Hasta La Creative!

mcgarrybowen made a series of layoffs in its New York office today.

The agency’s statement:

“Our clients’ businesses are constantly evolving, and we, as their agency partner, must be well positioned to meet those needs. As such, we made staffing adjustments in our New York office today to right size our team.”

According to a spokesperson, these cuts affected less than 10 percent of total staff in Manhattan–and while we have no information on the reason for the move at this moment, the agency tells us that it had nothing to do with its ongoing work for Verizon.

Verizon did make quite a few changes to its agency roster in the months leading up to its $4.4 billion acquisition of AOL: the telecoms giant signed W+K in January, followed by shifting more of its sponsorship/entertainment work to Momentum Worldwide, and began reviewing its “digital agency support.” This translated to a loss for several of its agency partners; in April, CMO Joe Saracino of Erwin Penland (himself a former Verizon employee) discussed a series of layoffs that followed a change in that agency’s relationship with the client.

mcgarrybowen CMO Brandon Cooke, however, is quick to dispel misconceptions regarding the account. He writes:

“The rumor that we no longer work with Verizon or will no longer work with them is absolutely not true. We continue to work with Verizon as their wireless network creative agency and have not been informed otherwise.”

No word on when Verizon will release its newest campaign.