Agency Spy

well i’m holding the advertising company responsible for that whole problem…”

Well OK…maybe not — but we have yet another review going down…

“Wachovia Puts $145 Million Account in Review”

To the Ad Age release:

“Wachovia Corp. has placed its $145 million creative and media account — currently handled by Mullen and Carat, respectively — into review, the financial-services marketer said.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia is in the process of identifying a search consultant to oversee the agency review. At Wachovia, Art Smith, who joined as director of global brand marketing in December, will lead the review, a company spokeswoman said.

Wachovia, which is the fourth-largest bank-holding company in the U.S. based on assets ($782.9 billion as of December 2007), spent $145 million on U.S. measured media in 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence. The marketer has had its creative account at Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Mullen, Winston-Salem, N.C., since 2001 and its media account at Aegis Media network Carat, Boston, since 2003, the spokeswoman said.”

The typical case — relatively new guy comes in and has to put his/her stamp on the justification for being there drawing salary. Maybe some of the Mullen/Carat readers might want to chime in on some dirt or what it is like to work on the account? Do we want to start laying bets on how many agencies will make the first round cut? 8? 12? 16?

It is Friday afternoon and all — we all know everyone who works in advertising — well their brains shut off/pickle at lunch and take to flights of fancy — i.e. — we are all doing fuck all — so drop a note and let us know what you think — all the other cool kids are doing it!

OMD has won global media planning and buying chores for the pasta and sauce maker Barilla. Valued at $275-300 million (holy cow!), OMD beat out incumbent Mediaedge:cia and the shop did defend. Also in the review were Carat and Spark, a unit of Starcom MediaVest Group.

The media planning and buying portions of the Hyundai and Kia ad accounts are up for review. Carat is the incumbent has received an automatic finalist slot in the review process. Carat will defend.

Creative is not up for review. The account, according to AdWeek, is valued at $800 M.

Mattel has given their $300M global media account to Aegis’s Carat. MindShare, defended the account and will retain buying responsibilities for advertisements in both North America and Brazil. Up next - lets see if MindShare can hang onto the Samsung business.

Read More: Did Fallon + Passion Steal The Creative For The Sony Bravia Ads?

Gary Leih, Chairman and Chief Executive of Ogilvy UK, has some thoughts about the digital program over at the death star agency, which echo Ogilvy USA co-CEO Carla Hendra’s comments during her public spat with Carat Americas CEO David Verklin on the opening panel at IAB’s Mixx Conference. Basically - Ogilvy is poised to dominate digitally. Leih points out that their are a “thousand three hundred of us - we’ve got thirteen different disciplines right now. Digital will actually permeate all of them, so I think that we’re in a really unique position.”

All true. Despite the agency being very late to the game, if they can actually integrate these divisions and, you know, be creative they might have a shot. We’ll see…

It’s always a little odd to us when Advertising Age jumps into the shit storm of agency gossip. The journal is reporting that there was a bit of a fight between Ogilvy’s co-CEO Carla Hendra and Carat Americas CEO David Verklin on the opening panel at IAB’s Mixx Conference. When AdAge reports this stuff, they always manage to take all the excitement out of it. We blame it on the fact that they’re actually uncomfortable with tabloid reporting. It’s like they want to give you the dirt without actually getting dirty. Impossible.

Here’s the highlights of the Hendra-Verklin cat fight: Read the rest of this entry »

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.

More: ABOUT THAT CADBURY SPOT…

Carat USA is merging with their digital unit Carat Fusion to form a super entity. The very accomplished Sarah Fay (watch the video interview with her above) has been named the CEO of the new entity. She’s been running parent company Aegis’ digital assets anyway. Smart move to allow the digital head run the business rather than the traditional guy, Ray Warren who will be leaving the company.

“We believe that combining these two great companies together into a single organization reinvents the agency model.” said David Verklin, CEO of Carat Americas.

This is a reinvention of the agency model? Guffaw. Dude. Come on… where have you been? You know it’s 2007 right? You should of thought of total integration years ago, so that recent report from Forrester (which touted how brands have no faith in their agencies ability to stay up on cultural trends and emerging markets) would never have existed.

Dear David - here are some people actually overhauling the idea of an advertising agency:

- Anomaly who has found a way to get invested in their client’s intellectual property… READ MORE HERE

- Havas is letting it’s creative directors roam free… READ MORE HERE

- Modernista who’s not taking any shit from their clients anymore… READ MORE HERE

- Oh! And Goodby Silverstein + Partners beat you to the punch by just a few weeks. Next time right? READ MORE HERE

After kicking McCann-Erickson to the curb, J&J has selected WPP Group’s JWT for the Reach account and the Band-Aid brand. Omnicom Group’s BBDO will take on the brands Monistat and StayFree. The lube business of K-Y sexual goes to smart shop Mother, which currently handles J&J’s Rembrant oral-care brand. J&J is set to do a global media review where Interpublic’s Initiative and Universal McCann, Omnicom’s OMD and Aegis Group’s Carat might all pick up some business.

Total U.S. media spending is around $92 million.

Small, but fierce agency Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (they recently won the Epson account, as well as a Kelly award) have just hired digital rockstar Kristina Pifer (who previously worked at Carat and Ogilvy) to lead a new department within the Sausalito based shop. One day we won’t have to point this out, but until then, we dig that they’ve made this new ground breaking director a woman. Take that Sony!

This new division will focus on experiential design to strengthen the agency’s interactive services to clients. David Blum, director of BSSP’s interactive unit, has some sharp, focused quotes in Adweek like this one: “shops like ours are going to get [the] opportunity to participate in areas that have been reserved for [digital] shops,” predicted Blum.

Ps. We hear… BSSP is a great place to work. They’re like Luke Skywalker to some other people’s Darth Vader.