Dell Ad Chief Jarvis Got $1.2 Mil. Severance Deal for Not Producing Ads
UPDATE: It turns out Jarvis did achieve something on his watch: Dell settled for $3.35 million with 34 states over the deceptive advertising of its warranties and financing terms.
Dell CMO Mark Jarvis, who left the company recently, took a $1.225 million severance package with him. The news came in an SEC filing. My BNET colleague Erik Sherman noted the news on his Tech channel.
What, exactly, did Jarvis achieve over the last year to deserve such riches? His record is slim. In the two years he was with the company, he retained WPP at great expense and had the agency create a brand new international agency, Enfatico, from scratch. Such endeavors are an enormously inefficient way of growing a business.
Not surprisingly, after one year on the job, Enfatico has yet to get any significant advertising out the door. Meanwhile, Dell sales declined and management laid off about 9,000 people.
Put simply, Jarvis is the face of failure and excess in tech advertising. He’s been paid handsomely for his non-performance, while his colleagues are on the unemployment rolls.
I challenge him to justify his existence: Mark, you can email me via the link at the bottom of this site or use the comments below. Tell us why you deserve to be made a millionaire.
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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