Advertising Industry Archive

The news that General Motors and Chrysler are to cut or scale back several automobile brands will fall most heavily on Omnicom and its BBDO and PHD units. Publicis’s Leo Burnett and its media group will also suffer. Coming out of the fallout somewhat less lethally injured will be Interpublic, whose Deutsch and McCann Erickson units handle two GM brands, Saab and Saturn. Here’s a...

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Cliff Freeman & Partners and its parent network, MDC Partners, have gone their separate ways, MediaPost reports. The move makes Freeman an independent shop as it faces the biggest crisis of its life — the collapse of its client base. Freeman currently appears to be running on accounts worth about $15 million in billings. Freeman’s distant relationship with MDC (the shop...

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Tim Mellors, worldwide creative director of Grey Global Group, has a message for his Asia Pacific creatives: You suck. He didn’t say it quite like that, of course. But in this video (below), where he is much more diplomatic, the message is plain: Grey’s creative in Asia Pacific is the worst of the global network, and must improve. Specifically, that improvement will be measured in...

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A marketing consultant who did not return a phonecall from a reporter at Canada’s National Post seems to have triggered that reporter’s curse-filled meltdown — on Twitter. The consultant, April Dunford of Rocket Launch Marketing, had been called by reporter David George-Cosh, who covers technology for the NP. Dunford was apparently not quick enough to pick up the phone in...

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Direct mail giant Valassis wrote down $245.7 million of its assets in a non-cash impairment charge related to goodwill and other intangibles. The move resulted in the company making a loss of $222 million in Q4 2008. The write-down raises questions about how much of the remaining $892 million of intangible assets on Valassis’s balance sheet is at risk. Intangible assets often include...

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Valassis’s decision to stop using newspapers for its RedPlum coupon inserts is causing drama across the kitchen tables of suburban America. Now a campaign to have them brought back has been started by coupon-clipping moms who are also bloggers. The issue is also a fateful for one for the newspaper industry. The worst-kept secret in newspapers is that many “readers” actually...

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Cliff Freeman & Partners is in the “last 30 days” of its work on Quiznos, its biggest client, according to Ad Age. The loss of Quiznos — an $83 million account — calls into question whether Cliff Freeman can survive. It is now time for MDC Partners – a publicly traded company with a stake in Freeman — to seriously consider folding Freeman into Crispin...

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Omnicom has been put on Standard & Poor’s creditwatch, placing its A- credit rating in doubt. Adweek reported the news, and gave this reasoning from S&P credit analyst Heather Goodchild: We are also concerned about Omnicom’s overall funding flexibility as a result of recent and potential debt puts. What does that mean? The article doesn’t say. Luckily, BNET is here to...

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S&P downgrades Omnicom’s credit — Standard & Poor’s today placed its long-term ratings for Omnicom Group, including the ‘A-’ corporate credit rating, on “CreditWatch with negative implications.” [Source: Adweek] Valassis ends RedPlum deal with Plain Dealer — last weekend, Joe Daugirdas, also known as “The Coupon Guy,” noticed...

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Publicis chief Maurice Levy says he loves the recession because it “excites” him, a statement that will have his current (and former) employees spluttering into their coffee this morning. Levy told Ad Age, in answer to a question about the downturn: It doesn’t make me nervous; the reality is it excites me. I’m excited because this is something that leads me to think...

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