A Tale Of Two Media Shops: MPG and Universal McCann

The stories of Havas' MPG and Interpublic's Universal McCann are emerging as a tale of two media shops, and they are an allegory for the cyclical nature of the media services business. That epic was underscored Thursday when Universal McCann, an agency that had been in the doldrums of late, picked up Intel Corp.'s $300 million media account - an account which left MPG. Also leaving MPG on Thursday were 60 members of its U.S. workforce, a reduction of 15 percent of its organization that follows a string of high-profile losses including Intel, but especially Volkswagen's $500 million U.S. media account.

But even as MPG downsizes, Universal, which has been on a bit of a roll, has begun staffing up, adding some high-level positions to its roster. On Thursday, Universal named Lou Romano senior vice president-group director on its Sony Pictures Entertainment account. Romano, who had been a group media director at DDB Entertainment, was the second top Universal hire announced this week. On Tuesday, Universal confirmed it had hired Catherine Warburton-Scott as senior vice president-national broadcast for Sony. She made the jump from senior vice president-associate director of national broadcast at Carat, an agency that also has been experiencing some high-level staff attrition, but which has been winning big business. On Thursday, Carat picked up the $100 million Revlon media account, which has been at Deutsch.

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Such are the vagaries in the media services business, which like the rest of Madison Avenue, can see the fortunes and organizations of media shops rise and fall in the matter of months all on the basis of a few account wins and losses. Universal's roll follows more than a year of downturn, which itself followed a hot streak that made it a media agency of the year only a few years ago.

MPG, meanwhile, has been rocked by some big client losses, as well as speculation that its parent Havas may be the subject of a hostile takeover, or a merger with another agency.

Much of that is expected to change - in the U.S., anyway - on April 4 when Charlie Rutman joins as CEO. Rutman, who has been president of Carat's U.S. operations, is the latest in a string of executives to take the top job at MPG North America, but the buzz inside and out the organization is that he may be the guy to revive its fortunes, give it some new street cred and attract the kind of business and personnel that could put it back on the upswing. Insiders say Thursday's staff reduction was made purposely before Rutman joined in order to give him a clean slate to work with.

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