Charging out the gate with a indifferent whimper…

AdAge has an interesting article on the languishing prospects of trying to build out “Project DaVinci” — the 1,000 person shop WPP is supposed to be building to support the recently won $4.5 billion Dell account.

Seems not having a CEO for the shop or the account is making talented people not want to sign on (ed note: you don’t say.) Mitch Caplan, interim CEO, pulled the chute effective last month and went back to his regular gig of being CMO for Y&R.

The deadline was March 1st and still no definitive plan for getting the thing up & running — or an actual real name either — and no idea when either are forthcoming.

Sure they have attracted a few senior people (here is the low-down on the string of mentions they have gotten over the past few months); have about 500 lower-level staffers in place to do the grunt work; their own dedicated e-mail address to get resumes spammed to; and a brand-new shiny office in Austin.

That being said, when the aliens land in Austin and say “Take me to your leader” — well they are not so much ready for that one (in Texas, an “alien” is considered to be anyone not born & bred in Texas…or those with an IQ over 85 *snark for the win!*)

More from Ad Age:

“Other questions yet to be answered include the location of international hubs (rumored are London and Singapore), the full-spectrum of agencies that DaVinci will contract with to service Dell’s account, and when and if other clients will be serviced by the shop. This last one is particularly important. While Dell has said the WPP agency will be allowed to handle other clients, it’s unclear how long it will need to absorb the Dell responsibilities, something it will have to do before it pursues new business. A broader client base will be vital in retaining talent since one of the benefits of a job at an agency is the freedom to work on a variety of client businesses.

Given the many uncertainties, many in the industry may perceive decamping for an agency that has a lot of kinks to iron out as “a risky move in a bad economy,” noted Ms. Ries. “There are certainly people looking for jobs,” but for those who already have them, the opportunity to work at DaVinci could be a tougher sell. “They’ll be congratulated if it does work and blamed if it doesn’t — that’s terribly fearful for people,” she said.

No shortage of applicants
To be sure, the allure of a startup where one can be at the forefront of an agency-model reinvention has drawn interest. WPP insiders report a flood of resumes to DaVinci’s attention, and hundreds of hires that have been made to the agency from within the WPP and beyond.

Another former WPP executive expected to join DaVinci’s leadership team is Jeffrey Wilks, who most recently served as president, IBM Brand Services at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. Down in Austin, Texas, near Dell’s Round Rock headquarters, a handful from Omnicom Group’s GSD&M Idea City have joined, executives familiar with the matter say. WPP’s MediaCom, a Group M unit assigned to lead media strategy for Dell has hired about 50 people in the U.S. to work on the Dell account — “a lot to do in a short amount of time,” one MediaCom executive said.”

Given the past track record for WPP’s “achievements” in this category recently — i.e. Microsoft (which is one of the accounts that helped formulate the conglomeration of “Y&R Brands” — and which WPP currently shares with IPG’s McCann Worldgroup) I’d not bet the farm they pull it off all that well.

Rumors of the turnover (aka bloodbath) that the MSFT account has become for Y&R over the past three years — the 1000 people that they need to hire — well they’ll probably need to have 3-4000 in reserve to replace them as people realize how much it will suck.

What are your thoughts?