• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, September 10, 2014

So what changes is Interpublic Group making in the wake of reports about Cadillac's poor performance over the past year? Well, here it is straight from the mouth of Interpublic Group Chairman and CEO Michael Roth. "Given the global scope of the Cadillac brand and business priorities, the decision is a natural evolution of our service model in support of this key client. With the counsel and support of Cadillac management, we have recently assessed the state of our offering at this point in the relationship. The group of agencies we brought together a year ago were uniquely suited to Cadillac's needs at that time. We believe this shift, to a single-source relationship with a global network, better aligns agency resources strategically, creatively and geographically with the current direction of Cadillac as a business." And, yes, the agency will close its Rogue division that was set up in 2013 to service the account. Lowe and Partners in Detroit and New York will lead the account.

And perhaps, hoping to avoid a similar fate, Interpublic's Commonwelth/McCann is attempting to tighten its relationship with its client Chevrolet by moving the agency's offices to One Detroit Center, which is much closer to General Motors. Of the move, Commonwealth/McCann Communications Manager Nicole Dowswell said: “Our new location puts us in walking distance to the Renaissance Center, closer to our client.” The move is expected to take place in early 2015.

Hey Omnicom. Hey Havas. Hey Interpublic. Hey WPP. Are you jealous? Maybe you will be after you note that Publicis just signed a deal with Adobe to help power the agency's Always-On "end-to-end marketing management platform." Yeah, it's supposed to make it really easy for the agency to "create engaging content, access marketing intelligence, identify and build audience segments, deliver campaigns, and track and measure marketing performance through a unified technology and data structure." Of course, you've all probably got your own nifty little marketing management system in place, but I thought you might want to know what's going on over at Publicis.

Well, as if agencies weren't facing enough competition from the likes of internal brand agencies and brand-side programmatic buying. Now they may have to contend with radio stations building out their own digital marketing groups. Yeah, that's right. Radio stations. Jumping off the old radio adage that when a radio station controlled the creative, they controlled the buy, Relaunch Radio Founder Gregg Murray examines why most local digital, social and content marketing efforts fail. It's because local businesses "hear all the hype, hire a digital marketing agency (which creates their content) and inevitably run out of gas when that content is perceived as fluff to those who read it." But Murray also says there's good news for radio stations. He writes: "After your prospects jump in bed with a digital marketing agency, spend all that money and fail, be sure you’re standing by to pick up the pieces and give them a hug. You then get the opportunity to remind them of simpler times when they were able to have success when they spent their budget on a smart, creative radio campaign." And some of those radio stations are adding digital services to their offering.

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