Agency Spy

The UK’s telegraph has released a list to end all political lists or close to it anyway. The newspaper has complied a roster of the 50 most influential men people of Margaret Thatcher’s era. The Iron Lady’s eleven years in office came with many players on both sides including list makers: Francois Mitterrand, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ian Gow and Ronald Reagan. The advertising industry has also been included due to the mandatory inclusion of Maurice Saatchi who developed the campaigns for Thatcher’s election victories in 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections. He was made a Conservative Peer in 1996 and became Chairman of the Conservative Party in 2005.

The Saatchi poster debuting the iconic slogan “Labour Isn’t Working” was judged by the staff at Campaign to be the best of the century. It changed the tenor of political advertising in the UK forever more. After that, the Saatchi shop was set in gold to blaze its way across the 80s with flashy owners, Maurice and Charles, at the wheel. The agency became an incubator of hot talent that included Martin Sorell, which allowed them to pick up new clients and dole out hot creative. They rolled on. They were untouchable, made acquisitions and felt so much like money that the brothers Saatchi even tried to buy a bank at one point. From The Times:

“Last weekend, it was reported that Saatchi had earlier this month discussed merging with Midland Bank P.L.C., Britain’s fourth-largest commercial bank. Midland spurned the overture, saying the notion lacked ”commercial or strategic logic.”

Totally, yeah. In a coup the boys were ousted in 1995 and M&C Saatchi was born. You know this story. You know it’s a bit more complicated from the beginning and the middle to the finale, but it’s like legend. You gotta tell it again and again, even if you already know how the story ends.

Maybe you missed book. Maybe you missed his King Arthur-esque blog at saatchikevin.com. It’s his Camelot people. We just live in it. Anyway, if you missed it, here’s a video of Kevin Roberts explaining how he came up with Lovemarks and all the brands that fit within that niche.

OMG. Seriously, I couldn’t get past 2:16 seconds. Maybe you’ll have better luck.

Fake ads plague the industry — but this is taking it to a whole new level.  Someone at Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore is selling some massive tales it seems — award-winning ones — but ones that can come back to bite you on the ass really badly.

Brand Republic Asia has all the sorrid details:

“Roger Makak (pictured), the creative ranked number one in Campaign Brief Asia’s recently released rankings, has been exposed as a work of fiction created by Saatchi & Saatchi Singapore.

Speaking to Media, Campaign Brief Asia publisher Kim Shaw said: “From our point of view we’re disappointed that this agency chose to use a false name for work done by someone else.”According to Shaw, Makak is actually a nom de plume for the agency’s regional creative director Andy Greenaway, who said: “He does exist, but not in the form you might think. He goes bananas sometimes.” Greenaway added that more would be revealed in one week.“I think they were trying to dupe the whole industry and then come out with some fantastic award concept at the end that would appeal to other ECDs,” said Shaw. “But, of course, because he ended up winning our rankings it’s come out very quickly that this guy doesn’t exist.”

“At first, I was really angry because I felt for (Creative Juice ECD) Thirasak who came second and he would have been the first person to win it twice,” continued Shaw. “But if Andy is in fact Roger, my comment is I’m disappointed that it’s not Andy topping the rankings.”

Saatchis Singapore has won a swathe of metal at awards shows across the globe over the past year, with Makak credited heavily on almost of all the award-winning entries. He was ranked fifth in Media’s ranking of young creatives last year.”

Well the replacement of former TBWA\Chiat\Day New York ECD Gerry Graf, who recently bailed out to become chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe’s Saatchi & Saatchi in New York — well it didn’t seem to take too long to get someone to dive on the grenade of a reported department of all of 7 people.

Could the contestant step to the microphone and tell us his name and current location?

Well it is Young & Rubicam Chicago chief creative officer Mark Figliulo , who is currently in contract negotiations with the powers-that be at Omnicom about taking the top creative job in the TBWA\C\D New York office.

Adweek fills in the rest of the gritty details:

“Figliulo has worked at WPP Group’s Y&R since late 1999 on accounts such as Sears and Miller Brewing Co., for which the agency handles Miller Genuine Draft. A Y&R representative had no immediate comment.

TBWA\C\D New York’s top clients include Mars (Snickers, Skittles, Starburst, Combos), Biersdorf (Nivea) and Absolut.

At Saatchi, Graf succeeded Tony Granger, who in November resigned to become worldwide cd at Y&R, though he remains at Saatchi, given the one-year notice period in his contract. Sources, however, now expect Granger to join Y&R here in early May.”

Now not being a creative, but knowing plenty about Y&R — what exactly has Y&R Chicago accomplished during Mark’s tenure but stunning client losses?  They are down to one main client, Sears, (which was moved from Y&R New York to the Chicago office during Mark’s reign) and a lot of crickets chirping in the empty office space abandoned when the rest of the client list bailed.

Creative musical chairs are fun — especially when no one really gets kicked off from the contest…and people wonder about the constant state of BDAs

Tony Granger is supposed to be working at Young and Rubicam, but if you recall, that big bad dawg named Kevin Roberts was determined to hold Tony to his contract with Publicis Groupe. The terms of the employment contract would have kept Granger at the agency until this November, a full year after his resignation. However, now that Gerry Graf of TBWA signed on to replace Granger in February, it seems that Roberts is willing to let his grudge go. Seriously though… what made Tony think that unlike everyone else in the world, he wasn’t obligated to be bound by his contract? Hubris is a dangerous thing.

Today, AdAge is reporting that Tony could be out of his contract by the end of April. This situation is kind of like when New York City teachers get put in the Rubber Room. These people have been put on some sort of probationary status and must report to this room every day until the matter is cleared up. Often, they have no idea what they did to be placed in the RR. They get their full paychecks, but the average length of stay is often months and sometimes years. Christ. Now, aren’t you glad you’re in advertising?

Tony has got to be psyched! He’s just in time to run some more fake ads for the awards season. Sweet.

Across the pond, one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s top aides, Spencer Livermore, has resigned his post as a political strategist to join advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. Apparently, Livermore has long been a fan of advertising, as he has been considering a career change for some time. Livermore will report to Robert Senior, UK chief executive of the SSF Group — the newly launched mini-group within Publicis Groupe, which unites Saatchi & Saatchi and Fallon in the US and UK.

If you follow UK politics, you know that Brown has lost some other staffers, as well, but of course, we only care about this one. The call of advertising is still powerful people. Don’t forget we work in a pretty dynamic industry.

[source]

Alcohol companies have selected some new agencies.

Patrón Spirits has gotten a little closer to The Richards Group of Dallas. The shop is now the AOR for Ultimat, a Polish vodka, which Patrón recently acquired. Richards is already running Patrón tequila. Ultimat is an ultra-premium vodka crafted from a blend of three different vodkas — potato, wheat and rye (the only vodka on the market that combines all three).

Miller Brewing moved the creative assignment for Miller Chill beer to Saatchi & Saatchi, New York fromY&R, Chicago. Chill has achieved a 0.3% market share and is charging Saatchi with getting that number up to 0.5% by the end of 2008. We’ve never heard of the stuff, so a little advertising should go a long way, but did you know that Miller Chill is chilltastic? Apparently, so. Check the video above for more details.

Here’s a play off the vile hit video “2 girls, 1 cup” from Saatchi Brussels. We don’t normal post videos from overseas, but we have a weakness for pop culture and recruitment spots, so this is like a perfect storm or something.

Tonight, Saatchi & Saatchi announced the winner of its Award for World-Changing Ideas at big gala event in New York City. Our sister blog, Unbeige, along with judges Edward de Bono, Peter Gabriel, Malcolm McLaren, and Philippe Starck were on hand to hear that the $100K prize went to… LifeStraw, a truly worthy cause.

Lifestraw is a portable, personal, water-purification tool that turns even the dirtiest water into safe drinking water. The gadget can provides safe drinking water for one person for a whole year. For the more than one billion people who lack access to safe drinking water in the developing world, LifeStraw a chance at a healthy and much longer life.

Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone have left TBWA/Chiat/Day/NY for Y&R. The pair is known for their Skittles and Starburst work, which we personally love. You know, Y&R better produce some groundbreaking working this coming year after stealing all these creative types including Tony Granger from Saatchi.

Vitrone told Creativity Online, who broke the story, that:

“We met [Y&R Global CEO] Hamish McLennan in Cannes last year and we just got to talking to him, and he just followed up. We had quite a few meetings with him. It was clear when he hired Tony, and from our conversations, he is 100 percent committed to great creative work.”

And the poaching isn’t over yet. Hamish told the magazine that:

“I think you’ll see more hires across the globe. We’ve taken a view about where we want to take the business and we want to be known for doing brilliant work for all the mediums. This is just the beginning.”

This is just the beginning of Y&R attempting to rebuild their agency. Lots of folks have taken a person from here, another from there to great success. Looking for a new gig? Call Hamish. We hear they’re paying top dollar.

Meanwhile, why don’t they just close TBWA\C\D New York? Isaac Silverglate and Jeff Anderson bailed last week for Droga5. Tony’s gone. Now, these two and let’s not forget that just last month, TBWA\Chiat\Day New York executive creative director Gerry Graf became chief creative officer of Saatchi & Saatchi’s [source]. Note to TBWA: dudes… take his name off your website, yeah? Meanwhile, somewhere Kevin Roberts is just seething that he didn’t snag Reichental and Vitrone, too.

Corey Mitchell, President of the New York office of T\C\D must have concocted an ulcer by now. Are there any creatives left in the TBWA\C\D NY office? The agency still has some bigwigs though. They recently hired Shane Ankeney from Doner to assume the new role of executive director of audience planning. He’s probably wondering if he made the right decision. Executive Director Strategy, Suzanne Powers, who is in charge of new business, should be you know… doing her job or alternatively, looking for an exit strategy. She might be thinking to herself right now - “I never should of left California.” Jamie Gallo, managing director, who was saddled with the Sprint account in 2006, is probably taking it all in stride. He’s seen worse and done a good job for Absolut lately.

Sigh. Seriously… can you imagine the email Mitchell is going to send to staffers tomorrow? Classic.

More: Is W+K Is Flirting With Apple Beneath Chiat’s Nose?