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Is there anyone left at Publicis?

Posted in Advertising, Nikki Preston, Latest reporters' blogs June 14th, 2007 by Nikki Preston

After learning that Will Hamilton was the latest Publicis casualty, I unearthed my Publicis guidebook and flicked it open to its key people page.

Almost half of those “key” heads don’t even work there any more and this from a book that was completely up to date in February.

Of Publicis’s eight key figures at least three of them have left. First up was CEO Grant Duncan, then Tim Lindsay and most recently Will Hamilton who joined the firm just over a year ago.

Could the rest of the key figureheads – Paul Edwards (chief strategy officer), Kim Douglas (planning director), Mark Cramphorn (group general manager) and Erin Heath - be next in line for the chop before the powers of the Publicis Groupe unleash a new management team on the agency?

Or could previous glass ball predictions be right and will Publicis be swallowed by sister agency Fallon, which seems to be winning more business than Publicis is losing.

To be honest what ever the Publicis Groupe has up its sleeve, if I was a Publicis employee I would be feeling very unsettled in my role and would be contemplating jumping ship before I am pushed.

And with the agency’s recent losses outweighing its recent wins – will further redundancies help it recover costs?