Condé Nast Digital cans 10% (30 people fired)
April 3, 2009
Condé Nast Digital, which cobbled together all it’s online operation in January has fired another 30 people, or 10%, of its 300-man work force.
It’s been a mass firing week at Condé Nast, which sent most of its receptionists to the street on Tuesday and fired more in its Condé Nast Media Group.
It’s been a rough year so far for Condé Nast, layoff after layoff and no end in sight for the company.
30 iCrossing employees fired
April 1, 2009
Agency Spy is reporting that 30 iCrossing employees have just been fired in the latest round of layoffs in the agency… this is on top of a mass firing that took place a few months ago.
iCrossing has been seeing pretty bad days recently, layoffs after layoffs and a lawsuit with Agency.Com is draining resources from the company at an alarming pace.
advertising agency BBH offers paycut instead of layoffs
March 31, 2009
BBH, the advertising agency, is hoping to avoid the mass firings that their competitor advertising agencies have been using as standard practice for this recession / depression.
BBH’s offer is to give their employees a paycut instead. BBH has asked about 400 employees to vote on whether to take nine days’ unpaid leave this year. In essence a forced vacation without pay rather than be fired.
We suspect in this environment the employees will take the offer… and chances are most of them will be grateful that they lost 9 days of pay rather than 365 days of pay a year.
It’s ugly out there… really ugly. It’s not anything that most individuals have seen in their lifetime. It’s worse than the 1970′s .. it’s worse than the early 1980′s.. and it makes 2001-2002 look like a walk in the park.
The problem with this recession is the long term nature of it. It’s not a quick 6 month downturn.. it’s been going on for years now, with no end in sight. Example headlines from today.
Sun-Times Media Group files for Chapter 11
New GM CEO says more plants could close
U.S. home prices crash record 19 percent
Consumer confidence near record lows
Does this sound like life will get better? Possibility, because you have to hit bottom before any recovery takes place… and the debate is “where’s the bottom” … we can’t find it.
Getting Through Tough Economic Times
March 30, 2009
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services is spending money developing a website telling people people not to cry and be sad over the economy being in the toilet. The Department of Health & Human Services is to offer an online emotional rescue kit. “Getting Through Tough Economic Times” will launch Tuesday with a media push across all platforms. Yet the Advertising Agency that was responsible for this PR disaster was not released in the leaked report…. because clearly some Advertising firm just got a major bailout package.
The waste of taxpayer website is meant to help people identify health concerns related to financial worries. The feds will warn of depression, suicidal thinking and other serious mental illnesses. It will raise warning flags for: Persistent sadness/crying; Excessive anxiety; Lack of sleep/constant fatigue; Excessive irritability/anger.
Because of course people will turn to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services when thinking of killing themselves… rather than calling 911 or a friend or family member to call 911…
The guide will be available starting at midnight at http://www.samhsa.gov/economy
Fight breaks out over GM Recession
March 30, 2009
Tempers and fist fights at a GM dealership, closing its doors Friday. The anger of losing their jobs boiled over into at least two fist fights at the lot… threatening reporters. This is what America is starting to look like due to this recession. The words “foreclosed” and “losing my job” were repeated several times.
It’s ugly out there… really ugly..
George Parker Slams Matt over ad agency unions
March 28, 2009
George Parker has slammed Matt at MediaBistro.. over guess what… Ad Agency Unions… Calling Matt a Fucktard Cretinous Douchenozzle .. the problem is that Matt wasn’t actually wrong… but he wasn’t actually right either… same with Parker’s criticisms.
There is a need for unions… prior to them showing up there was epic abuses of employees… but what makes this interesting is that many rules have been added since those days.. for example working conditions have improved dramatically for employees… but much of that is due to OSHA as well the unions..
Unions still have a place.. but not exactly the same need they had in the 1930′s.. let’s face it in many cases the unions have done far more damage than good… a prime example is Bethlehem Steel. The company went bankrupt in the early 2000′s… but at one point it was listed on the DOW .. it was a shining example of American manufacturing… Unions had their fair share of the blame for the company downfall. The Union had Bethlehem Steel’s hourly wages so high that they were paying their employees nearly 14x the same rate that non-union employees were getting… forcing the company to charge so much for the steel that the company had to close down… laying off all the union and non-union employees…. in essence their union lost them their jobs.
The UAW now is facing similar levels of heat. US car companies pay their employees much more than Toyota or Honda… and the crisis in Detroit is a refection of the UAW’s prime work.. the destruction of the US auto manufacturing base.
Not that all unions are bad… but some are… don’t rush to defend or praise.. because honestly it’s highly dependent on how how both the company and union are run. If it’s like Bethlehem Steel’s union then it’s a disaster .. … if it’s run just to make sure everyone gets their hours fully counted for each paycheck then that’s something entirely different and a just reason for a union.
Some advice for advertising agency WPP group plc
March 27, 2009
Here’s some real advice, and the problem is actually structural Sir Martin. Stop duplication of your advertising agency assets.. call yourself WPP group plc and not Ogilvy, Enfatico and 20 other agencies within walking distances of each other in the New York alone with the hopes that Dell will jump ship from WPP Enfatico and move to WPP Ogilvy because the names are different.
Right now your paying rent to hundreds of thousands of square feet that you are not using. Nor will you ever use. So to pay the rent you fired the people that were supposed to occupy that rented space. Get your one big office per city… and be done with it.. not 20 offices 2 feet from each other… all of them 3/4th empty. You have 10 year leases on 3 year contracts… this has to stop.
Seriously think about what you are doing… you have multiple brand names… each of them tarnished with layoffs that show signs of gross management incompetence. All in the same city…. paying multiple phone bills.. multiple internet bills.. multiple heating and cooling bills.. multiple everything… for what… so you can have a different sign over the door in the hopes that Dell will leave Enfatico and move to Oglivy?
For an Advertising Agency you seem not to know when you need to re-brand yourself.
What you didn’t think we had a camera in your office when you were planning on firing everyone?
Blockbuster is dead
March 26, 2009
Blockbuster has unveiled a plan to demand on-demand movies to TiVo users. Putting the uninnovative company with a long list of competitors, such as Netflix, Hulu, CBS.com and other online sites.. basically every site in the searchelection index (a site that uses Google to index content providers for TV shows and Movies).
This is bad overall, the problem is that Blockbuster as a company has very little options. Their retail video business is dying… they have very little in terms of revenue stream from other sources. In essence the company has little in terms of options. In our opinion they have a horrific online presence.
Years ago the joke used to be “the only people making money are the guys at blockbuster and u-haul… U-Haul because everyone was moving out… and blockbuster because the movie theater shut down”… now people can’t sell their house to move… and Blockbuster is in trouble.. not because the movie theater is open.. but rather because there are about 2000 other ways to get your movies and videos.
They tarnished their names in the 80′s and 90′s with a million surcharges… late fees.. and everything else under the sun… now they are trying to repair their name .. change their business model… and change their image… at the same time trying to get out of retail… all during the mother of all recessions..
I predict they won’t see 2010 …
Many people just hit the “on demand button” on their remote control to see a movie… or they turn their browser to Hulu.com… perhaps a good question to ask yourself… when was the last time you were in Blockbuster? This parking lot is on a Saturday afternoon…. notice something… we don’t.
WPP GROUP PLC - downgraded to negative
March 25, 2009
It appears that WPP group plc is now downgraded to negative. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services took the first step toward a possible downgrade of U.K.-based advertising agency WPP PLC (WPPGY), saying earnings weakness will hinder efforts to pare debt. This is French for more firings, more downsizing and more bad times ahead for employees.
It also cut WPP’s short-term ratings one notch to A-3.
Lowering its rating outlook on WPP group plc to negative “reflects our view that the significant deterioration of economic and advertising conditions worldwide may lead to significantly slower-than-expected deleveraging at WPP, and even to increased leverage in the short term,” said S&P credit analyst Melvyn Cooke.
The ad giant’s balance sheet is burdened by its mainly debt-financed acquisitions in pretty much the wrong industries. It allocated huge sums to purchase firms that have limited experience online or the wrong experience online.
It’s what happens when your “future ad agency” misses the future.
The impending downgrade will limit their ability to raise funds on decent terms. Story is developing…
Morgan Stanley : WPP Group plc is screwed
March 13, 2009
Morgan Stanley is on record for stating that WPP group plc will lose 12% of it’s revenue over the next 18 months. A 7% hit in revenue for 2009 and another 5% per cent crash in 2010, implying a deep and prolonged global recession. Nearly 1% decline per month over the next 2 years.
This will have profound repercussions throughout the company, as clearly they didn’t fire 12% of their staff, they didn’t cut back 12% in expenses and they didn’t invest properly in digital media .. in fact they spent money on the wrong assets leaving WPP group plc with a gaping hole the size of Texas for the skillset needed during a recession / depression.
They are firing people right and left now and refusing to go into higher ROI assets that could be key to landing new accounts. In other words they are really heading down the wrong path.
This is going to be a really ugly 2 years, really ugly.
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