Fallon

Update: We hear Mike Gibbs, long time creative and friend of Pat Fallon was also laid off.

Three of the top account people at Fallon Minneapolis unexpectedly resigned yesterday, a source tells AgencySpy. They include Alex Leikikh, Julie Mcbride and Kara Peterson — personnel who handled some of Fallon's top clients.

And on top of the resignations we're also told there have been layoffs yesterday and today.

But what's most interesting about the story is what the resignations might mean for Fallon. Once a creative centerpiece for the Saatchi network the agency is now looking like it's headed to a bland future. Keep in mind all the packaged goods work Saatchi does — and recall that General Mills is headquartered in Edina — minutes from Fallon's downtown Minneapolis spot.

As we stated, Leikikh, McBride and Peterson's departures were unexpected. But it's possible that they were looking into Fallon's future and seeing the agency's perception as a creativity leader taking a back seat to financial viability. Can you blame them?

These three ran some of the agency's key accounts and new business wins, including Holiday Inn, Purina and Boston Market.

What this could mean is that the shop will seek fewer brave clients. They'll hire folks who mimic that goal. They'll make money. Well, once those layoffs are over.

An agency representative did not respond by the time this story was published.

More: "TBWA/Chiat/Day LA Elevates Rob Schwartz, Hires Fallon's Al Kelly"

A representative at Minneapolis based Fallon has confirmed that 18 members of the agency's 200 person staff have been notified that they no longer have jobs.

In a statement, the agency said, "Even with recent new business success, we found it necessary to decrease staff by 18 people due to budget pullbacks in our existing client base."

Last week, Fallon ECD Al Kelly departed from the shop, and is possibly heading (we hear) to TBWA. Sources say he's also shopping W&K, Goodby and all the usual suspects. There's no word on whether Kelly jumped ship, but this news would sort of hint at that. Advertising is the opposite of sailing.

In the beginning of the year, Fallon announced three bits of good news that weren't really such good news at all. Recall that the agency let you all know about their AORship for Boston Market and that they added Purina's Alpo and Nestle's beverage line to their roster in January and February consecutively. Well two of those, we're told, actually went down months before in mid-late 2008. Meaning: the agency stored up the news, saving it for the first of the year. PR is like sometimes like being a chipmunk.

Meanwhile, Darren Spiller of Publicis Mojo Melbourne is coming in for Kelly. We'll have to see what happens there. We're hearing the agency actually has something in its pocket for later this quarter. Cutbacks are normal these days kids; Fallon may be going down, but not without a fight (it seems).

More: "Fallon Minn.'s 99 Problems — Kelly, Wiggins Depart; Spiller Comes Aboard As ECD"

Recently, Fallon Minneapolis has been creeping back into the light with several account wins helping to ratchet up the momentum. And while, Fallon may have just been starting to shine on, recent developments have us wondering whether or not the shop is destined to slip back down into the darkness.

Al Kelly, who has been Executive Creative Director since 2007, has left Fallon. Where is he going? WE HEAR... that he's been interviewing with the likes of TBWA Chiat/Day among other shops. Why did he leave? You can take your pick from about 99 problems such as: Fallon's lack of serious commitment to building a digital capability; the intrusion of the Saatchi mindset on what was once a unique business and well, if you're getting courted by bigger, faster more dazzling agencies - wouldn't you bail on the tumultuous Fallon, too?

Digital Creative Director Chris Wiggins has quit as well. Too bad. He and his wife, Brenda Fogg, came up with the new social networking tool Skimmer, which was released under the Fallon banner. Just the kind of thinking death star agencies need right now. It seems that Crispin Porter recognizes the value of such ingenuity, because that's where Wiggins is headed.

Naturally, you're wondering who has been named to the ECD spot. It's Darren Spiller (pictured right) of Publicis Mojo Melbourne who was hand picked by the Saatchi overloads that run the SSF Group. From a cursory look at his resume, Darren is an accomplished creative director, but seems to have limited digital experience. No matter. Fallon CEO Chris Foster apparently wanted one of his own. If you recall, before coming to Fallon in March 2008, Foster was the VP, Global Equity Director at Saatchi & Saatchi New York. Our understanding is that Chris is still all about the business - running a ship in which account managers have all the say from traditional creative to digital and beyond.

And hey! Where does all this leave Dave Damman who returned to work under Kelly in 2007 to heavily support the creative team?

Who knows. Fallon isn't talking. Emails sent to the agency went unanswered. So, let's make some bets, yeah? Ten to one - Fallon will begin to farm out its digital work to partners rather than creating work in-house. Five to one - more talented, high level creatives and planners will be looking for the escape hatch. Two to one? If you love this business, right now, you feel a deep loss for the days when Pat Fallon's shop was blazing trails and burning up the industry.

More: Not Flash. Just SSF.

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."

The Fallon Planning blog recently announced that it's all over. After two years, the blog is finito. The site began as an answer to the question: how can agencies participate within wider culture? Chocked full of stats and buzz metrics, the deck above shows just how much participating they actually got up to. Not bad, Fallon. Not bad at all.

More: Favs From Fallon's Moving Sale

Well, well, well... that old gal Fallon seems to having her ninth wind. This is the fourth win in a row for the Minneapolis agency, which has clearly come out on the other side of some hard times. The shop has expanded their Nestle business from dog food to include the beverage accounts.

The Publicis agency has also recently added Boston Market Corp., Alpo and Totino’s frozen pizza products. Sure, you're thinking - "please... how much can that really amount to in dollar bills?" Hold up just a second, yeah? Consider that 1) Fallon has been wandering around in the dark for ages. Let's just let the lady have her day in the sun and say congratulations okay? 2) We're in a terrible recession and the agency is on a winning streak.

Although, I'm not sure anyone should be surprised. Fallon was born during the recession of the 1980s from grit and $100,000. Fred Senn, Pat Fallon, Tom McElligott, Irv Fish and Nancy Riceauspiciously marketed their new shop under the banner of "outsmart" rather than "outspend." It worked then. Why shouldn't it work now?

More: Fallon's Back in the Saddle with The Ladders

Update: Fallon is AOR for this account.

Damn Gina, Fallon's on the move; today the agency announced it's third win in a little over two months. This time, Nestle Purina's ALPO is the new account but in late January they took home Tostino's pizza rolls (estimated at $25 million) and in December 08, nabbed the $30 million AOR spot for Boston Market.

We had heard Fallon was pitching like crazy — but that was usually followed up by, "but they're not winning any." Not anymore.

The bad news here is that Fallon was shooting to take home the entire Purina stable awhile back.

SuperSpy back in Sept.,

"Tidy Cats' litter has been up for review. The account was estimated at $15M and has gone to Avrett Free. The agency was already taking care of Nestle's Purina brand. The account had been with Berlin Cameron United for almost eleven years. Fallon, JWT and Colle + MCvoy had pitched for the business, as well. Oh, poor Fallon."

More: "Berlin Cameron Loses Tidy Cat"

Is Fallon Minneapolis crawling its way out of the shitter? Maybe so. Maybe it's all that offi-sod some folks have put in their cubicles. Perhaps, it has something to do with the return of creative Chris Wiggins? Or, maybe, the pendulum has just swung a little right. It always does.

Fallon has recently won the Boston Market account. People are chatting about work they've done namely, the recent commercials for The Ladders - love or hate 'em - they are generating noise. Take a look at the moderate bump in The Ladders Alexa stats below. Not , but nice enough.

The agency has also been creating work for United Arab Emirates-based Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which will kick off in 2009. It's worth noting that the bank has ended its relationship with the NYSE, but hey - work is work, no?

And really, Fallon has been struggling for a long time. It's nice to see them make a few headlines, grab some work.

More: Part 2 - Fallon's Work For The Ladders

Submitted for your approval, here is Fallon's next installment for TheLadders. This time, we're hunting chairs in the African plains, literally cruising through a herd of shitty desk chairs as they run from the dangerous rifle-toting "hunters" in their LandRover.

Like so many water buffalo, gazelles or zebra high-tailing it from, well, poachers, the chairs run run run until bang the biggest of them all is shot with a tranquilizer dart. We don't want to kill the chair, just subdue it long enough to get some unqualified asshole's large overpaid behind in it. Cue suffocation by $100k bullshit.

More: "Fallon's Tiny Monsters Represent/Offend 'the Majority'"

The new spot for The Ladders from Fallon US is a bit of a planning and buying train wreck. Sorry, but this ad is definitely making us believe the hype - 2009 is going to suck balls.

The ad above played during The Fiesta Bowl last night, which makes you wonder about the media buy that went down. The Bowl clocked 12M viewers. However, in 2006, the US Census reported that only 5.6 percent of individual income earners made $100+ year. And in this climate with Madoff and mortgages going belly up that number has definitely dropped. Sure, college football rakes in recent college grads as well as die hard, more affluent alums, but one has to wonder how many watchers are bagging the really big dough?

This begs the question - do you really need to shit all over those folks at the middle of the ladder or even, the bottom? Previously, the job site ran an ad that featured a tennis player. It achieved the same message without crapping on the little guy. In tonight's spot, we see little godzillas who can't get the attention of a sales clerk. What happened?

How many people were turned off by the message? You could argue it doesn't matter if 10% (1.2M) now feel badly about the site. They weren't going to use it anyway, right? But the trick with luxury is to create a feeling of aspiration. Not aversion to your brand.

Hope all that dough you guys coughed up for media time was worth it. Seems like there would be better avenues to tap the folks you want than a straight up media blitz. Silicon Alley Insider estimates the site will generate $60 million in revenue in 2008, up from about $35 million in 2007. The Ladders didn't start using broadcast campaigns until just this year. They were doing just fine. Hope this turns out to be worth it. According to Alexa, there was no spike in traffic for The Ladders tonight, so perhaps not. Of course, we'll check back in on these stats in a few hours.

Oh yeah. This commercial also just badly, badly executed. To quote David Ibsen: The ads are lacking "a clear or effective strategy, are not entertaining, nor are they memorable, or seem to tie to the brand promise."

Total. Fail.

Gotta say though - as far as the monster themed commercials go, I'm generally a fan. I adored Garmin's take. Check it out below.

Need $100k? Who doesn't. The latest work coming out of Fallon Minneapolis (which can be seen above) put $100,000 where people could see it. And of course, they video-taped the experiment. Why that amount? Duh, theLadders focuses on $100k + jobs only.

The campaign's execution is media semi-passionate (as Dean Crutchfield would put it), utilizing Web and direct mail points for delivery. Media-passionate, then, would be full use of all media entry points...traditional, new bla bla bla.

The video is our favorite part, and frankly, we've been waiting for something worthwhile to come out of the once-on-top-shop. Seriously. These days, we're cheerleaders for good things. And Fallon's new work is just that. Look, we're not saying it's going to win a pencil, but there's nothing wrong with pointing it out, sharing the love, not talking about layoffs et al. Btw we're going to talk about layoffs later today. Ugh.

A note about the DM portion. The agency sent/will send 2,000 plexi-glass boxes (a la video) containing faux $100k to a bunch of top HR folks. Kinda cool, though we're curious to know what said HRers will do with the box once the point is made...Straight in the trash? Ugly.

More: "Fallon, Saatchi, The Shitter... Whatever."