FCB Loses Client, Lays Off Workers
Irvine’s Foote, Cone & Belding Southern California, Orange County’s second largest advertising agency, has cut about 10% of its staff after losing client TaylorMade-adidas Golf, industry sources say.
FCB, which had about 200 people in OC as of March, cut 20 to 25 workers, sources said. The agency ranked second only to Irvine’s Y & R; Cos. in billings on the Business Journal’s advertising agencies list earlier this year.
Jim Harrington, president of FCB’s Irvine office, couldn’t be reached for comment.
FCB, part of New York-based Interpublic Group of Cos., had handled the TaylorMade account for more than a decade. Carlsbad-based TaylorMade, part of Germany’s adidas-Salomon AG, spent about $21 million on advertising last year, according to Competitive Media Reporting, a New York-based tracker of media spending.
No formal review was held prior to the account shift, according to John Steinbach, a TaylorMade spokesman.
“It was just viewed as a time to make a change and try something else,” he said. “I don’t think it was any overall dissatisfaction with the performance of FCB.”
The shift took FCB by surprise, sources said.
TaylorMade said last week that Encinitas-based NYCA is set to become the company’s new ad agency as of Aug. 1. NYCA recently was started by Michael Mark, former partner and creative director of San Diego-based mathews//mark, which has done work with Callaway Golf Co.
NYCA was given a test run by TaylorMade.
The agency worked on print and broadcast ads that broke last week promoting TaylorMade’s new line of drivers, the R500 series. The ads, including a four-page print insert and 30-second broadcast spot, are running in major golf trade publications and on golf channels.
FCB Worldwide, which is based in New York, has had a rough year.
Chief Executive Brendan Ryan is trying to boost the shop’s roster after losing more than $1 billion in billings in the past year from clients such as AT & T; Wireless, Compaq Computer Corp. and Quaker Oats Co., according to trade journal AdWeek.
Since May, the agency has added about $100 million in billings from American Standard Cos.’ Trane and the Internal Revenue Service, the publication said.
A few months back FCB’s Irvine office, where clients include Taco Bell Corp., Kawasaki Motors Corp. and Hilton Hotels Corp., was in the running for Fountain Valley-based Hyundai Motor America’s $360 million creative and dealer accounts.
But the shop dropped out of the review, with pressure from its headquarters, which was weary of a potential conflict with another Interpublic client, General Motors Corp.
The layoffs at the office here were unrelated to changes at FCB’s El Segundo office, whose main client was the $50 million Mattel boys toys and entertainment business. Young & Rubicam Advertising in Irvine is one of three agencies going after the work. FCB’s El Segundo office declined to defend the account, and its future is uncertain, according to Advertising Age, another trade magazine.
