Euro RSCG – “Take me to your (new) leader!”

Havas’ Euro RSCG in Chicago has named John Minnec executive director, a new post in which he will guide business development, interactive and general advertising efforts — basically a jack of all trades post in this new “integrated” world.

He reports to Ron Bess, agency president, and takes over for Zain Raj, who last week was promoted to CEO of Euro RSCG Discovery — their CRM/Customer Insight specialized agency.

Prior to joining Euro RSCG, Minnec most recently served as president of Interpublic Group’s DraftFCB London (which — like most Draft places — crashed & burned spectacularly losing clients left & right) which claims accounts from Nokia (which is actually a “Rivet” client when they still had (and lost) Motorola) and Computer Associates.

More from Adweak:

“John is an international leader in the truest sense. His extensive expertise spanning the entire marketing and advertising spectrum will no doubt prove invaluable for Euro RSCG Chicago and our clients,” said Bess, in a statement. “John’s combined knowledge of agency leadership, account management and business development make him a perfect fit for this new position.”

Key clients at Euro RSCG in Chicago include Assurant Health, Barilla, Effen Vodka, Circuit City, Citigroup, Culligan and Sprint.”

He has also held posts at Draft in Chicago, Ogilvy & Mather, Grey and Leo Burnett.

A quality recycling program continues on in the ad world…

Disgruntled Freelancer Rips Off DraftFCB

We got word of a little, erm… mishap? No, no. How about theft? Yes, theft of some new Macs from the DraftFCB New York office. The thief was captured on video tape and of course, turned out to be an old freelancer who’s security card was never disabled. Apparently, dude was balls to the wall on this one coming in at around closing time while staffers were still snapping away on the keyboards.

And here’s the real gem, he supposedly asked security guards on the first floor to look after his shopping bags full of Macs, while he hailed a cab.

Oh boy… so good, right?

Thanks Tipster!

Speciality issues — don’t you love them?

Seems Ad Age has gone “digital” this week with the “Ad Age Digital Issue” (sorry if I’m late to the game on this — been a hectic one here.)

The usual load of crap is installed and it is a very quality attempt at garnering some good PR for all those agencies you love to hate (when most of them deserved to be ignored for the most part.)

Perhaps one of my favorites of the entire issue is the labeling of Draft as “an innovative place to work.”

Now, not to steal too much from George P. on this subject (him & Howard D. being best buds and all) — but are you serious? I think i’ll let George have his say in the comment section (if he gets around to it — but knowing his ever-expanding love for the company — and he probably has every mention of Draft on the web as a Google Alert — I’m sure he’ll chime in soon enough.)

Almost as bad is Digitas being #6 on “Digital A-List 2008″ — those who know it — generally know it as a shitty place to work — and everyone knows that they don’t have the first clue on how to service a client properly (feel free to quiz their GM or Amex clients some time…)

Of course, this thing has a payola feel to it all — Global Agency Network of the Year Tribal DDB didn’t even make the list (not that they necessarily deserved to, mind you), nor did R/GA (which is considered one of the best places to both ply the digital trade and turn out good work — i.e. Nike+, Verizon, Nokia, etc.)

You had to know that Howard sent Jonah a case of Effen-Effen to get on the innovative work place list, right?

*** EDIT:  The “payola” mention is a JOKE… ha-ha funny…ok maybe not that funny — but there was no intention for the term “payola” to ruffle the feathers of those mentioned in the article.  It is all my uninformed opinion anyway — libel is a tricky issue…. especially when opinion (of which this is not supposed to be a “news relevant mention”– remember “J-O-K-E”!)  Now I think I’ve killed that beyond recognition — have a great weekend!)

F*** Howard Draft!

The “Protector of the People” aka George Parker alerts us to the latest Facebook group, “Fuck Howard Draft!” We’re not surprised that there’s a Facebook hate group for Howard. You shouldn’t be either. Draft is arguably one of the most hated CEOs in the business. Maybe it was the whole sleazy Julie Roehm scandal that tipped you over the edge. It could have been their full placement ad featuring the lions with the tagline, “It’s good to be on top” that really irked you or more likely, you just worked at Draft and got emails like this one or perhaps, you got laid off when the agency lost Verizon. Oh wait! Maybe it’s his affiliation with Laurence Boschetto that gets the feathers in a bunch. Whatever it is, Howard is always in the line of fire. Always.

TBWA May Lose Hilton

TBWA\C\D client Embassy Suites has gone up for review. The shop has been the AOR for the hotel chain since 1998. Yeah. Move on Embassy.
TBWA\C\D and the Tequila are expected to defend says AdWeak.

Embassy Suites is a Hilton brand. Hilton is handled by Young & Rubicam and DraftFCB holds Doubletree, Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites. Why DraftFCB is holding onto three accounts each valued around or above $20M is beyond us. Maybe Blackstone, who bought the whole Hilton chain last year, will shift their business around, too. Seriously… have you ever even heard of a Homewood suite?

Ira Leaves Oglivy, Bounces To Draft

DraftFCB is looking to bolster its data and analytics programs. AdWeak is reporting that this is due to a “growing demand among clients such as Citi and CA and has recruited OgilvyOne’s Ira Helf to run it.”

Ira used to be the Managing Director of Marketing Analytics at OgilvyOne. His new title at DraftFCB is executive director data and analytics.
Helf, 55, is an analytics man. He was VP at Claritas, The Nielsen Company; a senior analyst at IRI and a department manager at CACI with a degree from Stanford (statistics, marketing, mathematics). At Draft, Helf will report to one time colleague Peter DeNunzio, former general manager of OgilvyOne.

“The DraftFCB model is built on extracting consumer insights through data and the demand for our ability to analyze [such data], has never been greater,” DeNunzio said. DraftFCB is alway touting their analytics program, since they are a direct marketing shop at heart. Helf will direct 20 to 30 strategists and technologists with growth sounding like a definite.

Hey, not a bad move for Draft. The agency should focus on the data, because the creative thing just isn’t their strong suit.

Our Global Food Service Enterprise Is Totally Down For Your Awesome Subculture

That’s not our headline. That’s from The Onion. However, it fits as Taco Bell and DraftFCB seem to like what the kids are doing these days.

We previewed Taco Bell’s stinker of a Super Bowl ad yesterday, and now tips are flying in from across the far reaches of the globe. Well, the Midwest anyway.

It’s true that everyone’s out there right now trying to figure out how to make a campaign that catches on with “the kids on the world wide web.” You can imagine the brainstorm: How do we get a little YouTube chatter going, a little home made tribute action? How do we get this to go viral?

Well Taco Bell’s way ahead of you, Alex Bogusky. You don’t wait for those tech-savvy urban tastemakers to remake your idea… YOU remake THEIRS! Taco Bell is the midst of testing a fresh new campaign where kids roll up to drive thru windows with a camera in the passenger side, a beatboxer in back, and a rapper in the front, confusing the lady in the speaker. Sound familiar? Damn, you must have looked at the internet last year. These things have been all over YouTube since at least 2006. We’ve seen them remade, and parodied, and now it seems we have the first example of a Global Food Service Enterprise actually stealing ideas directly from an Awesome Subculture for a broadcast spot. At least we think. You’ll let us know in the comments section if really this first, right?

Riddle us this – why not hire the actual kids? Why not get some fan pages, contests, and cult followings going for the “actors”, instead of the possible bad press from just making a glossy-film version of something that had actual appeal? Be on the look-out for these new spots. We’re guessing – April? Ah, Draft. Draft… Sigh.

Super Bowl Pre-Roll: Taco Bell

Taco Bell is using its Superbowl time to launch a new product, Fiesta Platters, which cost just $4.99. Yum. The 30-second HD spot was created by their agency of record, DraftFCB California, and will run during the fourth quarter. Debbie Myers, Vice President/media and promotions at Taco Bell said that,
“Whatever happens, viewers will hang in there, they tune in to watch not just the game, but the ads themselves,” she says. “[The Super Bowl] is the consistently highest-rated program of the year, where people–instead of avoiding commercials–are anticipating and looking forward to seeing them.”

DraftFCB’s Mini-Bloodbath (AKA RIF)

We hear that… DraftFCB’s Chicago office had a mini-bloodbath on Thursday with 20 staffers catching the axe. As usual, the layoffs are tied to recent losses including the Similac account.

One tipster reports: “For the past few months, Draftfcb has been moving staffers from the original Draft building at St. Clair Street, consolidating everyone into the former FCB building on East Erie Street. The people fired on Thursday were instructed to pack their belongings during the week, thinking they were moving to the East Erie location. It wasn’t until everyone had packed the boxes that management executed the layoffs.”

Management has reportedly started referring to these events as RIFs – Reduction In Force. It’s so Bush administration.

Later.

GlobalHue Breaks Into 4

GlobalHue is breaking into four separate shops. The agencies will break into distinct specialty groups: GlobalHue Latino, GlobalHue African American, GlobalHue Asian Pacific Islander and GlobalHue Next.

GlobalHue chairman and CEO Don Coleman (pictured above) said, “When you add the buying power of these key markets with the increasing influence they have on the general population, every company’s general market and multicultural budgets should be reevaluated,” Coleman said.

GlobalHue is one of the largest multicultural advertising agencies in the US. The agency made their first big accession in early 2007 by snagging the multicultural creative account for Wal-Mart. The agency will also be working with DraftFCB on the Cenus 2010 account. Partly owned by Interpublic Group, GlobalHue was created from several smaller agencies in 2002 – the Coleman Agency, Innovasia Communications, and Montemayor y Asociados.

Read the finer points of the restructuring over at AdWeek.