Hasta La Creative!

Back in January, Ogilvy & Mather appointed 37-year agency veteran John Seifert as its new global CEO. Seifert succeeded Miles Young in the role, who remained with the agency as worldwide chairman until the beginning of this month, when Seifert succeeded him in that role as well. Young left the agency to become Warden of Fellows of New College at Oxford University. 

Seifert, who originally joined Ogilvy as an intern in 1979, told Campaign in a recent interview that he plans to focus on the agency’s heritage going forward.

“I think we have one brand and that’s Ogilvy. Over time, we have created lots of different entities that have Ogilvy in their name. But in a world that has got so complicated and so fragmented, I’m not sure that all those different entities signal to the market the brand promise of Ogilvy,” Seifert told the publication, which pointed out that he will be the last CEO of the company to have worked with all eight of its previous chairman, including founder David Ogilvy.

That focus on the agency’s heritage, Seifert admits, will include a simplification of the agency’s offerings. This summer’s closing of Ogilvy Labs could be seen as the beginning of that process.

“We’re still working on what the right brand naming is in the modern marketing world but I know it will be different from what it is today,” he told Campaign, before clarifying, “we are not going to dumb things down.”

Other areas Seifert will focus on changing include increasing agency diversity and digital transformation.

“I want to be the most diverse and inclusive group of employees worldwide,” he said. “More than 50% of our senior managers are going to be women. We’re going to have many more multicultural leaders who represent the world.”

And Sefiert plans to work fast on implementing his changes. “I’ve had 37 years of training to be the CEO,” he told Campaign. “We’re going to move fast.”

It’s worth noting that Ogilvy currently leads agency networks in terms of global revenue according to consultancy R3, though last month that company’s principal Greg Paull told us, “They’re not number one in the U.S. by any means, but it’s about diversity of markets. There are so many dots on the map and so many ways to expand client relationships.”

For more, check out Campaign’s video interview with Seifert below.

Numbers have not been revealed but all day, we’ve been hearing from multiple tipsters that anywhere from 50-100 staffers have been affected by reductions today at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. But from what those familiar with the matter tell us, the numbers skew to the lower side and are not in the realm of the Sprint cuts. Anyways, read the San Francisco agency’s co-founder Jeff Goodby‘s note that was just sent to staff verbatim:

“You’ve heard the financial reasons for reducing our staff.  I just want to talk a bit about the human side of it all.

Please be assured: No one takes this process lightly.

As we often say, advertising is all about people and accounts.  David Ogilvy wrote, ‘The assets go up and down in our elevator every day.’  It is so true.  We value our people, and our humanistic environment, more than anything.

Strangely, that’s why, when we lose business or have cuts in fee, it is important to react thoughtfully, but expeditiously.  Companies that don’t are not prepared for the future, and they don’t serve the people who are still on staff.  They endanger present and future jobs.

We are optimistic about our plan to move forward, in terms of serving present accounts and getting new ones, and will share details next week. But we are also thankful for and deeply appreciative of the contributions of people who are leaving.

We will do everything to find them new situations.  And if history is any indication, we will find ourselves welcoming some of them back in the future.

Thanks for your patience about all this.

JG”

Perhaps JD Beebe can create a follow-up to this?

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