Advertising Industry Archive

Advertisers on Fox Soccer Channel and Sirius in the U.S. have been asked to pull out of shows linked to British presenter Steven Cohen after he made remarks blaming Liverpool F.C. supporters for the death of 96 of their fellow fans at the Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield, England, 20 years ago. The demands to withdraw were triggered when American fans of Liverpool besieged Fox and...

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A Saatchi & Saatchi creative executive testified in court that he was beaten in the face with a glass at the Singapore nightclub Zouk. Dwayne Koh Liang Hsien (right), a former creative department head at Saatchi in Singapore, now works in Shanghai, according to The Straits Times. He testified at the trial of businessman Ng Peng Soon (left), who is accused of assualting Koh and breaking the...

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Ogilvy & Mather has quietly settled a whistleblower lawsuit brought against it by a former employee who alleged that she was asked to fraudulently overbill Avon in order to cover the costs of a lawsuit it had lost. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed; the parties signed an order of dismissal in the case on April 30. Ogilvy denied the accusations. The plaintiff was Lisa Steiman,...

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Alloy Media + Marketing rewarded its executives with cash bonuses after they increased both revenues and net income in 2008. CEO Matthew Diamond (pictured) received a $400,000 cash bonus on top of his $450,000 base salary. Alloy’s revenues in 2008 rose to $176 million from $159 million in 2007, and it saw a profit of $10 million, up from a loss of $64 million the year before. Alloy...

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Anthony Godoy, an unemployed Seattle creative, sent a job application letter to Publicis that says he only wants the job for the money and the free beer (provided at the agency on Fridays, apparently). Godoy, who says he has been rejected by the agency at least three previous times, also notes that he has “nothing to lose.” And then, to prove his social media chops, he posted a copy...

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Of 13 publicly held advertising companies, only four — ValueClick, Alloy Media + Marketing, Havas and Valassis – are winning the battle to keep operating costs in line with their falling revenues, an analysis of their finances shows. The others saw the return on their operating expenses either stay flat or decline. A look at finance filings after Q1 2009 shows that ValueClick, which...

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The FDA has accused General Mills of illegally marketing Cheerios as a drug because of advertising claims that the cereal can lower cholesterol. (Cheerios is handled by Saatchi & Saatchi.) The move sounds bizarre until you read the FDA’s letter in the original. Then you get an idea of just how exaggerated “health” claims can get; and how the Obama administration is intent...

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The most interesting thing about the layoffs of 11 people at GSD&M and the salary cuts that everyone else received is the way that GSD&M went out of its way to underline that the exit of ECD Mark Taylor was “separate” to the other job losses. And it will be interesting to see if this round of layoffs will have any effect on employees of GSD&M who seem to be taking their...

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Arbitron confirmed in its first-quarter earnings report that the defection of key radio broadcasters to Nielsen for diary-based ratings services in certain small to mid-sized markets  will adversely impact revenue by about $10 million per year starting in 2010. The 10-Q filing also yields a glimpse of how the country’s leading supplier of radio ratings data plans to supplant any...

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Clear Channel Outdoor lost $91 million in Q1 2009, the company reported, on revenue of $582 million, down 25 percent from $776 million. Clear Channel is doing the worst compared to Lamar Advertising and CBS Outdoor, who round out the three big billboard providers. Dow Jones: CBS Corp. (CBS) said its billboard revenue fell 24%. Lamar Advertising Co. (LAMR), which also reported results last week,...

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