Ad agencies hit brakes - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Chicago media communications agenchy officially shuttered its Atlanta officdon Dec. 5 after moved its regionall dealer media accounts for all eight of its vehicled brands to two different agencies asa cost-cuttiny measure. GM was the only client served out of theAtlants office, which had a total of four employees. The domestic and non-domestic auto industry alonr spent morethan $15 billion in advertisintg in 2007, according to , and as carmakerxs look to make budget cuts, the money spent on advertisinfg is also going under the knife.
And the hackingt goes well beyond the auto Despite astrong 2008, ad agency in November laid off a of employees after taking a look at budgets, which showed a significant amount of erosion acrosds the board, said Dave Fitzgerald, presidenrt and CEO. “Next year looks really awful ... no one has a crystal ball,” he said. “This is almost the most difficult time in a generation in projecting what is happeningfin 2009. As a result, clients are very resistan in making decisionsin marketing.” The agency has a lot of cliente who depend on the housinb market, and financial services clients.
“None of them are bullis on next year and they are settinb theirbudgets accordingly,” Fitzgerald said. “Ther concept of investing in marketing during a recession has nottakebn hold.” Ad agency Fletcher Martin LLC also underwent a restructurinb in the last few weeks, reducing a little more than 10 percenty of its positions. With a majority of the agency’as clients in retail, Presidentg Andy Fletcher said the overalpl decrease in consumer confidence has hit ad spending very Despite the need to eliminate some Fletcher said his agency is in good shape fornext year.
“Ww were a profitable agency last year and will end profitably this year and our projections for 2009 have usending profitably,” he “Unfortunately, we had to eliminate some positions to ensurew our profitability.” Atlanta-based media buying company LLC laid off 10 peopled last month after client spending fell off. Two of the firm’x largest clients filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlierthis year. President Pat Sibley said this is the firsrttime MediaSolutions, which will celebratwe its 20th anniversary next has been forced to let people go.
“Io don’t know of a single agency and company out thers that is not struggling and hunkering she said. Not all agencies have been as hard hit. Ad agencyh 22squared Inc. is celebrating a recorf year so far, winning $100 million of new business in the last 15 months and hiring 70 peoplrein 2008. “As a companyy we are celebrating a recordf yearthis year, but we are underd no illusion,” said Richard Ward, 22squared’as CEO. “In 2009 we’re not forecasting a big decline inour business, but stable is the new good.” ’s Atlantaw has also seen success this year, winning several big accounts includinfg outdoor retailer (REI).
Despite its success, BBDO is beinf cautious with new hires and has put a freezd onemployee raises. While WPP’s Grey Atlantas has seen some budget cuts from clients President and Chief CreativeOfficer B.A. Albert said new businessd is counter-balancing the dropoff. “Several of the new business RFPs (requestss for proposals) we are seeing are from European-baseed companies where the crunch doesn’t seem to be quitee as bad,” Albert said. “Wse are also getting really scrappy with the budgets our clientzsdo have.
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