Wednesday, December 09, 2015

12964: R.I.P. CG MGS.

AgencySpy reported the Commonground/MGS holding group is history, allegedly the result of a financial dispute. Hey, it’s tough to build a business with crumbs versus currency.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:44 AM

    Too many massively competing egos to start with, burdened the sentiment that these guys were just looking to throw something together so they could sell it and then cash out.

    I don't blame them, it's got to be hard creating a career out of snagging whatever crumbs you can get, but adding a pile of crumbs and egos together just gets you more crumbs and crumbles. It's no wonder this experiment fell apart.

    Advertising is mostly for the rich and European, no one else can afford to be a holding company.

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  2. Anonymous1:02 AM

    This just in:

    http://digiday.com/agencies/2016-year-preview-holding-companies-make-diversity-business/

    “At WPP, the company discloses data in its annual report and in Atticus, its annual journal. About 26 percent of employees in the U.S. and U.K. are ethnic minorities, up from 25 percent in 2013.”

    Suuuurrrre.

    I can totally believe that one-quarter of WPP’s employees are ethnic minorities in the US and UK, if they threw the janitorial and support staff in there, and multiplied their real numbers by 1,000.

    None of these holding companies can be trusted to self-report. None of them. They're all fudging the numbers and will lie, lie, lie until the government pins them down.

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  3. Anonymous2:27 AM

    26 PERCENT DIVERSE?

    That's gotta be a typo.

    I've been inside a number of WPP's agencies, I'd be surprised if it hits 2.6% at desk positions, much less 26%.

    What's the exact breakdown on those numbers, and what level is support staff vs. management vs. UK vs. America?

    Did they do that thing where they count computer programmers in there, who have no say on admaking?

    Did they toss Wing and David agencies in there, where everyone is a foreigner temporarily based in the US?

    I'm trying to recall that Madison Ave agency in the 1950s or 60's that tried to skirt a civil rights issue by claiming plenty of their staff was black, until someone realized they were counting the butlers and the serving staff and without them the number dropped to zero.

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  4. Anonymous4:04 AM

    Wait, didn't CGMGS report last year earnings at somewhere around 25 million? I'm not saying it's all equal to what white shops were getting, but that's good crumbs nowadays. Maybe the problem was less about unfair income than unwise outgo?
    Just sayin'.

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