Agency Spy

TBWA/Chiat Day has exited the review for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines just three weeks before final presentations. That leaves Draft/Initiative, JWT/Mindshare and Saatchi & Saatchi/Mediavest. Both the brand and the agency have told AdWeek the decision was mutual.

Current duties are with MPG and Arnold Havas. The latter is cutting about 5 percent of its staff, as it prepares for the loss of the Royal Caribbean account. Read More Here

Maybe you know this and maybe you don’t, but as of October, Draft/FCB was running low on bodies in the new business department. In the US, all the folks who had been on the team had either been canned or left for greener pastures. Well, everyone that is, but the Global Head of new business, the New York Director of New Business and one or two other loose faces. This means they only have a senior new biz person working out of Chicago.

George Parker over at AdScam is always talking about their impending doom. We think the agency is going to be around a bit longer, but holy cow! It sounds like they’re running on fumes.

Read More: The Digital Agency Dead Pool 

MultiCultClassics points us to an ad for JWT. It’s a diversity ad above. MCC seemed to be inspired. They’ve tinkered with the real ads of the big shops (or, correction, made their own) including Y&R, BBDO, DDB, Ogilvy and Mather and death star agency Grey to create some truly funny, as well as diverse new ones. Our favorite, for DRAFT/FCB is below. Go see the entire collection here.

You know how we love to scan the photos from agency parties? Along with snaps from Naked and W+K and a video from McCann, we’d like to add Draft sans FCB. George Parker also got his hands on these photos. Readers of his blog are saying its Draft before the merger, so 2006 - holiday time. Whatever. The images, which there are hundreds of, are weird if not just straight creepy. We can all agree that most (not all) agency holiday parties are the bollocks. They’re over produced and desperately trying to be cool. It never works. Agencies just end up looking like jack asses for spending tons of cash on what turns out to be a totally boring evening. Isn’t it just like ad agencies to throw a bunch of money at a problem, cross their fingers and hope that it works out? This party looks no different. Thanks tipster for the link!

Good ol’ Mad Man George Parker has gotten yet another internal memo leaked to him from inside Draft/FCB. The memo is supposed to be inspirational or something like that. It sounds like a call to work more hours if you ask us. Get George’s insights and info into this missive here.

From: Greenberg, Sandra (NYC-FCB)
Sent: Fri 9/28/2007 1:02 PM
Cc: Meyer, Terri (NYC-FCB); Becker, Christoph (NYC-FCB)
Subject: Wanna Get into Communications Arts?

Sandy & Terri

Tribal DDB has won some mock advertising award at Advertising Week. The hypothethical mission was that the current administration was handing out $500 million to an ad agency to rebrand America. Catch this - Mr. Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus of DDB Worldwide and founder of Business for Diplomatic Action was the brains behind the whole she-bang. Also in competition were two teams of students at the VCU Adcenter led by Rick Boyko and advertising agency Draftfcb. Tribal took home the “prize” after suggesting that the country create a team of citizen ambassadors under the banner, “A United States Of Mind.”

Tribal’s idea wasn’t a bad, one but, so… um… A DDB company won this thing right?

We called for a rebranding of America awhile ago, so we’re all for this concept. However, a little more open spirited and fair competition might be a good place to start.

READ MORE HERE

Draft/FCB this… Draft/FCB that… Well, here’s the latest rumor from AdScam. The basic jist is that spies inside the agency are telling  George Parker that the Seattle outpost is imploding. Christ. Aren’t they always? DraftFCB West COO Kass Sells resigned last Friday. Apparently, CFO of DraftFCB West Tara Charf isn’t going to stick around in Seattle either.

Who knows? That shop is such a crap shoot these days.

Turns out our nine thousand sources from DraftFCB are big fat liars. Well, they gotta get some good gossip going if they’re going to deflect this kind of stuff.

Anyway, Sony has cut to five agencies in the review of creative chores on its $150 million PlayStation business, according to sources. The finalists are Interpublic Group’s Deutsch/LA, Marina del Rey, Calif., Publicis Groupe’s Publicis in the West, Seattle, and independents RPA, Santa Monica, Calif., and Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco, per other more reliable sources.

GSD&M’s “Idea City” (ha!) lost the $200 million-plus U.S. Census account to DraftFCB.  Poor GSD&M. Oh - Idea City. They’ve lost some big ones including Wal-Mart and right after their name change announcement, AT&T put its estimated $3.4 billion media planning and buying account up for review.

The Census Bureau switched to paid advertising in 2000, which has boosted participation rates. In 2000, 67% of households filled in their forms, up from 65% in 1990. Hey… advertising works.

Our sources tell us that DraftFCB has made it to the second round in the recent Playstation review. Can you believe it? We’re surprised that Draft gets business at all considering their very screwed up internal drama. However, that’s a testament to their New Biz team if we’ve ever heard one.

Also involved in the pitch for the first round was Publicis & Hal Riney, Publicis West, Deutsch/LA, Grey, Young & Rubicam, and JWT in San Francisco; and independents 72andSunny in El Segundo, Calif., and RPA. Oh! And the incumbents TBWA.

We’re not sure which of these agencies has also made it to the second circle along with Draft and which have been dropped. Anyone know?

Email us at agencyspy at mediabistro dot com or IM us : agencyspy