Cliff Freeman CEO Exits After Fla. Lottery Pitch Loss; Twitter Trail Tells Strange Tale
Cliff Freeman & Partners CEO Clayton Ruebensaal III left the shop after only four months on the job. See AgencySpy and Adweek’s essentially identical reports here and here.
If you’ve been following the saga of Freeman’s freefall, you’ll know that this is merely the latest turn in a downward spiral that the shop shows no sign of pulling out of. The shop said in a statement that it was a “personal decision” that led Ruebensaal to leave.
Meanwhile, the agency has left a bizarre trail of Tweets and posts on the web in the run-up to Ruebensaal’s departure (click on images to enlarge).
Just a few days before Ruebensaal’s exit, Freeman lost a pitch for the Florida Lottery, according to TampaAdGossip’s Twitter stream.
Ruebensaal’s own Twitter stream — published as “ClaytonCliffCEO,” was a disjointed, untended weed-patch of ephemera, lasting only eight posts, the latest of which was on April 8. Note that the first entry is the eerily prescient:
If you’re not at the table you’re on the menu. Love it!
The Twitter stream “Cliffbot,” controlled by “social media explorer” Jason Hoff at the shop, reacted to the Ruebensaal news by posting a Blip.fm soundfile of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Read into that what you will.
Over on Facebook, the Freeman page contained some unfortunate posts under the request, “Cliff says some funny stuff. What’s your favorite?” 
Among the replies:
When does this get interesting?
Was that supposed to be funny?
He wasn’t smart then. He’s even dumber now.
And, on March 27, Melissa R Ebanks wrote:
To clients: “Well that’s just stupid” - LOL my FAVORITE OF ALL TIME ♥ you Cliff!!!
- See BNET’s previous coverage of Freeman:
- MDC Partners Q4: Cliff Freeman Mystery Deepens
- MDC Cuts Cliff Freeman Free; Venerable Agency’s Options Get Narrower
- Cliff Freeman Loses Quiznos; Agency Survival in Question
- Cliff Freeman in Freefall? Client Gains Don’t Seem Big Enough to Cover Lost Revenue
- Cliff Freeman Names New CEO; Turmoil as Usual
Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.
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