14526: Hill Holliday Sends More Staffers On Permanent Holiday.

AgencySpy posted on the latest downsizing at Hill Holliday, and the blog didn’t even bother to correctly spell the White advertising agency’s name. Hill Holliday has been regularly dumping staffers over the past year, with the last round of layoffs strategically executed in October. The Boston-based shop brought in an SVP of Diversity and Talent Management last July—which might have been a wasted hire, as the place has been eliminating versus enlarging staff. Hey, maybe AgencySpy’s typos were symbolic of the reductions happening at the IPG-owned enterprise.

Hill Holiday Parts With 2 Percent of Staff in Boston and New York

By Erik Oster

A round of layoffs came to IPG’s Hill Holiday this week.

The staffing reduction comes the same week as news that Planet Fitness, which has worked with Hill Holiday since 2016, named Barkley as its new lead agency.

A spokesperson for the Boston-based agency confirmed the staffing reduction, stating that it impacted around two percent of staff in both its headquarters and the New York office.

The specific number of employees affected is unclear, as are their positions and departments and the specific reason for the move.

This news follows a “strategic restructuring” last October that saw the agency lay off 35 employees and eliminate the “project manager” title, according to a source close to the matter. Hill Holliday also went through a round of layoffs in Boston last April after longtime client Dunkin’ Donuts named BBDO as its new agency of record. It comes almost exactly a year after news that over 30 employees had departed the Boston office.

Hill Holiday and Trilia won creative and media duties for Frontier Communications last April. The agency also hired Scott Feyler as CFO and COO and Julianna Akuamoah as senior vice president of diversity and talent management last July and made a series of strategic leadership promotions in October.

In a recent “one word answers” interview with Campaign, chairman and CEO Karen Kaplan said the biggest opportunity for agencies today is purpose, and their biggest obstacle is fear.