Agency Spy

David Verklin, CEO of Aegis Media Americas, is stepping down from his role later this year, his 10th at Aegis Media. Sarah Fay has been named the CEO of Aegis Media N.A.. Until now, Fay, 45, has been leading Carat’s U.S. operations. We loaded up video of Sarah and picked on Verklin just a little while ago. Check it out here. Aegis’ South American unit will now report to Aegis Media chief executive Mainardo de Nardis, as will Fay.

Adweek is reporting that David is getting out of advertising business altogether:

“I’m looking at a bunch of different alternatives. I don’t see myself coming back to the agency business.”

On the record, everyone over at Aegis denies that Verklin’s departure has anything to do with the loss of the $800M Kia business nor the $250M New Line account. Oh, sorry. They are “strongly” denying with Aegis Media chief executive Mainardo de Nardis pointing out that their “North American business has grown every year for 10 years.”

Whatever. Congrats to Sarah.

A very strange tipster asked us if we knew if Wayne Best was still the ECD over at Taxi New York. I’ll be honest. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Taxi. They’re just kind of there, in the mix, but not on the top of the radar. So, we had to investigate.

If you try sending Best an email this is what you get:

“Begin forwarded message:

From: “Wayne Best”
Date: April 21, 2008 4:04:35 PM EDT
To:
Subject: Re: question

Thank-you for contacting TAXI Inc.
Wayne Best is no longer with the company. Please contact Samantha Lew for any of your Creative needs at xxxxxxx@taxi-nyc.com

If you are in need of further assistance please call xxx xxxx and our receptionist will be happy to direct your call.”

Wayne is also no longer listed on the agency’s website, but is listed on LinkedIn as still being with the shop. In March, Adweek was quoting him so, where in the world is Wayne? We contacted the New York office to get a clue. In the mean time, your guess is as good as ours.

[image source]

Ok…so Dallas won out over Miami (although I’ll make it a future edition down the road — I’m nothing if nothing a pandering fool — Chicago will be a future edition too — just to let you know.)

Simple reasoning led me to start with Dallas this week — they have a lot of shit going down there — the readers were quite good at adding points of interest to the discussion as well.

So we’ll run through the usual suspects of agencies:

DDB/Tribal DDB, The Richards Group, Publicis, TLP (Tracy Locke), t:m Advertising, The Integer Group, Dieste Harmel, Rapp Collins, The Loomis Agency, Brierley & Partners, Targetbase, Javelin, imc2, etc.

Now I have probably forgotten a couple that you may consider “critical” to the list — first… sorry about that; second — Jaysus Christ, you guys in “Big D” need to get a real advertising network/club there.

Checking out something called the “Dallas Ad League” — the website is a disgrace and it holds absolutely no relevant info to the Dallas ad scene at all — sure it appears to be a volunteer-driven organization — but they are doing the entire ad community a disservice by half-assing it the way they are.

Although I did learn from their front page that the 2008 AAF District 10 Convention is currently in town — WTF that is of course, I’m really at a loss.

Due to the shitty organization (or lack thereof) for the ad community there, it is a tad difficult to figure out what independents (aside from TRG of course) are worthy of mention. Yahoo Answers had the best list of shops around town — aside from the readers suggestions that is.

It is apparently common practice & quite popular for workers to cycle between the three biggest shops in town — TRG, TLP & TM — and spend a couple of years at each shop before starting the cycle over.

As for breaking into the ad biz in Dallas — there is the Temerlin Advertising Institute at SMU (yes, namesake of the Temerlin Mcclain agency) which was renamed in Liener Temerlin’s name in 2001 for efforts in the Dallas ad community (I’m sure the $6 million his “friends” came up with helped as well.)

Now as for interesting characters (as we’ll try and highlight one person each week who stands out amongst the crowd in the city of choice) there really is only one man who could have the balls to carry this title in Dallas — the man, the legend, the opening speaker of the 2008 AAF District 10 Convention (currently in town!!!) — yes — Stan Richards.

Now doing a bit of research came across this description (it is a tad rich — but as a source of humour — it appears to be limitless):

“People call him all sort of things. Pentagram partner Woody Pirtle has called him “the ideal businessman, salesman, teacher, and mentor.” Rex Peteet of Sible/Peteet has called him “my cheerleader, my muse, my conscience, my dad, my friend, my critic, my enemy—all in the same day.” He’s been favorably or unfavorably compared by various Richards Group “alumni”—all now highly successful entrepreneurs in their own design and advertising businesses—to Leonardo da Vinci, Midas, Machiavelli, Hemingway, E.F. Hutton, Michael Jackson and God.

Stan Richards, founder and head of the Dallas-based Richards Group, is the quintessential advertising agency executive. In fact, his agency is the only one that’s been named “agency of the year” four times by Adweek magazine. He’s also the quintessential graphic designer, principal of Richards, Brock, Miller, Mitchell & Associates (RBMM), one of America’s premier design firms, winner of too many major design awards to count. And as head of various entities that create and produce print advertising, television commercials, radio spots, film titles, annual reports, corporate logos, public relations, sales promotion, and marketing communications of all kinds, he is perhaps above all the consummate businessman, named “entrepreneur of the year” by Inc. magazine in 1995. How many entities he runs and how much money they all make is a bit of a mystery. “A bunch” is all Stan will say, admitting that he has 315 employees, $300 million in annual billings, two buildings in the north end of Dallas, and clients from San Francisco to Yarmouth, Maine.”

Now of course, he has the chops to be the biggest swinging dick in town. On top of this, there is the apparent story of the interesting plane trips; odd recruiting practices (ed note: love some of the comments in that article); the pretty damn good column for “Talent Zoo” (at least in theory — not sure if it is practiced.)

Of course, Stan is a tad old these days and has reportedly starting falling asleep during creative meetings — they’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t burn down one of the buildings with leaving lit cigars around.

He is also all about the education of others — he pledged $1.5 million in 2001 to create the Stan Richards Creative Chair in Advertising for the Temerlin institute.

We had a reader write in to talk about one other contender — a creative director around town (names & true identifying marks removed to prevent getting our arses sued — but it was funny. Big props to the emailer.)

“The guy is an HR accident waiting to happen. From harassment to discrimination, he’s got it covered. Plus he signs his emails: The (removed). I don’t care how difficult is to remember or spell your last name, no one has the right to add their own article. He drives a (removed — but think a very “Damn I’m really overcompensating for my apparently tiny cock” Italian sportscar) and sports a wardrobe of matching branded accessories: hats, shirts, even notebooks. Typical to Dallas, he has a bimbo augmented wife and spends his time recounting his “glory days” (removed an agency name) and looking down his nose at anyone who thinks, acts, dresses different than his uptight Republican idealism.”

Ok…so a bit about Dallas was fun this week — I’m sure you’ll all add your own particular flavor to the discussion in the comments section…but first get a real damn ad-focused organization working for you all there.

*NEXT UP:*

BOSTON — home of Hill Holliday, Digitas, Arnold Worldwide, Mullen, Isobar and others. Feel free to email me with tips and things to look into — especially an interesting character — I have an idea for one, but want to discover more.

WPP’s dedicated Dell business unit, still tentatively titled “Project DaVinci” six weeks over the deadline for the name change, has firmed up its creative leadership for the Asia-Pacific region ahead of its official launch date of 1 May.

According to sources, the unit has hired two executive creative directors, to head its consumer and business-to-business hubs respectively in the region.

In the Singapore B2B headquarters, Alfredo Rossi comes aboard as ECD. Rossi joins from Ogilvy & Mather New York, where he spent 11 years, most recently as senior partner and creative director.  Meanwhile, the Beijing consumer hub has hired Mike Shackle from TBWA\Singapore to lead creative.

Well that is settled there for now — of course, still no global CEO or the 500+ missing others to get to the stated 1,000+ employee goal in the next two weeks before they are to officially start cranking out work for the client.

Rumours are that they are currently furiously interviewing for several people to fill out the roles for the EMEA region — which will be regionally headquartered in London — but like everywhere else, having trouble finding people to sign on.

Since we all love our Chicago-based news lately — one of our readers has mentioned that there is confirmation that Element 79 (rumoured to be merging with DDB any day here) has been notified that they have officially lost the Gatorade & Tropicana accounts.

Management has countered with the argument they still have over $10 million in revenue than they did when they opened their doors six years ago — take that for what you will.

Discuss amongst yourselves — the topic: How fucked are they and how likely is the merger with DDB now? Would DDB Chicago — already rumored to be suffering badly — want to take on another anchor as it fights to regain some stature within the client sphere?

UPDATE:

Well TBWA\Chiat\Day LA and Arnell Group are confirmed as the new agencies for the brands respectively. So it is just a game of musical chairs as Omnicom still retains the overall account. That being said, it is going to be yet another blow to the Chicago ad game as it shifts the accounts to both LA & New York respectively.

WPP’s JWT and Ogilvy & Mather and Omnicom Group’s BBDO are the biggest winners at the upcoming 40th annual Effie Awards that honor effective advertising, the Effies organization said today.

JWT and Ogilvy will each receive seven Effies and BBDO will get six at the ceremony which is to be held June 4 at  in New York. Omnicom’s DDB and WPP’s Grey and Leo Burnett will each take home five trophies.

There are more intimate details of who won & for what here (courtesy of our friends at Adweek) — that being said, do the Effies matter anymore?  (I guess you can get the cliffhanger aspect by waiting to see who wins the “Grand Effie” — the word “effie” makes me think of a Beavis & Butthead chuckle though.)

If so, why is it the usual holding company suspects getting all the awards (that being said, I’m more than ignorant about how the Effies are awarded and whatever process they use to determine the winners — so feel free to educate me and/or rip me a new asshole in the comments.  More about the “process” here though)

Here is what their own website says about the awards:

“Effie awards Ideas that Work – the great ideas that achieve real results and the strategy that goes into creating them.

Effie winners represent client and agency teams who tackled a marketplace challenge with a big idea and knew exactly how to communicate their message to their customer.

Since 1968, winning an Effie has become a global symbol of achievement. Today, Effie celebrates effectiveness worldwide with the Global Effie, the Euro Effie and more than 30 national Effie programs.”

Does that sound like the usual bullshit?  Do we (the royal “We” strikes again) care about the Effies at all anymore (if ever that is — outside the fact that it probably boosts the price tag of the winner’s salary when they bail out to a new gig at a different agency.)

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?

iCrossing bought their first shop in mainland Europe with the purchase of German search and affiliate shop 3GNet.

The buy brings iCrossing a 70-person outfit that specializes in search engine optimization, along with paid search and affiliate marketing — basicvally all the stuff that iCrossing specializes in already. 3GNet is based in Munich and has an office in Berlin. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The acquisition is the fifth in the past two years for iCrossing, which is backed by $120 million in financing. The agency has used earlier acquisitions of Newgate Internet (paid search) and Proxicom (Web development) to add capabilities to its routes as a search optimization firm. It also bought Spannerworks in the UK in February 2007, giving the company a base in London.

Most of iCrossing’s management over that time has come from Agency.com — including Don Scales, iCrossing’s President who joined when he left Agency.com over “strategic differences” two years ago.

3GNet clients include Epson, which is an iCrossing client in the U.S., eBay and Esprit.

With the acquisition, iCrossing will have more than 200 employees in Europe. The addition of Proxicom and geographic expansion makes iCrossing more than a search shop, Herzog said.

“Our competitive set has clearly changed,” he said. “We’re seeing Avenue A, Digitas and the ad holding companies as the set we’re up against most these days.”

Yoda Bob has pulled one of his own back into the fold — and the added bonus — it hurts one of his main competitors.

Mauro Cavalletti is returning to R/GA as executive creative director after three years at other shops, including Organic and most recently AKQA, where he was group creative director.

Cavalletti, 46, begins work at R/GA in mid-May, when it will open in San Francisco. The West Coast outpost is the New York-based agency’s third office, following its expansion to London about two years ago.

Adweek has more details:

“He’s extraordinary at creative, technology and user experience,” said Bob Greenberg, CEO of R/GA. “It’s all the things we need and want to get. He’s a real manager and can handle large clients.”

R/GA is looking at office space in San Francisco that could house as many as 80 employees, Greenberg said. By the end of 2008, the shop expects roughly 25-30 workers. R/GA has more than 600 employees in New York and 30 in London.

“We opened in San Francisco not based on business but based on talent,” he said. “Talent is the biggest issue facing agencies today. It’s the biggest open creative and technology talent pool other than New York.”

While Greenberg sees AKQA as R/GA’s main rival, he said the shop would not specifically target talent from there.

“It’s not so much the agencies but the Yahoo!s and Googles,” he said. “All the technology companies have many potential hires for us.”"

Now Bob is getting a little silly there — hiring from the Yahoos and Googles would just be fucking dumb for an agency — unless it was a straight tech job that is.  Having experience with those companies, it would be a clusterfuck if you tried to convert them to the agency lifestyle because the mentality is completely different and the client demands would cause the new people to lose their shit — quickly.

At AKQA, Cavalletti worked on several accounts, including Target, Method and Kraft. He led Organic’s user experience practice in both New York and San Francisco from 2005-06. In his past life at R/GA, Cavalletti rose from senior interaction designer to interaction design director to creative director from 1999 to 2005.

Cavalletti will initially work on Nike at R/GA, along with new clients the office acquires. He will report to Nick Law, R/GA’s chief creative officer for North America. R/GA has also landed two local clients that Greenberg declined to name — speculation has that one of them could be Levi’s.

Gary Goldsmith, North American chief creative officer at Young & Rubicam based in NYC, bailed out of the agency after 2 1/2 years, Y&R confirmed today.

He became more than a tad redundant to the Y&R family when worldwide CEO Hamish McLennan’s went out and hired Saatchi & Saatchi CCO Tony Granger as worldwide creative director back in November 2007.

Granger has not yet started at his new gig, given a lengthy notice period in his Saatchi contract, but sources now expect him to arrive in early May. He’ll be based in the New York office.

Y&R said only that Goldsmith was exiting to “pursue other interests.” (ed note: where on the carousel do you figure he’ll end up?)

More from Adweek:

“Since McLennan took the reins of Y&R in June 2006, several top executives have left, including his predecessor, Ann Fudge, who also was CEO of Y&R Brands; worldwide creative director Michael Patti; global vice chairman June Blocklin; and North American chief marketing officer Sally Kennedy. All four left at the end of 2006.

At the same time, McLennan has made several top hires, chief among them Granger and global chief digital officer Tarik Sedky, who returned to Y&R last summer from Atmosphere BBDO. Last spring, McLennan also recruited Mitch Caplan from The Kaplan Thaler Group here to fill the North American CMO role.”

There seems to be a fuck of a lot of turmoil in the creative end of the business these days — hey commenters (not too sound too Seinfeld about it all) but “What’s the fucking deal do you figure?” Is it cyclical, the clients, the suits doing their irrational freakout to cover their own fuckups? Possibilities abound!