BBDO

I have confirmed with BBDO that most of the 450 remaining employees at BBDO Detroit will be taking two weeks off this month, unpaid. The agency is calling the break a furlough.

Of the 450, some 25 will remain to support BBDO North America's other accounts. We're told most of them will get a week off as well. The people who are getting two full weeks are on the Chrysler account, which is down for the time being.

According to one source, spirits are high, noting "it's better to have 2 weeks off than 52."

With business unaffected by this cost saving maneuver, this seems like a fairly good idea, however striking it may seem.

Oddly, we have heard that employees at Detroit are being monitored by IT. Why? To see if they're submitting tips to AgencySpy. But don't fret, Detroit ad folk, you can always call us at 212-547-7935 with your tips or anonymously tip us from home. There's always twitter, too. And e-mail, agencyspy at mediabistro dot com.

A representative for BBDO said, "yes, all BBDO Detroit employees are taking two weeks' unpaid vacation in June."

Oh the horrors of H1N1. You cough, you sniffle, you die. Ha ha only sometimes. But BBDO New York is safe, says a rep. Though a memo went out recently, nothing that yes a few people have gone home with flu like symptoms but no they do not have the dreaded swu.

Here's another helpful link. And for what it's worth, Mediabistro has issued a similar memo to make us all feel better. Personally I'm more worried about getting caught video taping people's lame attempts at impressing their boss. Ooo, scary!

More: "Single Case of H1N1 Confirmed at Y&R New York"

A representative from BBDO told me earlier today that the Detroit office has indeed undergone a round of layoffs that hit 25 employees where it hurts. You know this, but President Obama cut Chrysler's planned marketing spend from $134 million to $55, and we're told that's the cause for the cuts. We haven't heard anything to the contrary.

Also on BBDO news, the Atlanta office just got around to letting 30 folks go home. This isn't a new round, part of the last one, which is linked below.

More: "BBDO Atl Cuts 10%, Including CCO Marcus Kemp"

BBDO Atlanta has cut 10% or 30 people from its staff in response to reduced levels of client activity, an agency source revealed. Agency CCO Marcus Kemp was among those who went home jobless Friday, we've confirmed. His responsibilities will be assumed by ECDs Bobby Pearce, Bill Pauls and Kyle Lewis.

More: "BBDO's Hotel Conflict of Interest"

Every job has its up and downs. The need for a massive amount of approvals, that long tedious journey a document makes up the food chain, has got to be top of the list when it comes to complaints in advertising. You know, when it's like 6:45 p.m. on a Thursday night and you are still waiting for your spin around the deck, which needs to go out tomorrow morning? Yeah. That moment totes sucks, because you know, you just know, you are going to be at the office all night long waiting for the three people after you to make their changes and pass it back down to the first leg in the cycle for yet another round of review. Sigh.

Hence this post. Created by BBDO Detroit, the video is called "Respect the Routing Man." And really, please, please do.

More: Atmosphere BBDO To Be Absorbed by Proximity Worldwide

What's your status? If you're going organize or protesting fascism, the Peace Corps wants you to joins up strap on your Berks, roll that love joint and head to Armenia to bring IT to classrooms. You can make real meaningful connections with people who need your help, and in return the PC promises you'll get something too.

For the low low cost of two years, you too can run away from the real world and do some good in the real real world (abroad) before returning stateside. Hopefully by then the US will be out of the pooper and back to wasting its money on giant houses, giant cars and tiny plastic noses. America, f*ck yeah.

Radio ad by BBDO Atlanta.

More: "AKQA Brings Back JFK for Greenpeace Ad"

A few minutes ago we received this PDF which contains a full story board for the Snickers ad we posted earlier today. It has BBDO Mexico's logo all over the place. Since the PDF had a lot of wasteful white space, we cut it up and pasted the slides together in comic format, and even added convenient numbers! Gotta love Photoshop. Anyway, we've also posted the PDF in case you want to read it — it's in Spanish (after the jump)!

You'll notice in the first set it says, "page 4/4" — this header bar was in each of the PDF pages, and we just grabbed one to show you that BBDO Mexico's name is on this thing. Thanks to The Berrics for hooking us up.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes Fully Flared has been ripped off at least once before by a major brand. Chevy produced a spot called, "Cake", which you can see here, that mimics the feel of Fully Flared. However, the spot is clearly paying homage to the original.

Note: this is being called a rip off all over the Web. What do you think?

Click continued to see the other slides and for a link to the PDF.

continued...

The translation on this one is something close to:
"Life is full of obstacles.
When you pass one, along comes another,
And then another one, and then another one.
And they come even more difficult.
Sometimes I think life will be full of challenges.
I hope so, because I am hungry for more."

Above you'll see two videos. The top is a commercial from BBDO Mexico for Snickers. The bottom one is called Fully Flared and was created by Lakai, directed by Ty Evans, Spike Jonze and Cory Weincheque. This is a seminal skate video. Fully Flared has its own wikipedia entry. This is the kind of thing that common sense would tell you not to mess with it.

Apparently, that's what BBDO Mexico has done. The agency could not be reached for comment. However, that has not stopped The Berrics, a private skatepark and website run by professional skaters, Steve Berra and Eric Koston, are leading an online charge against BBDO. They've posted the Snickers spot on their heavily trafficked site under the heading "BBDO Atrocity" and "thank" the agency for their "creativity." Nasty.

Berra sent us this comment via email:

"Unfortunately, the only thing the 30 million plus skateboard kids will see in that commercial is that Snickers ripped off the most influential skateboard video director ever, Ty Evans. Along with one of the most influential film/commercial/music video directors ever, Spike Jonze, who together collaborated to make the most electrifying and creative introductions to the most influential skateboard video for sure within the last decade (if not of all time). And it wasn't even Snickers who was the culprit. It was BBDO. And they got paid, actual money for stealing.

It's no surprise, I mean, look at television commercials these days, awful. They gotta farm their ideas somewhere because the creative revolution certainly isn't happening inside their offices. There are better ideas on 17 year old kid's blogs living in Omaha, Nebraska than in the advertising world. We see on our analytics programs that these ad agencies come on our site every day. We know they're looking for ideas. It's sad.

The thing about it is, I like Snickers and I'd like for them to actually be involved with skateboarding, but BBDO may have caused them irreparable damage. One of the many emails we received about it called for a boycott of all Mars products and proceeded to list every brand under their umbrella. Skateboarders don't like it when you steal something that's theirs because that's exactly what it is, theirs."

The YouTube posting of the BBDO Mexico video is suffering in the comments, as well: "Half of the skateboarding world is not gonna buy snickers ever again!" And, "Snickers can get fucked. total bull shit. i [sic] thought that car ad a few months ago was bad enough. I hope Spike and Ty fuck their shit up."

Now, nothing is original. However, does that mean that agencies can co-opt an important piece of a culture for their own ends? Inspiration or not, the decision by BBDO Mexico to use the exact concept is well, just stupid. Think it through kiddos. You aren't just nibbling. You're regurgating. Unlike movies, where inspiration and ideas can be shouted in the credits, a broadcast spot is just .30 sec of imagery. Still, there was an easy solution to this creative dilemma. Put Spike Jonze in the background. Get Ty to do the voice over. Whatever. Work the culture into your spot. Show some respect or well, suffer.

As we move towards a more open source, wiki culture, agencies need to realize that those ideas are communal efforts. They are a group of people working in concert for a greater good. There was nothing communal about this BBDO spot and that's what is pissing the skate community off. Simply put - BBDO could have just asked.

Thanks again to The Berrics, from whom we borrowed the Snickers video after it was pulled from YouTube.

AgencySpy has learned that Atmosphere BBDO will be absorbed by Proximity Worldwide. Roy Elvove, EVP director of corporate communications confirmed the news moments ago.

Atmosphere is one of the "original" digital shops, and is located just downstairs from parent agency BBDO. The agency has been open since 1999, and has worked for the likes of AT&T, Corona, Target and FedEx.

According to Elvove the agency "is joining Proximity Worldwide, BBDO's award-winning global network, as its New York presence. It will be called Atmosphere Proximity and will continue to be run by Andreas Combuechen, one of Atmosphere's founding partners, as Chairman, CEO and CCO."

Furthermore, Combuechen will join the Proximity Worldwide Board and report to Andrew Robertson, chairman of Proximity Worldwide..."

Writes Elvove, "By having Atmosphere join Proximity, it enables us to expand Proximity's capabilities into the U.S. while providing Atmosphere and its clients with global reach."

A source told AgencySpy that staff without client conflicts will be absorbed by BBDO proper. More on this story as it unfolds.

More: "BBDO Cutting 189 Jobs Across North America"

From the GE blog: "For any advertiser, being on the Super Bowl raises the creative bar significantly, as the largest television viewing audience of the year stays glued to their sets throughout commercial breaks. With "Scarecrow" we have a positive, optimistic, and engaging spot, that we think is Super Bowl worthy." Is it worth $3M?