• by March 16, 2004

STARCOM/ZENITH SMOOSH WAS NEVER A REASON FOR THE PERRISS PUSH -- Nick Brien apparently was never in the running to be CEO of Zenith Optimedia Group. The Riff has learned that Brien, who had been president of corporate business development at Zenith's sibling media agency Starcom MediaVest Group, has already taken a job as global CEO of Arc, the below-the-line marketing services unit of Leo Burnett. That move was made more than a month ago, but was kept uncharacteristically quiet. We say uncharacteristic, because Brien was a colorful, larger-than-life figure during his tenure at SMG, and was known to make as much noise as possible about anything he was involved in.

But the politics surrounding a restructuring of Leo Burnett's management team apparently required him to take a back seat to another story, the appointment of Tom Bernardin as president of Leo Burnett Worldwide and CEO of Leo Burnett. More importantly, he is the heir apparent to run the whole Burnett empire when chairman-CEO Linda Wolf retires in the not-to-distant future. He also will be Brien's boss. Bernardin, who had been CEO of Interpublic's Lowe New York unit, ironically replaced Bob Brennan, a former Starcom wunderkind who had been Wolf's previous heir apparent, but left the agency in a huff for reasons that have not yet been made public.

Meanwhile, Publicis insiders suggested the Riff not speculate too deeply on the U.S. based candidates whom we mentioned as logical candidates for the Zenith Optimedia CEO post being vacated by a soon to be 56-year-old John Perriss. "Zenith has a lot of bench strength internationally," said the source, adding that speculation about an imminent restructuring of Zenith Optimedia that would bring it into closer alignment with SMG is premature, and was not a major factor influencing Perriss' departure. "It's not going to be a smooshing together of the brands," said the insider, referring to the brand identities of the two Publicis media networks that were formed by the smooshing together of previously independent media agency brands: Zenith and Optimedia; and Starcom and MediaVest. The smoosh scenario apparently was concocted by the overactive imaginations of certain members of the advertising trade press.