Richter7 announces plan to fight global warming
July 15, 2008
We don’t even know where to start with this… We love when a company that buys pollution generating print media comes up with a global warming strategy that doesn’t involve their core business.
SALT LAKE CITY, July 15 /PRNewswire/ — Richter7, a Salt Lake City-based
advertising and public relations agency, has mandated a “No Long Pants” policy
from July 15 to Aug. 15, 2008, in an effort to keep cool and combat the
effects of global warming.For the four-week period, all employees, from the top brass down to the
newest employee, will be encouraged to wear shorts, capris, skorts, kilts -
anything but long pants — to work until the oppressive heat lets up, even in
professional meetings with clients. Those found wearing long pants will face
the “knickerbocker police,” who will fine offenders a quarter.“We see this as a fun way to beat the heat,” said Dave Newbold, Richter7
president. “I don’t know of any other company that has actually insisted that
all employees not wear long pants to cool down, but it’s in keeping with our
motto to disrupt the status quo.”July 2007 was Utah’s hottest month on record, and August 2007 was
0.1 degree away from matching the hottest August on record. The forecast
through August 2008 doesn’t seem to be cooling down any either, making staying
cool a necessity.In addition, the 40-person agency will buy each employee a pair of shorts
of their choice and will also provide frozen treats for all employees every
time the temperature tops 100 degrees.“This is a huge morale boost for everybody,” said Tim Brown, Richter7
partner in charge of morale boosting. “With everyone cooler, creativity seems
to be at an all-time high. Admittedly, the men in the office are reluctant
because most are shy about displaying their untanned legs, but the women are
huge fans.”Having dominated the creative advertising scene for decades, Richter7 is
known for its environment of creativity.“This is what I love about Richter7,” said Teri Gibson, account
supervisor. “We have crazy surprises constantly, such as live rock band
lunches, parties at movie premieres and now a mandated no-pants policy. The
entire culture here centers on generating creative solutions for our clients.”Established in 1971, Richter7 has been named Utah’s “Best of State”
advertising agency for the past six years and is consistently recognized for
effective advertising, public relations, Web marketing and design for local,
regional and national clients.
Parker : Draft / FCB Fires $7 million dollars worth of payroll
July 15, 2008
This is a freaking disaster for the staffers… it appears that Draft / FCB is firing everyone… Draft has been hit hard with a recent string of stunning losses… and overall has become the target of many media shots in terms of ‘what is going on there’… especially on Parker’s Blog.
Spies tell me that the worst agency in the known universe is laying off 7 million dollars worth of payroll. And, as I hinted in my last post, this is not down to “Louie” deciding he needs new titanium barbells in his private gym… It’s thanks to the Interpublic heavies..
Full Story
These problems are being called the ‘tip of the iceberg’ by many.. and not just focused on Draft… it’s focused Industry wide as the recession is much stronger than what was expected. We have meltdowns in the Financial industry, Car industry, Housing and runaway inflation in gas and energy prices and of course this trickles… scratch that.. waterfalls… into the advertising budgets of all these companies and the ad agencies that are their clients. This is a very hard industry to build up a company in during good times, it’s a nightmare during a recession.
EDIT:
Agency Spy is stating that it’s going to be 8 million dollars of payroll out the door rather than 7…
So that leaves a stapler, a broken printer, Chris Becker and some old yogurt. That and a bag of chips are the makings of great, award winning work.
That Hurts….
BBDO spends money on buying another Traditional Media Firm - Barefoot
July 14, 2008
Attached is the BBDO release. Shouldn’t they be focusing on Interactive rather than more traditional media? Regardless good luck with your purchase BBDO.
NEW YORK, July 14 /PRNewswire/ — BBDO Worldwide announced today that it has acquired Barefoot, Cincinnati’s premier creative advertising agency. The 15-year old agency will become part of BBDO North America and a member of the Proximity Worldwide Network, BBDO’s award-winning global direct and digital marketing network.
“We have been interested in Barefoot for several years,” said Andrew Robertson, President and CEO, BBDO Worldwide. “We’re both about ‘The Work,’ and we have been impressed with how they’ve evolved into a digitally-driven integrated agency. Recently, we’ve had a chance to work together and get to know each other’s organizations. We felt like this was a good time to forge a partnership.”
Said Doug Worple, Barefoot’s Founding Partner and Chief Creative Officer, “In BBDO, we found the kind of people we would want to sit down and have dinner with — which we did. We found a partner who actually treats creative ideas with even greater reverence than we do. Finally, in evaluating potential partners, we wanted someone that would give us the scale to better service our globally focused clients. As part of the BBDO family, we will have opportunities that almost certainly would not have come our way otherwise.”
Under terms of the agreement, Worple will continue to lead Barefoot and will also become a member of the Proximity Worldwide Board. Each of the partners of Barefoot will stay with the company and continue to hold shares in the agency.
About Barefoot
Founded in 1993, Barefoot (www.thinkbarefoot.com) is one of the fastest-growing agencies in the country. Barefoot has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies, making it onto the magazine’s inaugural “Inc. 5000. list. Also earlier this year, Worple was honored with an Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year” award in Cincinnati.
About BBDO
BBDO Worldwide is part of Omnicom Group Inc. NYSE: OMC (www.omnicomgroup.com). In 2008, BBDO was named Network of the Year at the International Advertising Festival in Cannes for the second year in a row as well as winner of The Gunn Report as the most awarded agency network in the world for the second consecutive year. In addition, BBDO was chosen Advertising Network of the Year by Campaign magazine for the second time in the past three years. To top it off, BBDO was the #1 ranked global agency network according to The Big Won across every major communication discipline ranging from above-the-line to below-the-line, online and offline.
Young & Rubicam forces Sears into lawsuit and loses
July 13, 2008
What a mess .. the Young & Rubicam advertising agency forces Sears into a plastic turkey wishbone lawsuit… to the tune of nearly 2 million bucks…
From the article:
“They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar this time… They kept claiming independent creation and never presented any evidence.”
And for the meat of the article:
A federal jury this past week awarded the Southwest Seattle company $1.7 million after concluding Sears and its advertising agency, New York-based Young & Rubicam, misappropriated its copyrighted design for a plastic turkey wishbone. Full Story
That’s pretty bad overall…. for heavens sake make something original for once….
Draft FCB taking small accounts now
July 11, 2008
Isn’t this a small account to be bragging about? Mostly because they didn’t even get to keep all the billables.. because Initiative will be doing the media planning and buying…. for the already smallish account…. evidently they fought tooth and nail in a 3 way bid to get it…
Luxury hotel group Dorchester Collection has appointed Draft FCB as its first advertising agency ahead of a celebrity-led campaign later this year.
Draft won the £2.1m (about $4 million USD) account after a three-way pitch against two undisclosed agencies. It has also appointed Initiative to handle media planning and buying.
Blast Radius layoffs - Employees filing unemployment
July 11, 2008
We just caught wind of the Blast Radius layoffs via Agency Spy.. a considerable number of creatives … and then this part of the post:
Here’s the question: Where are all these (and other recent layoffs) going to go? Seriously!
That’s the scary part… in the start of a serious recession, gas prices hitting the roof, energy prices skyrocketing, a banking crash and car maker disaster (Ford is still running ads talking about how their trucks can suck down gas like no tomorrow) ….. it’s starting to make the 1970′s look tame… The Advertising industry is in the middle of a transformation where everything from Media Purchases are automated via Adwords and AdPlanner.. to tracking ROI ….. taking humans out of the equation for almost all but just creative (and even simple creative is partially automated now) … The dwindling marketing dollars are being allocated to smaller firm with less overhead as budget decreases are forcing massive changes.
This is going to be a very very cold winter.
Google to Microsoft : Back off from Yahoo
July 10, 2008
It appears that Google is now taking a firm stance against any Yahoo and Microsoft merger… they have been fairly quiet until now… and one must remember that Yahoo is now running Google Adsense.. (no kidding)… so Google is not fighting for ‘freedom of choice’ in the industry … they are fighting so that they don’t lose the new found revenue from Yahoo…
An independent Yahoo Inc is better for business, Google Inc Chief Executive told reporters on Thursday, saying a combination with Microsoft Corp would be anti-competitive Full Story
Advertising Agency JWT to launch Negative Campaign for Microsoft targeting Apple, Linux
July 10, 2008
For about 1/2 a decade now Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign that has taken some good pot-shots at Windows and other Microsoft products, Microsoft is preparing to fight back, with a negative campaign of its own.
It will be run by JWT and rumors have started flying regarding it’s primary target Apple, but a shocker to many.. Linux…. in focus Ubuntu Linux was supposedly one of the targets of this new campaign. For years Microsoft just ignored the OS… and the ‘geeks who use it’ … but it appears as Apple and Linux are both making drastic inroads in the desktop market… Microsoft now feels that a negative campaign is a valid strategy….
Apples will be supposedly targeted regarding how expensive they are… and for Linux.. ‘ease of use’ …
An insider (that refused to go on the record) stated “terminal” for Linux and “empty wallets” for Apple were supposedly the themes…
Few sources are now talking about it…
The Wieden + Kennedy billion dollar miss for a year - part 2
July 10, 2008
Evidently the fact that Wieden + Kennedy was denied revenue from a a billion dollar account for a year (Nike) due to lack of SEO / Digital got people up in arms… mostly because it appears to be factual.. as our readers have so protested (you got to read the comments).. to the point where they ignore the fact that they lost revenue on a nearly 2 billion dollar account for a year.. because they had no in house SEO ability, one commenter went as far as saying ‘we hired some guy to fix it’ … (you should see the adweak article he linked to).
Enjoy..
Wieden + Kennedy lost a $1.74 billion dollar account last year over lack of SEO and Digital
July 10, 2008
We have no idea how we missed this one… pretty amazing to see the then $1.74 billion Nike account go because W+K didn’t know how Google worked… and didn’t spend a few million buying a strong SEO / Digital firm to save the staggering $1.74 billion dollar account. A Few Million to save 2 Billion.. a monkey could of made the proper decision… hopefully they will learn… but we have yet to see any news regarding them purchasing an SEO firm to save accounts like this or obtain new business.
Crispin picked up Nike’s running and Nike+ business last April, after sources said the client grew frustrated with the digital capabilities of its longtime agency partner, Wieden + Kennedy
Full Story
They’ll learn one day… or a new breed of firms will teach them.
Note: There is a part 2 to this story
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