Advertising Industry Archive

WPP reported a 35.9 percent increase in Q1 2009 revenues to £2.117 billion, reflecting the acquisition of Taylor Nelson Sofres. But comparative revenues were down, WPP said, by 5.8 percent. Curiously, WPP’s statement blamed this on the Lehman Brothers collapse back in September: On a like-for-like basis, excluding the impact of acquisitions and currency fluctuations, revenues were down...

More...

Publicis saw revenues grow 1.3 percent to just over $1 billion in Q1 2009, and CEO Maurice Levy claimed he was gaining market share from the other large networks who have all seen declines in revenue. (In fact, taking currency into account, Publicis revenue was down 4.4 percent.) This was an “off-quarter” for Publicis, meaning that although it reported revenue it did not disclose...

More...

It was an awful Q1 2009 at Omnicom, which saw revenue and profit declines exacerbating what is traditionally the hardest quarter of the year for the agency business — the time when media buyers must make advance buys and wait for reimbursement from clients. Omnicom CFO Randy Weisenberger also hinted that more layoffs may come, and that Omnicom will not give out numbers on that as it did...

More...

It’s not feeling much like a recession for the founders of Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners: their corporate parent, MDC Partners, owes them an estimated $47 million in earnout payments and stock between now and the end of 2010. The news came in the slideshow that accompanied MDC’s Q1 2009 earnings call. Slide 12 shows “Estimated Earnout...

More...

News America Marketing has sued Valassis over the latter’s use of online “sock puppets” to make allegedly misleading posts on BringBacktheCoupons.com, a web site created to protest Valassis’s withdrawal from the newspaper coupon business. BNET readers — who first learned of Valassis’s alleged use of bogus online identities to fight its critics and News...

More...

Interpublic’s Q1 2009 results suggest that layoffs at its agencies — there have been about 3,000 so far — may not be over yet. The reason: IPG continues to hemorrhage cash. The basics: Revenues declined 10.8 percent to $1.3 billion; the company reported a loss of $74 million. Cash continues to pour out of Interpublic. The cashflow statement saw a loss of $466 million, due...

More...

Has a Valassis executive been using a “sock puppet” (a fake online identity) to criticise News America Marketing? That’s the claim of Joe the Coupon Guy, a blogger who writes about (you guessed it!) coupons. News America has retained a lawyer to see whether it can sue Valassis over the alleged false posts, Joe tells BNET. Valassis angered the surprisingly large and feisty...

More...

MDC Partners saw revenue tumble 10 percent to $127 million in Q1 2009; net income rose to $400,000, from a loss of $1.3 million last year. The slide comes on the heels of hundreds of layoffs at Accent Marketing, MDC’s customer call center operation, following a massive cut by a single client. Despite MDC coming down to earth, CEO Miles Nadal reaffirmed that he believed MDC will meet its...

More...

Peter Arnell has been ordered to return $100,000 of a $550,000 advance for a book on “personal branding” that he failed to deliver to HarperCollins. (Read the ruling below.) Arnell failed to deliver the book despite having the assistance of two ghostwriters, a personal assistant, his wife and an editor at HarperCollins. He only turned in 25,000 words of a promised 80,000 manuscript...

More...

Lamar Advertising’s top three executives earned bonuses last year even though the company’s revenues and earnings shrank. They accomplished this because Lamar’s incentive structure specifically rewards executives for shrinking revenues, and because payouts are linked not to net income but “EBITDA,” or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization,...

More...