

In praise of bravery  

Goodwin chose Will Wightman as her innovator because of his fearlessness. She describes Heart Failure, his Gen-Z musical, as “the banger to end all bangers,” adding: “He’s not afraid of puppets or animation, the whackier side of stuff that can go so wrong in the wrong hands.”  

“I’d say to my mouthy young self, ‘speak a bit less, it’ll  be fine!’.”

She also respects Wightman’s clarity and commitment to the story, believing he doesn’t imitate  anyone or second-guess himself. “There’s a deep confidence that comes from being very conceptual,” she says. “The ideas at the core of his work are really powerful and don’t get lost in the soup of execution and style.”  

What advice would she give herself if she was Wightman’s age, in her 20s and at the start of her  career? “You can still be commanding and respectful without talking all the time,” she laughs. “I’d say to my mouthy young self, ‘speak a bit less, it’ll  be fine!’.”

Franki Goodwin's nominated Innovator is Will Wightman. You can read his interview here.