Commentary

Gurbaksh Chahal Denies Hitting His Girlfriend 117 Times

Gurbaksh Chahal, founder of real-time ad network RadiumOne, was fired by his board of directors following a lawsuit which charged him of 47 felonies surrounding an argument he had with his girlfriend last year. While some reports, based on a video, claim Chahal hit the woman 117 times, Chahal denies the accusations and has written a lengthy public letter in which he tells his side of the story. In the letter, he writes, "The situation that resulted in my legal case began when I discovered that my girlfriend was having unprotected sex for money with other people. (She testified to this in her interviews with the cops.) I make no excuse for losing my temper. When I discovered this fact and confronted my girlfriend, we had a normal argument. She called 911 after I told her I was going to contact her father regarding her activities. And yes, I lost my temper. I understand, accept full responsibility and sincerely apologize from the bottom of my heart for that. But I didn’t hit her 117 times, injure her, or cause any trauma as the UCSF medical reports clearly document. This was all overblown drama because it generates huge volumes of page views for the media given what I have accomplished in the valley." Note that technically he never denies he hit her. Just how many times.

Despite naysayers, doomsday scenarios and predictions of the demise of ad agencies, employment levels are at their highest in the industry since 2001. Of course, 2001 was not a great time for the ad community having just experienced the dot com disaster but it's still a positive sign. That, combined with the finding that agency revenue has increased 3.7% to 39.1 billion in 2013 is a good sign as well. And digital now accounts for 35% of all U.S. agency revenue. That's a sea-change event considering most online and interactive efforts coming out of agencies just 15 or so years ago were considered hobbies.

As you may have heard, Burger King has brought back Subservient Chicken for its tenth anniversary. And as part of that return, Burger King has named WPP's David its lead global agency ending a three year period during which no agency oversaw the brand's global efforts. David will join the brand's U.S. agencies Pitch, Code & Theory and Horizon Media. Previously, domestic duties were handled by Mother.

Following Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's comment that his ex-mistress shouldn't be "associating with black people" when he saw her in a picture with Magic Johnson, Translation Founder Steve Stoute has encouraged his clients to boycott the Clippers. So far, Translation client State Farm has pulled out. Other brands that have pulled their sponsorships include Red Bull, Kia, Virgin America and CarMax.

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