Agency Spy

Whatever you may think of Agency.com (”A hot mess!” “Subprime!” “They still have an office in New York?”), you have to give them credit for keeping their neck above water. Today, they’ve appointed Jeremy Daly as Director of Planning. Daly was a
partner and marketing director at Ogilvy New York with a focus on their IBM business. He began working for the Omnicom shop in 2001 where he led the Toronto office of Ogilvy Interactive.

Jeremy Daly said: “I am eager to be a part of a company that can make flexibility and collaboration easy across multiple disciplines, ultimately leading to greater business impact.”

OMG. These press releases kill us. Serious. Can you get through that last piece of quote without rolling your eyes? Agency.com is in the middle of a staff-up though. They just got a new managing partner, Joan Zulawski. We’re sure that there are more new hires to come.

By the way, Agency.com has gotten busted by users of Wikipedia for altering their own entry. A total fricking no-no, especially when you are an interactive company. Come on. You guys must have known you were going to get busted! Agency.com has 8 edits coming from their own IP address. They changed small things like current accounts and staff numbers, but they also messed with the section labeled “viral controversy” that deals with the Subway experiment, which is a huge part of the Agency.com story.

The before shot above has - “the vast majority of industry response to Agency.com’s tactic has been overwhelmingly negative. Many comments on YouTube have also noted that the positive comments that were made by YouTube members who have had accounts that, in many cases, werejust hours old, adding to suspicion that the positive “buzz” on the YouTube site was merely Agency.com employees patting themselves on their virtual backs.”

The after shot above, as well as their current entry page, has that same section now reading - “many industry responses to Agency.com’s tactic has been negative or sarcastic. While the video came under fire, the tactic was also praised by many in the industry including…”

While the adjusted editorial is true (some folks liked their attempt to land the Subway business), it also discards the controversy the ran through the industry about falsifying comments on social media sites. Naughty, naughty. We get the impulse. There are a ton of things written about this blog we would love to erase, but your digital history is history - blogger, agency or individual. Gotta live by your successes and mistakes once you’re out and about on the big wide web.

Want to check who is editing your agency’s page on Wikipedia? Here’s how you do it.

Agency.com New York (yes, the shop is still open for business) has named a new managing partner, Joan Zulawski in attempt to get some more hands on deck. Riccardo Zane, President of Agency.com, said:

“We recognize the value of investing in top industry leaders in order to best serve our clients.” And, “Joan has a wealth of experience working successfully with major brands and their customer relationships. We are thrilled to have her as part of our team.”

And you should be Mr. Zane. Most recently, Joan was SVP, Group Management Director at Draftfcb. So… Joan bounced from the often squally Draftfcb to join the even more tempestuous Agency.com. Hunh. Oh wait. Here we go:

“Joan spent over four years as the Group Account Director at G2/Grey Interactive managing senior client relationships including Reliant, Mars, Vonage, Nokia, Phillips Consumer Electronics and Nestle.”

Joan likes stormy weather apparently. Good for her. Someone has to ride the rough seas and look at her go:

“Agency.com’s multiple digital touchpoints approach is what clients need today more than ever. In my 20 years of working with global brands, I have rarely seen an agency that understands modern digital marketing like they do.”

Joan will be responsible for providing leadership for senior client partnerships and deepening current relationships. Additionally, she will
work alongside the business development team driving growth and generating new client relations.

Other recent bodies shifts out of Agency.com include AKQA poaching Agency.com exec Scott Symonds to build its media practice in January. Omnicom snapped up Jason Kuperman for their Vice President, Asia Pacific Digital Development spot a few weeks ago. He was formerly Managing Director of the Shanghai office of Agency.com, part of the TBWAnetwork.

Last week, we broke the news that Agency.com was closing it’s Dallas office. Well, one of the employees from the shop has posted a tribute video. Grab a tissue.

Everyone has been throwing Agency.com’s name into the ring for our upcoming Digital Dead Pool. As if you needed another reason for their inclusion, it turns out that the shop is closing up its Dallas office. Layoffs are taking place today.

In a written response to our inquiry, Marianne Stefanowicz, PR Director for the agency, said that: “The company has been looking to streamline its US operations and at the moment, it makes sense for us to focus our growth on the three metropolitan offices of New York, Chicago and San Francisco. The staff in Dallas is being reduced and will report to the Chicago office.”

So, where does that leave Dallas’ prez Brian Hollyfield? Take what you will from Agency.com’s statement, but “we hear that…” the London office is also tightening their belt.

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Don’t know how we missed this… Oh - wait. Yes, we do. It’s called work. Saatchi is apparently out of the LG review for its global corporate image business according to AdWeek. The shop withdrew due to a conflict, which apparently means the Sony Ericsson account. That leaves Publicis and Agency.com still vying for the $100 million account. Can you imagine if Agency.com pulls this off? Talk about a good start on a comeback, which began with their closing the creative work on LG’s digital display division.

Meanwhile, DDB and Bartle Bogle Hegarty are trying for their brand’s creative duties.

Agency.com… sigh. The shop has had its share of problems, but it looks like they’ve won an account. The press release we received today says that the troubled agency will lead worldwide creative duties on the LG electronics brands worth around $100 million account. CEO Chan Suh (who recently stepped back in to get a grip on the shop) and his team will handle interactive, TV, print and guerilla marketing initiatives.

Well… we’ll be damned.

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Agency.com. Sigh. After they put those videos of their Subway pitch on YouTube, we lost all taste for the shop. The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the agency’s struggle to deal with a string of executive departures (Don Scales in 2006) and major clients (Miller, Visa, Discovery) over the past 18 months. Owned by the mothership Omnicom Group, Agency.com has brought back Chan Suh chief executive. He had given up day-to-day management in 2004.

Agency.com hasn’t won a pitch in almost forever it seems. Suh is attempting to rectify that by attempting to turn the agency into an “idea” shop. Yeah, yeah… Yawn. Who the hell isn’t trying to brand their company as such? The article goes on to talk about other ad infinitum concepts in the industry like convergence of digital and traditional teams within agencies. Double yawn.

The WSJ then asks Sarah Fay, CEP of Carat and Isobar what she thinks of the struggling agency. “They’ve had an enormous amount of upheaval. [To survive] requires not just having a story of what the company wants to be, but why that is a position for the future…and is that backed up in reality? Is the company prepared to invest?”

Sarah is aces with us. She doesn’t just go in there and rip her competitor to shreds. Very classy, lady.

Read the entire article here.

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OgilvyOne has hired Anthony Romano, former director of relationship marketing at the Gap, as a senior partner and client service director. He takes the place of Riccardo Zane whom we reported has having defected to Agency.com a few weeks ago. Aflac, Six Flags and Investools will now fail under Romano’s charge.

Michelle Bottomley, co-president of Ogilvy’s New York operation, said Romano “represents a new breed of agency executive bringing client experience building relationships between brands and their customers, using digital and traditional media fueled by data-driven insights.” Really… who writes this stuff for these people? She couldn’t say something that Read the rest of this entry »

Agency.com, part of Omnicom Group, today announced the appointment of Riccardo Zane to the new position of President for the New York office. Zane was most recently Senior Partner, Client Services Director, running the Consumer Marketing Practice in the interactive and CRM space for Ogilvy One Worldwide, New York. Zane managed a fully integrated digital/CRM team, with core deliverables around strategy, creative innovation, and operations for clients like Kraft, Unilever, Nestle, Aflac, Miller Brewing Co., Deloitte, and Morgan Stanley. Previously, Zane led Leo Burnett’s emerging digital practice, iLeo, both in the US and Canada.

We don’t have a lot of thoughts about Agency.com or Zane at this moment, but if you want to share a few, please do. Contact us: agencyspy at mediabistro dot com