DraftFCB

Remember the last time KFC tried to give away its new grilled chicken? It was mayhem among chicken lovers who were turned away or given rainchecks when stores ran out of the new style of chicken. Well, get into a store today for your free piece — they promise not to screw you.

From DraftFCB and Mediaedge.

More: "KFC Creates Sandwich Stoners Everywhere Invented Years Ago"

Here's a follow up, translated again, about the DraftFCB CD who was arrested and later released, accused of shooting two people outside a Stockholm school.

Note: there are some weird word usages like "client", which we presume refers to Dalenius. Read carefully.

From AftonBladet:

The media profile has been released.

The media profile was suspected of having shot two persons in Gamla Stan. But Now he has been released.

The man and woman who got shot are under police protection since it is asserted that they are still under threat.

More: "

A story in a Swedish publication pegs a DraftFCB Sweden employee of shooting two people yesterday. Creative director Anders Dalenius was arrested yesterday in Stockholm, accused of shooting a man and a woman. Unfortunately the original story is not in English, so we got some help in translating it.

The latest we've heard is that Dalenius has been released because his alibi checked out. Friends have been posting positive remarks on his Facebook page, claiming his innocence. However, others "de-friended" the guy, and some removed wall posts. Rumor has it that Delanius used to have a relationship with the female in this case. Read on:

Gamla Stan (Old town) is a part of Stockholm. And Golden Egg is "Guldägget", the most important ad award in this country. One of the victims was a count named Carl Piper.

Golden Egg-winner taken into custody for Shooting in Gamla Stan

Count and his live-in partner shot down outside daughters school in Gamla Stan.

The man's advertising agency won the prestigous Golden Egg award for best TV ad just a few weeks ago competing with the best ad makers in the country.

He has been creative director at the agency for a few years and he's in the jury for several high esteemed awards.

During the tuesday the perpetrator waited for three hours outside the school in Gamla stan in the middle of Stockholm before the two victims appeared.

The woman was able to call the police herself and tell them who the shooter was, even though she was hit in the throat. The police recieved the call at 5.27 pm.

The 38-year old count was hit by several bullets, including in the head and was operated on during the night at Karolinska hospital.

He has life threating injuries, says Mats Nylén of the Stockholm police to Expressen.

After the shots the perpetrator fled on a yellow vespa (moped). At 8.30 he was apprahended by heavily armed police in his home in central Stockholm.

So, there you have it. Dude has been released. Hopefully the real perpetrator.

More: "Bill Cella Leaves Draft"

In passing, we mentioned that Miller has shaken up its roster. Here are the details: Bartle Bogle Hegarty, Young & Rubicam and Upshot have all lost their seat at the Miller table.

- Miller Lite is now at Interpublic's DraftFCB Chicago. They lost Killian's Red to Jacobson Rost and Keystone, too.
- Miller Genuine Draft, Keystone and MG64 are now with the New York office of Saatchi & Saatchi, which also holds Miller High Life and Miller Chill.
- Upshot's, a retail agency, has seen their account distributed across Omincom including The Integer, Digitas in Chicago and Arc in Chicago.

Got it?

More: Publicis Gives Shares To Its Employees

Our Google alert has alerted us to the news that WPP's Enfatico will be merged with Y&R. From the WSJ, who broke the story:

"The move is a retreat from one of the most ambitious projects on Madison Avenue - an effort to eliminate turf wars by housing many different marketing disciplines within a single firm. The structure was one of WPP's key selling points when it landed Dell's advertising and marketing business in December 2007."

A statement from the agency read that this was "a strategic decision" and that "Enfatico remains a standalone brand alongside Y&R's other companies including Y&R Advertising, Wunderman, Burson-Marsteller, Landor and others."

You knew this was coming. From the beginning, Enfatico was the subject of the ad industry's jeers. One client. Too many bodies. A huge lease on a downtown building. Mediocre creative, high level staff changes on the client side and everyone has heard the rumors that Dell is shopping around. A bold idea has gone bad. CEO Sir Martin Sorrell was going to have to do something with the increasingly heavy weight of Enfatico. WPP isn't healthy enough (and really who is?) to redistribute the shop's employees, which number around 800 people worldwide. Where are they going to go? As Sorrell recently wrote in The Financial Times: "Some have said that, intellectually, recessions are exciting or fun. That is callous nonsense. Telling someone who has lost their job or business that their troubles are merely part of a cycle will provide little comfort." Oh how true. Maybe Marty-Mar should write everyone at Enfatico a little note, hmmm?

Meanwhile, WPP as a whole is struggling. JWT recently closed its Chicago shop. In the UK, Publicis beat out a team from WPP for Visa's 2012 Olympic business. Y&R Chicago just lost the Miller Genuine Draft account to the New York office of Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi. And WPP's Mindshare is defending the $250M Wrigley account any day now.

Tough times for WPP. Still, the company is pushing deeper into the Pakistani market. Does Sorrell have President Asif Ali Zardari in his pocket? Zardari is known as "Mr. 10% Percent" considering his alleged skill in the fields of bribery and money laundering. WPP isn't alone though. Plenty of death star agencies are hoping that growing businesses in "developing countries" will defray some of the shock and awe happening in the US, as well as Europe. In WPP's case, the balance sheet is a little shaky. Sure, WPP posted $13.6 billion in revenue for 2008, but that includes two months of revenue from TNS and it's against a whole lot of debt.

In early March, the Sorrell told investors that: "I'd just like to say in the 25, 30 years that I've been in the business, I have never seen anything quite like this." His long list of worries is surely growing and growing and growing.

More: Enfatico Fails On The Adamo Campaign

Here's a strange one... A mother and her 7 year-old daughter are suing DraftFCB and the Office of National Drug Control Policy for defamation. The pair are both professionals models. A photo of the child, who is missing some teeth due to age, was used in a poster to highlight the dangers of meth.

In their federal claim, they say "that a medical condition commonly known as 'meth mouth' is evidence by the loss of front teeth owing to the use of methamphetamine. That the image of plaintiff child used by defendants highlights her lack of front teeth and would be reasonable construed by those with a knowledge of methamphetamine abuse as a photograph accurately depicting the malady known as 'meth mouth' or in the alternative as set forth herein, a result of child abuse or neglect."

Not sure if DraftFCB included her face, but if NOT, it's kind of like... lady get over it. This is what you and your little girl get paid for. Didn't you know what you were being shot for? Or better yet, did you sign your child up to be used as stock photography? This is one of those cases where you want to sidle up to the Republicans and call for some serious tort reform.

More: Agency.com Sues iCrossing for "Massive" Staff and Client Filching

Oh Howard. You're so funny. How you keep me giggling with your absolutely ridiculous antics. Last night, DraftFCB had their company party at the Chicago Theater. They had food. They had drinks. They had entertainment - The Temptations and some nameless American Idol singer.

Wow. Howard. Really? You must really know what's going on in consumer culture to select a group from the early 1960s. I guess you figured that you hit the zeitgeist point with the American Idol singer, right? Ha! According to the talent website in charge of booking The Temptations, the cost is a minimum of 15,000, though it could be higher. Fifteen grand? Isn't that money better spent on almost anything else?

"Meet DraftFCB?" We'd rather not. What are we going to talk about? Diana Ross and that kid whose fifteen minutes seems like fifteen years ago? What was name - Sangay, Sanjay? Whatever. Howie recently said that the merged entity "could be doing better." How about this? Euthanize the brand and become the all business ad agency - all square and "get the job done" type stuff. Don't claim that the consumer is at everything you do. Stop the whole driven by insights thing. Just churn out the work and go further in who you really are - an ad agency that cares about revenue and can cater to the old type CMO. In this market, that's not a bad thing. So, you're not plugged in? There's no shame in that. Just make your brand message match what's beneath the emperor's clothes, yeah?

More: DraftFCB New York Gets A New CCO

MillerCoors (nee SAB Miller and Molson Coors) has decided that their advertising agency of record will be a trio of ad shops: Chicago-based Draftfcb, Initiative and Kinetic in New York to form... Drum roll please? MC Media.

MillerCoors will soon be headquartered in Chicago, by the way. The entire business is valued at $400M. That's a lot of dough for the Chicago shops and a lot jobs for the city itself. And Chicago most certainly needs all the help it can get right now.

More: Beattie McGuinness Steals Their Silver Lion
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There are only two things, which are remotely interesting about DraftFCB New York get a new CCO. First of all, Michael Simons was imported from Australia and as we all know, the country down under is like the the bizarro-world of advertising. Maybe all that weirdness will help Simons deal with Laurence Boschetto!

The other interesting item of note is that Adweek is reporting that ex-CCO Chris Becker "is mulling two undisclosed options within the global network; both are in emerging markets." Reports were that Becker was getting his walking papers. Not so much, kids. He probably just wanted to get the hell out of what is (most definitely) a struggling office for DraftFCB.

More: Goodby Exports Some American Know-How Down Under

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"Mention DraftFCB to an ad-industry professional or a casual industry observer, and odds are you'll be able to guess the reaction."

Look at that! Adage is speaking some truth about DraftFCB in it's recent issue. How many times have you heard George Parker tell the agency to "shut the fuck up"? DraftFCB and its head honcho, Howard Draft just might be the most disliked figures out there in the ad world. Despite having a Chicago street named after him, the "Howard Draft Way" is generally frowned upon.

The ad journo's piece goes on to mention that:

"the merger has yet to yield any significant proof that it's accomplishing what it set out to do, or the fact that the agency has failed to generate much big news since, well, Wal-Mart."

Oh it's true. Rivet is has almost vanished back into DraftFCB. There were the layoffs in New York and the shop's creative chief Chris Becker getting slashed from the payroll. And yet, Draft is going to post single-digit growth for the second year in a row.

When asked if the agency was in good shape, Draft said:

Have we gotten the culture right yet? I don't think so. Do I feel like we could have always done better and won more new business along the way? Absolutely. Do I still have a lot to learn? Absolutely. Will we feel great a few years from now and that we built the right culture and succeeded? Yeah, I hope so. Am I 100% we have all the people and disciplines correctly balanced on a global basis? Not yet. I personally don't think you are going to see this agency at the 100% level on a global basis for a couple of more years. Are we creatively better? I think, yeah. I think some of the creative work coming out of this company is better."

Oh, he doesn't know what's going on! Lets face it - Draft is operating under a bad sign. Employees are unhappy and the shop isn't sought out when the review hunt begins. The merger will surely take time, but so will coming out from under the Julie Roehmn scandal. The shop is a little lost as Howard points out above. It'll be years before someone else takes the top slot of the "most hated." Eons even.