By Stephen Foster on May 17, 2013
***A happy man tonight will be Sir Martin Sorrell, boss of WPP. He’s seen Omnicom slashing jobs at BBDO, after Interpublic’s McCann the world’s biggest agency network, following the loss of $300m Gillette to WPP’s Grey. More than that, he’ll see Omnicom boss John Wren’s reliance on his three big creative agency networks – BBDO, [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, Media, News | Tagged bbh, chevrolet, Gillette, goodby silverstein, mccann, neogama, New York, omnicom, Patrick Lafferty, presenters, radio4, Sarah Montague, Sir Martin Sorrell, today programme, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 17, 2013
Omnicom agencies BBDO and Goodby Silverstein have been wielding the axe according to Ad Age, with around ten per cent of BBDO’s staff – hundreds of people – being laid off in the wake of the loss of $300m Gillette to Grey. Goodby Silverstein is much smaller but recently opened in New York and Detroit; [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News | Tagged bbdo, chevrolet, general motors, Gillette, goodby silverstein, job losses, mccann, omnicom
By Stephen Foster on May 1, 2013
WPP-owned Grey has been the coming force among the world’s big traditional agencies for some time now; in particular its New York operation headed by creative Tor Myrhen. The agency has just won Procter & Gamble’s global Gillette account from BBDO (worth $300m in the US and two or three times that globally), beating Saatchi [...]
Posted in Agencies, Analysis, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged agency move, bbdo, fearless group, Gillette, grey global, grey new york, Jerry Judge, Jim Heekin, omnicom, procter & gamble, Sir Martin Sorrell, Tor Myrhen
By Stephen Foster on April 26, 2013
First up Huntsworth boss Lord Chadlington (Peter Gummer as was) says he wanted to buy leading Chinese PR firm Blue Focus. But now BF, led by Oscar Zhao (left), has, in effect, turned the tables by buying 19.8 per cent of Chadlington’s firm for £36.5m, valuing it at a lofty £180m. This deal has a [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, Politics, PR | Tagged aegis, asia, blue focus, China, deal, dentsu, hunstworth, Lord Chadlington, omnicom, PR, publicis groupe, WPP
By Stephen Foster on April 19, 2013
Investors prefer companies to be boring when it comes to announcing quarterly results and the marcoms gang looks unlikely to disappoint them. Omnicom has followed Publicis Groupe in announcing more or less ‘as you were’ figures for the first quarter of 2013; as you were in the sense of little or no overall growth compared [...]
Posted in Agencies, Analysis, Finance, News, Research | Tagged akqa, digital, europe, John Wren, kantar, lbi, market research, Maurice Levy, omnicom, publicis groupe, Q1 2013, results, Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP
By Stephen Foster on April 1, 2013
Last year WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell objected to the votes cast in the Cannes Lions media category; claiming that his company’s efforts had been conspired against by, er, conspirators – chiefly Omnicom it seems. Last year’s media jury was chaired by OMD boss Mainardo de Nardis and Manning Gottlieb OMD won the Grand Prix for [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Media, News, PR | Tagged Amir Kassaei, awards row, block voting, cannes lions, ddb, google, holding company of the year, Mainardo de Nardis, media award, omnicom, Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP
By Stephen Foster on March 14, 2013
In the ancient world when a leading figure had fallen out of favour they used to destroy all his statues (hers didn’t get them, alas). Much the same has been happening to departed General Motors CMO Joel Ewanick and now his main construct, a GM in-house agency made up of Omnicom’s Goodby Silverstein and Interpublic’s [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged commonwealth agency, general motors, goodby silverstein, Interpublic, Joel Ewanick, Linus Karlsson, mccann, omnicom
By Stephen Foster on March 14, 2013
And why should we inquire? Well, according to the new Campaign/Nielsen list of UK agency billings AMV/BBDO remains top dog (no surprise there) but, at £458m is more than one and a half times as big as number two McCann. and the gap is widening: AMV/BBDO increased its billings by 22 per cent in 2012 [...]
Posted in Agencies, Analysis, Clients, Finance, News | Tagged adam&eve/ddb, amv/bbdo, bbdo, campaign'nielsen billings table, Cilla Snowball, David Abbott, JWT, Michael Baulk, omnicom
By Stephen Foster on March 12, 2013
Then there were three? There are four big marcoms holding companies (if you exclude Dentsu which is still 90 per cent Japan as it waits for clearance from China to buy Aegis): WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe and interpublic (IPG). Late last year all the chatter was that Publicis Groupe had made an informal approach for [...]
Posted in Agencies, Finance, News | Tagged Interpublic, IPG, Jim Edwards, Maurice Levy, Michael Roth, omnicom, publicis groupe, takeover, WPP
By Stephen Foster on March 11, 2013
This one is becoming a hardy perennial – according to the Sunday Times WPP investors are (once again) revolting over CEO Sir Martin Sorrell’s pay package. Last year SMS trousered about £13m in salary (£1.3m), bonus and shares (about £5.6m), leading to opposition from a majority of shareholders. WPP chairman Phil Lader, a former US [...]
Posted in Agencies, Finance, News | Tagged John Wren, omnicom, pay row, shareholder revolt, Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP, £13m package
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