• WSJ (paid subscription required), Friday, January 6, 2006 11:45 AM

Yet another hot, independent boutique ad agency has been named to replace a more traditional agency owned by a holding company to handle advertising duties for a major marketer. This time the agency is Mother, the client is Virgin Mobile, and the odd man out is Fallon Worldwide, a unit of Publicis Groupe SA. The irony, of course, is that there was a time when Fallon, based in Minneapolis, was the new, maverick independent hotshop luring big clients away from their larger brethren. But that was 20 years ago. Now it's Mother's turn, along with a handful of other new, young, independent agencies who are changing the face of the agency business in New York. Mother had already been doing project work for Virgin, which reportedly preferred working with an agency in New York. Fallon closed its New York office in July after the outpost's two top executives left.

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