DISQUS

Ready and Packed · 1 year ago

True.
True.
True.
Unfortunately, the employees at BBDO can't see this website at work because it was blocked by the IT dept.
Good thinking, Joe!

sureIremember · 1 year ago

BBDO?

I long for the days of Bozell and GOOD Jeep creative.

The days when Vogel would call up and tell everyone it was "too nice" or "too cold" to work then send everyone home for some R&R. When everyone got a 15 lbs. turkey. And when good creative was appreciated.

Of course, Vogel is also the guy who gave a speech telling us he told Chrysler they couldn't just raid FCB for it's creative talent.

And then he was the first to jump ship to BBDO.

Fudgey Aussie Pants · 1 year ago

what about the email the CEO sent out a couple of weeks ago saying that times at Chrysler were trying, but...
"our Chrysler clients have assured us that we remain a vital partner in their path to recovery."

Oh, that email disappeared from everyone's mailboxes?

Brilliant.
No proof. No trail. No job.

Fudgey Aussie Pants · 1 year ago

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!
...okay. The place sucks anyways.

U. R. Dismissed · 1 year ago

The whole place fell apart when Vogel was let go as the CEO.
The agency was behind the man because he was truthful, honest and genuinely cared about the people he led. He came from a military background, and it was very apparent in the way he conducted himself. The agency never recovered from his departure, and the Detroit office will soon be boarded up.

The new men in charge should take a look at what they have done. It's basically nothing. They have dismantled the place by releasing people they thought were unnecessary. In the end, the place is sinking quickly, and they are looking around for someone to blame. They will soon realize that they are the only ones left and attack each other. Unfortunately, the XXX is the most powerful and the others will be offed.. He will be left alone, and with nobody left to blame, he will...oh, shit, I just got the email requesting my presence in a 10:45am meeting tomorrow morning.

edgar · 1 year ago

Actually, the place went to hell when Clark left

louie xv · 1 year ago

The whole place fell apart long before Vogel left. It died in 2001 when FCB and BBDO merged to basically become a glorified in-house agency. The day you are only servicing one client (3 brands) it's going to be difficult to grow. Sure it might have looked good on paper, but in the long term a one client agency is dictated by the economic realities of the hand that feeds it. The other problem with one client is the work gets stale. When you have a creative staff working on the same thing day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year people are going to get bored. It happened with Jeep. And that brand ended up at another agency. The question that should be asked is why didn't BBDO Detroit go after other clients when Jeep went see-ya? There are great thinkers who work/worked there that could have done great work for other brands? Did management think Jeep would return to them after sewing its wild oats with the new hot shop on the block that they wouldn't risk angering Chrysler by looking at other clients? Who knows. But a lot of good people are getting screwed because of a bad business decision back in 2001.

tackle box penis · 1 year ago

But Obama won.

RobboChicago · 1 year ago

So true... So true.... BBDO Detroit (or Pentamark as it was to me back in 2001) was my first job out of college. About one month into my job we had a town-hall meeting with the CEO. I was the dumbass who raised my hand and asked why we didn't pursue other clients outside of Daimler/Chrysler. (Our contract wouldn't let us...but they were working to change that -- yeah right!) I think I also asked why we didn't do an incentive for free gas instead of always offering cash back (that would never work with the American people, he said... uh, yeah right!). Anyway, I was quickly let go during one sweeping of small layoffs. But, it looks like it's same 'ol, same 'ol. It's very sad that so many are being let go... but Louie XV hit the nail completely on the head. You can't sustain an agency on one client alone.

manofwar · 1 year ago

There was this dude we called "old steve" . That I went to art center with that worked there. I think it was so bad even he left.

required_name · 1 year ago

"old steve"

I went to art center but haven't worked at this agency and even I know who you're talking about. (unless his last name doesn't start with L)

anyway, truly sorry for the guys and gals that'll get the pink slip. there are a lot of people out there looking for gigs right now, it's really slim pickens and they probably didn't get a lot of good work out of the place. well, except that team that did that car falling through hell ad way back. that shit was funny.

Tracksuitcreative · 1 year ago

The car falling through the earth was a metaphor for the entire domestic auto industry.
It didn't win any advertising awards but cleaned up at the Economic Summit gathering in the "Best indicator of the coming Depression" category.

louie xv · 1 year ago

What's more troublesome to me is where all these ad folks going to land? The Detroit good old boy network doesn' exisit anymore. All of the big shops are tightening their belts. What's going to happen?

TheFounder · 1 year ago

Louie -- It's not just BBDO in trouble... as you noted the whole industry is going down the tubes... In my opinion (and based on some pretty hard facts) ... if you still put ads out in Print or TV ... you're set for some pretty hard times.

Instead of "4 color ads" you should be saying "PHP / MySQL" instead of saying 30 second spot you should be saying "2.2 million views and climbing on YouTube"

It's bad for normal advertising, but it has seemed to increase our business fairly dramatically...

We have one client that last year had a 22 million dollar budget, they fired their agency... went totally SEO and Social Media... now they are spending about 200k a year from 22 million... and they have seen business increase.

So we're far more efficient ... but that's not the problem.. the problem is that their old agency had 100 people working on the account... we needed only 1 ... so 99 people lost their job.

You can't have one company replacing 100 people with 1 individual.. keeping fairly similar results.... and expect to continue to land business... the other company is working 100x more efficient.

So to answer your question, where are they all going... hopefully some php coding classes... so they can put their creative talent into a format people are using..

Creative is something that will always be needed.... it's just that the format these agencies are putting them in is wrong.

Tracksuitcreative · 1 year ago

So right.

You are so forward-thinking compared to the "old" guys at BBDO who are making the creative calls.

Their ignorance of current communication ideas shows every time they open their mouths.

They tried to recreate BMW films for the Ram Challenge and have failed miserably.
The ECD thought he could go back to what worked over 5 years ago to solve a current problem. No luck, Chuck.

mr pants · 1 year ago

i'm a new york bbdoer that was sent there a few years ago by lubars to 'help out the creative' there. i can't imagine there's 100-200 people there it was like a ghost town. if there's anywhere that's still like mad men it was there. and by that I mean basically it was all dudes like 'ducky' pretending to be creative directors. clients with terrible backwards managers require terrible backwards creatives. lazy fuckers too. you reap what you sow.

Editorial Mistakes in red · 1 year ago

I remember how the BBDO new york teams came in to "save the day"
Pathetic. They obviously thought that the work was beneath their talents. Crazy spots with giants and clubs. Jeep concepts that had been thought up years before their genius. A Dodge spot where the SUV with jumper cables blew up an innocent chap with a dead battery (this concept had been presented to the Dodge creative directors SEVERAL times and they always killed it. They were right.) The big city creatives were always out to show the "townies" how it's done. And when it failed they quickly left town , leaving the BBDO Detroit crew to once again clean up the mess.
The agency is a shell right now. I am hoping that I make it through the day, but when will the next black Thursday happen? The people who were fired two years ago when the CEO first showed how smart he was, are the lucky ones. They landed when their were a handful of jobs out there. Now? We will really suffer.

Editorial Mistakes in red · 1 year ago

oops. spelled "their" wrong.

Copywriter For Hire · 1 year ago

I was laid off from BBDO-Detroit in May 2003 along with 100 other people. I still haven't found my way back to a steady gig; just contract work or freelance to get by. I'd move out of town, but there are hiring freezes and layoffs all over the U.S. of F-n' A.

I think I'll change careers.

ex-detroiter in chicago · 1 year ago

Mr. Pants,

Did you work on the Dodge Spot where the Nitro falls through the layers of the earth? Nicely done. Who's basement did you shoot those effects in?
Or did you do the Dodge Spot with the giant waterslide? Terribly clever. It's a good thing you put the temperature gauge in the front of the spot to tell us just how hot it was out.

Smellmypits · 1 year ago

I liked the guy at the hotdog stand or newstand whichever, who was wearing the fall jacket even though the temp gauge at the begining said it was over 100 degrees. Way to slide that ziggy under the client's nose!

ex-detroiter in chicago · 1 year ago

Sounds like they swapped the Pepsi logo for a Dodge logo on the storyboard. Pepsi probably got scared once they saw the giant gorilla.

Razors in the hallways · 1 year ago

The old dudes at BBDO thought that this is what is meant by guerrilla advertising.

Man do they know about alt advert. or what!

Anony-mous · 1 year ago

I am part of the prep dept that BBDO uses for their work.

We saw it happen today. Exactly 165 people were laid off.

Numerous account persons, print production was affected.

Due to the fact that at the end of the year the Mercedes work will no longer be done by BBDO, people who worked on those jobs and other miscellaneous jobs were terminated as they will no longer have anything to do.

I don't have a full breakdown, I only interacted with maybe a dozen of the folks who are now gone.

Detroit Ad Man Not At BBDO · 1 year ago

Do you know which agency will be doing the Mercedes work at the end of the year? Where is it going?

ex-detroiter in chicago · 1 year ago

QUOTE: The old dudes at BBDO thought that this is what is meant by guerrilla advertising.

Man do they know about alt advert. or what!

Hey Razors: Those spots were done at BBDONY. Lose your subscription to Creativity?

NYC Auto Client · 1 year ago

I feel bad for those that lost jobs, but the Detroit ad community has been hurting for years. If you didn't see this coming then you're either a true optimist, in serious denial or both.

3ptConversion · 1 year ago

The New York idiots were the old guys I was pointing to.
My bad. I should have said BBDO NY.

They even ripped off their oversized office supplies on the street guerrilla stuff from Europe.
The shit was done there first.
I think it shows the character of the guys making the decisions at the NY orifice.

Fired! · 1 year ago

I was let go yesterday. Yeah, what am I supposed to do? I did all the "right" things: went to college on scholarship, got a good job after, worked hard for years, bought a house, was a productive & contributing citizen... now what? Stupid unemployment will only cover the cost of my mortgage + COBRA. What about car/food/bills? I have no spouse to fall back on, and I would leave this area/state in a minute if I could dump the house!

The leaders at BBDO have no idea what they are doing. We were given the ok to find new clients 3 years ago in a new contract, and they still haven't done so. I knew this was coming, but there really isn't much out there to go to, so the job search was almost pointless. Until absolutley necessary. And I agree with all the comments about the lack of creativity. I was bored doing my work, when there was work. I guess the only way to look at it is maybe I'm just "slightly" ahead of the rest of 'em when they go down.

Copywriter For Hire · 1 year ago

A word from a dude who's been in your shoes ...

1) Try not to take it personally. You weren't fired. Just no longer needed as a company resource. No matter how good your work might have been, you are just a statistic to the bean counters like the rest of us worker bees.

2) Unemployment tops out at $340 a week in benefits. Being single, your Cobra will cost you approx $450-550 a month. Get signed up with the MI unemployment office right away, today. It will take a few weeks to kick in. You will need to find some kind of part time work to carry you through.

3) Know that while it looks bleak today, you will work again, probably somewhere you like even better. This is just a set back. However, it will probably be a while. There are absolutely no adv jobs open in the Metro Detroit Area right now. Try to enjoy the time off.

4) Start freelancing as much as possible.

5) Don't overlook job placement firms like Aquent and The Creative Group.

6) Don't be proud.Take anything you can to get back on your feet as quickly as possible.

6)Best of luck to you.

I've been laid off three times since 2003, first from BBDO, then two other agencies. I'm used to this shiat.

Copywriter For Hire · 1 year ago

Just did some fact checking ... my mistake: unemployment taps out at $362 a week. (I'm no longer collecting, as I'm working again, so I forgot)

Get info:

http://www.michigan.gov/uia/0,1607,7-118-26899-...

Fired! · 1 year ago

Thank You!!!

Yes, I've been on the phone/computer all morning already. I do appreciate the advice & support. And I'm ready to take anything, it might even be GREAT to get out of this biz!

Thanks again....

SeparateRooms · 1 year ago

You are truly a good person.
Nice post.
Best of luck to you.

Fired! · 1 year ago

Thanks!

edgar · 1 year ago

I spent 20+ years at BBDO Detroit. Used to be a great place...best place in Detroit to work. The agency lost its soul in 2001. This is a classic example of what happens when an agency gets too corporate and forgets that creativity and the work is why all of us get into the damn business to begin with. The post 2001 era is like a post apocalyptic scene from a B movie. Lots of walking dead with nowhere to go.

NYC Auto Client · 1 year ago

20 years? Young marketers take notice. Working 20 years at one shop, in one city and in one industry is classic example of how destroy to your long-term career opportunities.

edgar · 1 year ago

Not necessarily so NYC. BBDO had a large group of people who joined in the 80's, grew the account and were rewarded quite well for their efforts. That's why so many did not leave...it was reward, not apathy that motivated them. Most who were downsized ended up doing ok for themselves.

NYC Auto Client · 1 year ago

Well that might have worked in the 80's, but it's not going to work now. Just ask all of the print/catalog creatives from Ross Roy. These days, you have contiually build your skill set.

Seasoned Ad Professional · 1 year ago

Young marketers also take notice... there is no such thing as job security in the ad business; never was and certainly never will be again. You need to look out for yourself and jump from agency to agency to maintain your own career on your own terms.

Furthermore, know that your job performance in no way dictates whether you will be laid off or not. If you're on the list to be let go, you're there for arbitrary reasons. That said, never work more than a 40 hour work week. Salary means 40 hours, not nights and weekends. The client can very well wait for their precious ad concepts to be delivered. In the long run (and even short) you will not be rewarded for extra effort. So don't do it. Work 40 hours. Watch out for yourself. And know that it's pretty much a 100% sure thing you will be laid off in your career. So give only what you are given.

IM A PC · 1 year ago

There is absolutely no doubt that the economy and declining auto industry has had a terrible impact on BBDO Detroit. (Deepest sympathies go out to everyone who lost their jobs yesterday.) With that said, however, the person that should be let go will be the last one left to turn the lights out: the president and CEO. The spirit of an organization starts at the top. And BBDO Detroit deeply needs a boost in spirit and certainly, more inspiring leadership.

Teabags & Old Hags · 1 year ago

Amen, brother.

Most on target posted.

Don Draper · 1 year ago

There's some really talented folks over there--- could easily do some killer work for a pitch or a piece of new business.
Talk about a waste of resources.
Hang in there "FIRED". Something will come up.

Fired! · 1 year ago

Thank you! :)