Fallon UK And The Run-Up To The Microsoft Decision

“We’re terrible at the pitch circus . . . awful schmoozers. With Microsoft, we’ve been straight, honest and tried not to overpromise.”

The man being quoted is Richard Flintham, creative partner at Fallon UK, in today’s Times from a piece titled, “Advertising’s young maverick stakes claim to be king of the creative jungle.” By the way, isn’t everyone a schmoozer? That’s how McCann is going to steal Sony Ericsson from Saatchi. The entire piece focuses on the shop’s recent work from Sony to Cadbury. This puff article is all part of the run-up to the big decision of where the Microsoft account will land – Fallon or Crispin.

Fallon UK is a force to be reckoned with. While the US division struggles to create a similar environment, the UK office sails on. Landing the Microsoft account for either Crispin or Fallon would be huge. It would do wonders for Fallon’s morale Stateside and beyond. A win would also keep Crispin in the limelight and ground the agency as real live competition for the death stars. For shits and giggles – who do you think will win the Microsoft account? Crispin or Fallon? Vote here.

David Takes On Many Goliaths – Fallon, Carmicheal, Zimmerman

Austin advertising firm McGarrah/Jessee has beaten two national, Fallon, Carmichael Lynch and the incumbent Zimmerman, to win the Costa Del Mar account, a maker of high-end sunglasses. The account is being valued at $5M to $10M, which Fallon certainly could of used.  These smaller brands wins are often not reported, which is a shame considering it all goes to the bottom line. Also worth noting is that this is the McGarrah/Jessee’s first win following a review in three years. Heavens. They’re probably losing their minds.

McGarrah/Jessee’s was founded in 1996 by Bryan Jessee and Mark McGarrah, two former employees of GSD&M’s Idea City.  The shop is quite well known down in Texas with 50 or so employees and an estimated $50 million in billings last year. That number is supposed to increase by $20M in 2007. Not bad fellas. [Source]

However, we think that perhaps, McGarrah/Jessee should deal with their Google results. Four sites come up and yes, we get that you bought all the domains, but that’s no reason to be actively using all for. Redirect folks. Redirect.

McGarrah Jessee

www.mcgarrahjessee.com/ – 3k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this

McGarrah Jessee

www.mc-j.com/ – 2k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this

McGarrah Jessee

www.mcgarrahjessee.net/ – 2k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this

McGarrah Jessee

www.mcgarrahjessee.org/ – 2k – Cached – Similar pages – Note this

Fallon Or Is It Saatchi? The Shitter? Ah, Whatever.

So, Pat Fallon left the building. Meanwhile, Saatchi is still doing that integration thing on the agency’s behalf. Big name staffers have bailed. Juniors have moved up and a few new faces have littered the Fallon floor. See it all here.

And yet, we still have questions. While writing an entry about Brazilian offices, we realized that Fallon very recently closed their, which was dedicated to handling the Citibank account. Of course, Fallon lost that business to Publicis. Publicis of course owns Saatchi and Fallon. As Fallon was failing, Publicis convinced the brand to stay in the family. Good save boys. However, WE HEAR… that another reason the shop closed is because Fallon couldn’t pick up any new biz in Brazil. All of Brazil is talking about it. Now, we all know that the boys in charge would of most certainly been looking to keep that outpost open after the initial investment. They just couldn’t get any clients and that was that.

So Brazil is closed. WE HEAR… that Shanghai is full of Saatchi staffers now. There’s other murky rumors about Saatchi shaking up the Fallon network and as we get more details, we’ll post ‘em.

And yet, the flagship in Minneapolis continues to fly the proud brave flag. They just completed the work on their new account, Equinox. FM is also moving offices to some new digs, which are supposedly going to be lovely and provide better working environments for creatives. Part of the reason for that move is that renters Duffy & Partners and have also been “spun off.” By the way, Pat Fallon and Joe Duffy remain close personal friends, but um… with the rightfully lauded Fallon out of the driver’s seat, wouldn’t you find some new digs and like fast?

The branding coming out of Fallon has strongly been – “We’re back.” And we really want it for them, but is it really going to happen or is Saatchi just going to swallow them whole? In five years, will Fallon even exist? We’d put our money on “no.”

Fallon’s Younguns’

Changes are taking place at Fallon Minneapolis. The shop is promoting three of its youngest staffers: John King (33), to the newly created position of director of brand innovation; Amy Sheil (35), to director of media; and Adam Chorney (30), to director of connection planning. The agency said that “These individuals, and the disciplines they represent, are interdependent, and they will be working closely together to help reshape the future of the agency and have a strong voice in new business and other important business initiatives.”

One of the greats, Pat Fallon, chairman of Fallon, said, “We see each of these areas (connection planning, media, and brand innovation) as critically important to our future and after searching far and wide for people outside the organization to lead us into the future, we determined that we had some “young guns” right under our noses who were ready to step up.”

The agency is apparently trying to get itself back into shape and into the game. Fallon also recently hired Al Kelly from StrawberryFrog as Executive Creative Director, too. The shop is really looking to drive a youth movement to generate ideas and insights that go beyond the agency structure. That would be nice, right? Considering that Fallon has a few rough years (losing big clients like Citi and BMW accounts, as well as suffering from creative turn over), the agency’s new bid to import talent and promote the hungry from within might make all the difference.

Tribal DDB Wins Scifi.com

Tribal DDB has won the Scifi channel’s digital account. Spark will retain the site’s planning and buying business and Fallon will continue to handle their overarching media and strategy responsibilities.

You never hear to much about digital wins in the big presses. We’d like to start filling in the information gaps. So, if you work at a digital agency and want to give your shop props for winning an account, contact us via email [agencyspy at mediabistro dot com] or IM [agencyspy]

Arnold Worldwide Is Going To The Bahamas

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism has selected Arnold Worldwide to handle their advertising business. The Ministry said that their choice was based primarily on the agency’s potential in online marketing and its wide-ranging “travel experience.” Arnold won the account after beating Deutsch, Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, R&R Partners and Y Partnership in Orlando. MPG’s Boston office and Media Contacts — will handle the media-planning portions of the account. The incumbent, Fallon in Minnesota, who came up with the “Bahamavention” campaign was not invited to defend.

Ministry of Tourism Senior Director of Communications Nalini Bethel said that no one should slam Fallon though. “If you looked at Bahamavention as a campaign in and of itself, you have to look at the objectives that we wanted to achieve with that campaign, and when somebody calls it a failure they don’t even know what the objective was.”

She went on to tell The Bahama Journal that, “The five short-listed agencies were all very, very strong contenders, but what differentiated Arnold from the others – one of the things – was their travel experience. They had a very wide-ranging travel experience.”

Hmm… Well, Arnold WAS the agency of record for Caribbean Cruise Lines, but that has changed just this week. 

And The Sexiest Man In Advertising Is…

Thanks to everyone who voted in Agency Spy’s First Annual Sexiest Man In Advertising Competition. With 494 votes cast we do have a winner! But, first, we’d like to point out that the original posting received thousands of hits. Hmmm…. so we’re guessing that in this male dominated and mostly heterosexual business of ours, you fellows decided to skip out on the whole voting thing. Well, we got emails to that affect anyway. Whatevs. We had some fun, some laughs and we’re glad to see the we have a winner!

In ninth place is Selmat Datang Chen of W+K with 2% of the votes. In eighth place is Mauro Alencar of Publicis Modem (3%). Seventh is Juan Cabral of Fallon UK (4%) and sixth is Jose Molla, founder la comunidad in Miami, with 9%. Coming in at number five is Nick Law, CCO of R/GA, with 10% of the vote. Fourth is Feh Tarty, an AD at Goodby, (12%). Third place goes to David Droga of Drgoa5 (13%) and the runner-up is Ajaz Ahmed from AKQA (20%).

And with 28% of the vote, thewinner is…. Geoff Edwards SVP of the SF TAG Unit at McCann Erickson!!!

Everyone knows how much we dislike McCann Erickson. However, the agency’s one shining star is certainly their Tag units where Geoff is an SVP and a group creative director at the SF branch.

Geoff is 38 and a Detroit native. He started out as an intern at Chiat/Day in New York 14 years ago and helped Spike Lee launch Spike DDB in 1996 (sweet!). Edwards pulled stints at Element 79 Partners and, prior to that, Interpublic Group’s Foote, Cone & Belding, as well. He then went on to work at TBWA/C/D SF where he was paired with his longtime partner, Scott Duchon, who was once named GQ’s Man of the Month. Chuck McBride once said of the team that “I find them to be incredibly tenacious. A lot of people get worn down by negative process. They take the adversity and use it to their benefit. They come out heroes that way.”

Having worked on Playstation and Adidas might have helped Edwards co-create/manage that wonderful, award winning “Gears Of War” spot this past year. Check out his Clio stats here and his Cannes credits here. For Art Director’s club shout outs, see here. Creativity Online recently held a Q&A with our sexiest man where he had this response to the question, what’s the process like becoming leaders [rather than strict creatives]?

“Honestly, I think it’s an evolutionary process. You don’t learn to be a leader, it’s based on past experiences, on people who have influenced you and influenced your career. A huge influence on me is Bob Scarpelli. He’s the (film and press) jury chair this year and I can’t wait to see him. When I was at DDB/Chicago, I learned a lot from him. There’s this one quote that I carry around that he always said, and that’s “All good ideas find a home.” It’s so true because a lot of ideas aren’t bought, but you hold on to those thoughts and at some point there will be an opportunity. For instance, the song we put on the Gears of War spot, that’s a song Scott had always kind of kept with him, and then this spot came out and was a perfect opportunity. So I think leadership is about grabbing the positive experiences we’ve had in this industry and galvanizing them, and incorporating them into your personal style. It starts from the core. The core of it are talented teams. They’re the young people. They’re shaping the culture of the industry. They’re coming up with the ideas. They’re charged with that and it’s up to Scott and myself to recognize the good ones and direct them, not impose too much of your will.”

Last Call For McCann And Microsoft?

There’s a new creative assignment from Microsoft that has four agencies vying for the prize. AdWeek is reporting that McCann Erickson SF, JWT in New York, Fallon in Minneapolis and Crispin Porter + Bogusky are in contention. How much you want to bet that McCann loses out? The decision is to made as early as January.

Univeral McCann is Microsoft’s lead agency. You know how one thing can lead to another. Is this last call for McCann? Adage had this inside bit: “Although details of the proposed project were not immediately available, it is believed that the campaign will attempt to help Microsoft improve its image. When asked if it will be a way to get back at the popular Mac vs. PC campaign from Apple with its unflattering portrayal of Microsoft, one executive familiar with the situation said, “It may be.”

[Picture comes from the blog Dtailed]

Inside Minneapolis Advertising

Lee Lynch, the former CEO of Carmichael Lynch, recently asked, “Has our pilot light gone out? Is the Minneapolis brand on the skids?” Wait. We didn’t know that the city even had a brand. It’s got to be tough living in the Twin Cities. What do you really have – access to the Mall of America and a live-in rockstar who is totally fine with suing all his fans?

The Star Tribune recognizes that Minneapolis can be a tough place to survive. Just consider their recent article on the mixed bag of results for agencies within city limits. Some shops have seen revenues hold steady (Martin/Williams), while others (such as Fallon) are just barely hanging on and even more are just keeping their heads above water (i.e. Carmichael Lynch).

Our favorite quote from the paper: “Agency chiefs acknowledge that advertising is, if nothing else, highly cyclical, and clients tend to change their chief marketing officers more frequently than the Minnesota Timberwolves change coaches.”

However, Denny Haley, president of the Minneapolis office of BBDO points out the often overlooked truth when folks talk about the city’s ad business: “Minneapolis’ success had been so dramatic in the ’80s and ’90s that when it plateaued [in recent years] it seemed like it declined. It’s not as much in the doldrums as people convey.”

Ad folk are such drama queens. We just love the excitement and readily forget that advertising is totally cyclical.

Source

Fallon UK’s Cadbury Gorilla Has A Name

The Daily Mail is our top source today. They provided us with that Maddie Mcann advertising spoof and now, they’ve unmasked the drumming gorilla from the Fallon UK and Cadbury spots. Garon Michael is the man behind the mask. ounds conflicted about his role. Cadbury has seen a 9 percent rise in sales of Dairy Milk chocolate bars in the U.K. The advert has received six million hits from across the internet and prompted the re-release of Phil Collins’s 1981 hit, pushing it back into the Top 20. Nice work.

It takes Garon plus two to bring the gorilla to life. They are technicians Lindsay Macgowan and Richard Landon. Garon said, “There are about 12 or 13 of us actors who regularly work in films as gorillas and we all have our different skill levels. But this is just something I do in my life. It’s not the extent of my life, and my philosophy is that you have to have fun whatever you do. The Cadbury’s ad was by far the best thing we’ve done. I’ve heard that Phil Collins loves it too. Wouldn’t it be great if I could appear on stage with him in another suit, playing the drums?”

Yeah. It would be so cool. Marketing gimmick of the century and Phil could use the push. Still no word if we’re right about the creative inspiration though. Damn.

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