Around 20 jobs axed at Ogilvy Singapore following Singtel account loss
Ogilvy & Mather has laid off 20 people following the loss of its multimillion-dollar account with Singtel last week.
The WPP-owned agency, which employs around 400 people at its Singapore office, lost the consolidated creative and digital account for the Singaporean telecommunications giant last week, although Mumbrella Asia understands that the wider economic uncertainty was also a factor in the staff headcount reduction.
Confirming the job losses, Ogilvy & Mather Singapore group chairman Chris Riley said: “As the largest marketing communications firm in Singapore, we have to make adjustments from time to time to our staffing plans in order to respond to constant changes in our industry, clients and skillset requirements.
“About 20 employees – less than 5 per cent of total staff strength – have been let go and we are doing all we can to help those affected. We remain committed to developing our talent pool and look to hiring across growth areas in social, UX, data and consulting.”
Ogilvy had worked with Singtel since 2013, when it won the account – the previous incumbent being BBDO. However, following a pitch launched last October, Singtel handed creative leadership over to Bartle Bogle Hegarty on Monday.
The agency’s digital arm Ogilvy One will still handle B2B marketing, while WPP’s Hogarth will be responsible for creative production. Independent Singaporean agency Goodstuph is to take over social media and online content.
Ogilvy has produced some memorable work for Singtel over the last three years, including a film featuring a fencer with a mobile phone for eyes to show off the telco’s speed, coverage and reliability.
Believe the staff are capable people, BBH can definitely hire some of them.
ReplyI think the CCO should be fired. If he cannot help retain key pieces of business, there’s no reason he should be there.
Reply“I think the CCO should be fired.”
Who will then ghost write articles and opinion pieces for the worldwide CCO?
ReplyOgilvy’s issues run deeper than SingTel alone (on which, almost miraculously, they did some of their best work)
Like all of the big agencies with MultiNational business they’re seeing fees cut year on year on the biggest clients.
Add in the fact that almost all of the government business that they held walked with the HPB account team (allowing Shirley Tay to so much as leave her desk let alone the company was a HUGE mistake) and their failure to deliver on clients like BMW (currently up for pitch) and it’s starting to look nasty.
The huge overhead that they have in senior management (and increasingly, I’d suspect in that building – hence them now being on only 2 floors) means that they’re priced out of business that’s going to the likes of Govt. (many local agencies can now claim scale, always Ogilvy’s key leverage in Singapore)
Throw in an inability to win business that’s not handed over by the network, the reliance on ‘once a year advertising’ from coloured pencil companies, lego and other ‘is that a client?’ clients in order to stay competitive at awards and the fact that they didn’t ever replace Steve Back and it’s a miracle that Chris R has managed to stem the bleeding at all.
I do think it’s unfair to blame the creatives for the loss of SingTel (since when has SingTel cared about creative?)… the work was good and getting better.
Look instead at where the work has gone. To a bunch of agencies not currently staffed to handle it – but all promising to be more responsive, faster, more connected and to contain more than a few token Asian faces that can be pushed in front of a pitch team to show diversity.
ReplyOgilvy bashing seems to happen in every market. Love them or hate them they are big because they are successful and have scale.
The fact is not a lot of agencies can handle the volume of work required by major telco’s or FMCG’s.
For the last 20 years I have been reading that Ogilvy’s days are numbered. They will need to evolve and become leaner. The big 30 second TVC and global accounts won’t fund the business any more, but I can’t see them crashing and burning any time soon.
ReplyI can – have you seen their Operating Margins?
ReplyCCO is on about $750,000 per year I would think, that’s a good place to start to save some money.
ReplyTop heavy high overhead cost is not particular to Ogilvy alone.
The modern network office is based on a ‘chief and braves’ structure.
Many offices have way too many chiefs who never do the actual work.
Yet they have built-in bonuses in their contracts and due to the ‘old boys club’, they are the last to go when the business leaves.
Instead, these ship struggle to project seaworthiness by ejecting the braves who were at the coal mines, doing the hard yards of retail when the client walks.
Reply“CCO is on about $750,000 per year….”
For what? Doesn’t pen thought provoking leadership articles, address gatherings, give visionary interviews to the media; never seen any amazing regional work, just ads for east timor tourism, god, the right to die gracefully and other print ads made for awards. No television or film either.
ReplyNo one is talking about Ogilvy citing ‘skillset requirements’ (read ‘performance review’) in order to side-step a high volume of staff redundancies without a whiff of a package/compensation.
Or better yet, having senior leadership / mgt asking working teams and individuals to resign, as another tactic.
Great leadership.
ReplyHave your say