Hasta La Creative!

Back in December, we wrote about The Cast Station’s casting call for a Cadillac “Real People” ad searching to fill a role for an “Alt-Right (Neo-Nazi)”, specifying the call was in search of  “REAL Alt-Right believers/thinkers.” Following social media backlash to the casting call, and a statement from Cadillac condemning it the casting call The Cast Station claimed sole responsibility in a Facebook apology. In the apology, the casting company claimed that Cadillac (and presumably its agency Publicis) had not authorized the call and that it was rather “issued by mistake,” by “an employee, who was immediately terminated for her actions.”

A source identified the “immediately terminated” employee as New York, Chicago and Atlanta casting director Skylar Rote.

Now it seems something about the stories doesn’t add up.

Rote appears to still be with The Cast Station. She is still listed on The Cast Station’s contact page as a casting director in New York, Chicago and Atlanta. Her name also appeared on a recent casting call for a Beneful spot in the Austin area posted on the Corpus Christi Area Film Casting and Production Facebook page.

Clearly, this raises a few questions.

If our source was incorrect and Rote was not the employee that The Cast Station claims is solely responsible for posting the casting call, who is, and why was the call issued by someone other than the casting director? If, however, The Cast Station decided the casting call in question did not merit the termination of the employee who issued it, why did they claim the employee was “immediately terminated for her actions” and was there in fact outside authorization for the casting call in question?

We’ve reached out to Publicis and The Cast Station, but have yet to receive a response.

Publicis Communications recently raised some eyebrows with the latest step in its ongoing effort to remove as many of the dreaded “silos” as possible by arranging its agencies’ P&L (profit and loss) reports by country rather than by network.

This means, for example, that all of Publicis creative entities in the U.K. report to Saatchi & Saatchi CEO Robert Senior, acting in his capacity as a leader of the Communications group in that country rather than his role atop the Saatchi organization.

And it’s not just Publicis.

On September 15, sources tell us that Ogilvy & Mather global CEO John Seifert, who was named Miles Young’s successor back in January, sent out an all-staff memo essentially announcing that his agency would begin doing the same thing.

In what amounted to his formal introduction after assuming the roles of global CEO and chairman of the WPP shop at the beginning of this month, Seifert praised Young’s work and expressed optimism about the future of the Ogilvy brand while announcing that it would, moving forward, operate as one interlocking network in North America with all offices across disciplines (creative, media, PR, etc.) moving to the single P&L model.

As is the case with Publicis, it’s not quite clear at the moment how this shift will affect Ogilvy agencies in terms of day to day operations, and we do not currently know who will lead the North American entity.

But Seifert acknowledged in his memo that change — especially on this scale — can often be difficult, implying that the consolidation could lead to some trimming of the operational fat across Ogilvy’s many North American offices.

The general consensus among our tipsters holds that Seifert, like Arthur Sadoun at Publicis, is trying to “shake up” a model seen as staid and even antiquated. Arranging offices and teams by continent would theoretically allow for greater collaboration and ability to attend to specific clients — a sentiment that recalls talk surrounding the creation of Omnicom’s as-yet-unnamed McDonald’s unit in Chicago.

Ogilvy employees, however, still have some key questions. Chief among them: Who will be in charge? How will the resulting hierarchy operate, and how will the inevitable wins and losses be distributed?

Today Cheil Worldwide moved to replace Peter Kim as chief executive officer of The Barbarian Group after just over 8 months.

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of the matter tell us that the announcement was made in an all-staff meeting this morning. The agency’s new chief executive will be Aaron Lau, former president and CEO of Cheil’s operations in China.

In an email forwarded to us today, Lau confirmed that he will serve as interim CEO while Cheil seeks to “rebuild” Barbarian Group after the departure of most of its senior leadership.

An ongoing executive-level shakeup at the New York agency began late last year, when former CEO Sophie Kelly was terminated and replaced with Kim. He had been the larger Cheil organization’s chief digital officer in Seoul, South Korea after holding positions at Razorfish, R/GA and Forrester Research, among others. One former Barbarian employee who worked closely with Kim describes him as “a theorist, not a leader.”

At the time, a statement from Cheil called the transition “seamless for all parties involved” and stated, “we look forward to a successful 2016.”

In March, Barbarian Group chairman Ben Palmer was pushed out of the organization he co-founded after 14 years. Several additional agency leaders including chief creative officer Edu Pou, owner Keith Butters and others followed Palmer less than two months later after a round of contract negotiations with the organization’s new leadership.

Lau has extensive experience leading agencies and consultancies in Southeast Asia. Cheil acquired his shop Bravo China in 2012 and folded it into the Cheil China Group, at which point he became president and CEO of Cheil Greater China; that move came one month after the holding company purchased North Carolina’s McKinney for an estimated $50 million. Lau previously served as CEO and chairman of DDB’s operations in China, and last August he was promoted to president of international at Cheil Worldwide.

Barbarian Group does not currently retain an internal or external PR team. We have reached out to Cheil Worldwide and its U.S. spokesperson for comment and will update this post if and when we receive a response.

Image via Clive Wilkinson Architects

Reliable sources tell us this week that the New York offices of TBWAChiatDay recently won a creative review for work related to the Pepsi brand.

PepsiCo did not announce this review, but the company has made some recent changes to its agency lineup. Last September, former AOR BBDO rekindled its relationship with the main Pepsi brand by way of a spot starring unlikely spokesperson and Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch. This was BBDO’s first work for the parent brand in 7 years since TBWA won lead creative duties in a 2008 review, and it arrived before the agency won Tropicana.

Last month, Pepsi also named VML as the new AOR for its Brisk Tea line, which had previously been with The Barbarian Group. (As we understand it, the latter agency will continue to play some role on the Brisk account for the immediate future.) In May, the soft drink giant announced the opening of its own “state of the art content studio” in Manhattan.

A TBWA spokesperson declined to comment for this post, and PepsiCo’s PR department has not responded to multiple email queries and phone calls this week.

For that reason, the scope of the TBWA win and the nature of the work it will eventually produce is not clear at this time. But we did learn of the win from a party with direct knowledge of the matter. We also hear that Erik Vervroegen, the former Publicis Groupe international CCO who became global head of art for the TBWA network last month, has begun hiring creatives to work on the Pepsi business. Vervroegen and former TBWA South Africa colleague/current global creative president Chris Garbutt will supposedly collaborate on the account and related staffing efforts in the New York office.

Pepsi’s recent advertising efforts for its main brand have been nostalgic: The company brought Crystal Pepsi back from the dead with Barbarian Group’s help last year. It also revisited the classic 1992 BBDO Cindy Crawford ad in a recent Millennial reboot and ran some emoji-focused spots earlier this year with the help of its various global agency partners.

Walmart ended its relationship with The Martin Agency today after nearly a decade. CEO Matt Williams announced the loss in all all-staff meeting this morning.

A Martin Agency spokesperson writes, “As of September, we will no longer be working with Walmart on their advertising. We’ve worked with them since 2007 and are very proud of the work we’ve done together and wish them the best.”

This news supports an AdAge report from earlier today indicating that Publicis Groupe has created a new, as yet unnamed entity to handle all of the monster retail chain’s creative and in-store advertising.

The Martin Agency first won the Walmart business in January 2007 as part of a review that also saw the media portion of the account go to Publicis Groupe’s MediaVest.

There was no review in this case, and the decision did not concern Walmart’s media account, which went to WPP’s GroupM in March after the arrival of CMO Tony Rodgers (who had run the company’s business in China). MediaVest subsequently laid off more than 80 employees in a move that representatives strongly implied was not related to the Walmart loss.

Saatchi & Saatchi will now apparently inherit the majority of Walmart’s creative work. The Publicis agency became a Walmart roster shop after winning a review in late 2013 and launched its first campaign in February 2014 as part of an Olympics tie-in.

That news came only months after Andy Murray, founder and former CEO of shopper marketing division Saatchi & Saatchi X, joined the Arkansas-based company as SVP of creative. He currently retains that title. Walmart initially brought on Saatchi & Saatchi X in 2006 to handle in-store and shopper marketing, with the agency eventually becoming something resembling a dedicated shop.

Representatives for Walmart and Publicis Groupe have not yet responded to our requests for comment.

The chain spent nearly a billion dollars on measured media last year according to Kantar Media.

Earlier this month, we reported that Twitter had no upcoming projects scheduled with TBWAChiatDay L.A. and that the client and agency had effectively ended their somewhat brief relationship.

A source within the Twitter organization has now confirmed that the social network recently issued an RFP to several unnamed agencies. The RFP closed several days ago, the competing agencies have been chosen and the formal review has begun.

Jack Dorsey’s company first sought an agency partner late last year as part of a campaign promoting “Moments,” its latest attempt to increase user engagement in the interest of more effectively monetizing the service. Business Insider broke the news that TBWA had won the pitch, though no one officially confirmed this fact. Twitter also partnered with U.K.-based agency Lucky Generals last year according to our overseas contacts, but the agency does not appear to have created a full campaign for the company.

As noted in the BI post, TBWA was not officially named Twitter’s agency of record. We have heard from multiple sources that the shop won project-based work, and it is not clear at this time whether the current review concerns more of the same. Earlier this month an agency spokesperson said that Twitter remained one of TBWA’s clients, but that no longer appears to be the case.

The first campaign from TBWA launched last October, and it tied the new “Moments” feature to the Major League Baseball World Series. Approximately two months after that campaign went live, the agency parted ways with the creative director who led the Twitter account.

At this time, we do not know how many agencies are participating or which shops those might be. We have reached out to contacts at Twitter and TBWA but have yet to receive a response.

On an unrelated note, Dorsey and other parties also provided funding for the launch of San Francisco-based design/consulting firm West several years ago. After we posted on the arrival of new managing partner Joanna Rees, a PR contact from Dorsey’s other company, Square, reached out to clarify that he is no longer directly involved with the West organization.

Multiple sources tell us today that TBWAChiatDay L.A. and Twitter have parted ways after a relatively brief relationship.

The social network picked the Omnicom shop to create its first-ever TV campaign late last year, with all related reports stating that there would be no agency of record relationship as Twitter hired TBWA to work on a per-project basis.

The campaign in question debuted during last year’s Major League Baseball World Series in order to promote “Moments,” a regularly updated trending topics feature designed to bring more casual users into the Twitter fold by way of GIFs, videos and other fun stuff that’s very different than much of the gutter clutter that clogs the average politically-minded user’s feed. Specifically, this work targeted two of the five groups Twitter wants to reach: sports enthusiasts and 18-24-year-old women, also known as “social connectors.”

A TBWA spokesperson told us that the tech company officially remains on the agency’s client roster but that the two do not currently have any future projects lined up. But we have heard from other sources–one of whom is an agency employee–that TBWA will no longer create campaigns for Twitter moving forward and that the relationship has effectively ended.

Approximately two months after the baseball campaign launched, TBWA parted ways with creative director Chris Ribeiro, who had led the Twitter account since the agency first won the assignment last September.

Among social networks, Jack Dorsey’s company faces unique challenges in turning its service profitable. Former CEO Dick Costolo agreed to step down just over one year ago as Dorsey moved back into the leadership role at Twitter, and since then the company’s stock value has declined by more than 60 percent. While Twitter remains incredibly popular and influential among certain groups–especially those who work in media–Snapchat officially passed the network in daily usage earlier this month.

It’s unclear at this time whether Twitter plans to launch additional TV campaigns or whether it will seek the services of another creative ad agency. The company’s PR department declined to comment for this post.

Alexei Orlov, who currently serves as global CEO of Omnicom direct marketing agency RAPP, made headlines earlier this month when the agency’s former U.S. president Greg Andersen filed a lawsuit accusing Orlov of discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination.

Andersen alleges that he was fired by the CEO in April for reporting complaints made by multiple employees about Orlov to HR, management and Omnicom’s in-house legal team. According to the full suit, these complaints concerned instances of aggressive behavior displayed by Orlov toward subordinates within the agency. In one example, the suit claims that Orlov refused Andersen’s suggestion that he promote a female executive, stating that she was “too pretty” to be taken seriously.

Orlov remains RAPP’s chief executive as Andersen’s suit makes its way through the legal system–but according to a source who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, RAPP is not the first agency at which employees filed complaints against him.

Earlier in his career, Orlov held top marketing roles at Avon and Volvo before launching his own branding agency and eventually moving to WPP’s Wunderman, where he worked from 2000 to 2008 and held the title of executive vice chairman. This appointment came after WPP acquired the agency he started, and Orlov reportedly often made mention of his personal relationship with CEO Sir Martin Sorrell.

Spokespeople for Wunderman and WPP declined to comment for this story. We have also reached out to RAPP several times over the past two days to request comment from Orlov himself but have yet to receive a response.

Orlov oversaw Wunderman’s Detroit operations for some time, and in 2008 he flew in from New York to attend an event with 75 to 100 attendees including clients and employees of that agency and WPP’s Team Detroit. According to a source who was present at the time, Orlov’s goal was to introduce himself to clients and give an inspirational speech to staffers. But the event took an awkward turn.

During an extended, wide-ranging address which began by focusing on Team Detroit’s business, Orlov allegedly moved on to topics unrelated to the agency. According to our source, at some point during the speech he recalled a “fat black mama” that he once encountered at a Chicago-area jazz club. The source recalls that Orlov then pointed toward a female, African-American employee in the audience and said something along the lines of “you know what I mean.”

Later during the same speech, Orlov allegedly referenced the 2007 armed conflict in Lebanon, describing the repeated bombing of Beirut before turning to an employee of Middle Eastern descent and again voicing some variation on “you understand.”

The woman mentioned above was allegedly offended by Orlov’s speech and filed a formal complaint with the agency’s HR department. According to our source, both Wunderman CEO Daniel Morel (who currently serves as non-executive chairman) and Sorrell himself were involved in the follow-up process. At this time, it is unclear whether the subsequent review only concerned the complaint made by the employee mentioned above.

After completing its internal investigation, WPP reportedly corroborated the employee’s story, and Orlov subsequently resigned. Our source tells us that Orlov briefly addressed the investigation on his personal Facebook page, calling it “a witch hunt” before deleting the post. He later became a senior partner at IPG before moving to China to lead Volkswagen’s marketing efforts in Southeast Asia and eventually assuming the CEO role at RAPP in 2014.

In writing this story, we reached out to multiple staffers who worked with Orlov at Wunderman and/or Team Detroit at the time of his departure, but each declined to be interviewed.

Today we hear from reliable sources that San Francisco’s VB&P is one of several agencies that have been contacted in recent weeks by the staff of former Senator, Secretary of State and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. (In case you missed it, she is currently running for President of the United States for the second time.)

The Clinton campaign appears to have very specific taste in agency partners. Last November– approximately one year before the 2016 presidential election–spokespeople confirmed to The New York Times that the operation had chosen Droga5 to work on an unspecified project that turned out to be a series of spots starring individual women who explained their plans to vote for Hillary this fall. The Clinton organization is not like most clients, and it did not launch a formal review before reaching out to Droga5.

Various outlets also reported in November that the Clinton campaign chose Chicago’s Burrell Communications to work on a series of campaigns targeting African-American voters. David Droga himself later promoted his agency’s work on an ad called “Children” which compiled footage of the candidate restating her dedication to the titular Americans throughout her more than 30-year political career.

Details regarding the campaign’s current outreach efforts are quite sparse at the moment, as is expected. But we hear from multiple parties that Venables was one of the shops contacted by the organization. Tipsters tell us the ads we eventually see as part of a project that allegedly goes by the code name “Dragon Slayer” will be directed against one Donald J. Trump and that they may depict the man with the dubious hair as a divisive and even hateful character. However one may feel about the prospective candidates, it’s hardly a stretch to imagine that theme running through Clinton’s TV and digital efforts as we move closer to Election Day.

If VB&P ends up working for Clinton in an official capacity, the news would mark its first definitive move into the political arena. But the subject is not new to creative director Lee Einhorn: in a December 2015 Q&A with AdAge, he mentioned meeting then-Senator John Kerry while discussing a potential role in the latter’s ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign.

A VB&P spokesperson declined to comment for this post. The Clinton campaign’s PR department has not responded to multiple emails and phone calls today.

It’s also unclear at the moment whether the Clinton organization will continue working with Droga5 on future advertising efforts.

Back in March, AdAge reported that Beats by Dre–the premium headphone brand started by one Andre Young and sold to Apple in 2014 for the super cheap price of $3 billion–would be reaching out to various agencies as it continues its international expansion under the leadership of marketing VP Jason White.

Today, reliable sources tell us that New York’s Anomaly has won the subsequent review.

According to sources for the initial story, the client’s agency outreach is related to its plans to sell more premium headphones overseas. White, who previously ran the global Nike account for Wieden+Kennedy and managed its Shanghai office, will reportedly see his role at the company expand moving forward as well. Sources tell us that CMO Omar Johnson, who according to AdAge will become more involved in promoting Apple Music in conjunction with the Beats brand, has actively worked to help guide the creative direction of its past and present campaigns.

Beats has a longstanding relationship with R/GA, which was not involved in this review. We also hear that 72andSunny was among the agencies in the initial group considered by Beats before it eventually went with Anomaly.

Late last year we learned of a series of departures within the creative department at Hustle, the L.A. unit of the IPG network that handled some aspects of the Beats work. This time, however, we hear that the addition of another agency to the Beats roster will not affect its relationship with R/GA, whose London office has driven creative on most of the brand’s biggest efforts to date aside from those produced by its own in-house team.

An R/GA spokesperson declined to comment for this post. Anomaly and the Beats organization itself have not yet responded to our queries.