An Ogilvy spokesperson confirmed that the agency made a small series of layoffs at its New York office earlier this week.
This news is not terribly surprising as it follows the announcement of a new global CEO and several other high-profile appointments, but it seems unrelated to the executive-level changes. The agency’s official statement essentially declares it business as usual:
“Today Ogilvy & Mather New York let go of less than 1% of our staff. This is yearly standard operating procedure for a company of our size and scope of services.”
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The actual number dismissed, then, would be in the low double digits.
Sources close to the matter claim that this move was not part of any major restructuring, that most of those dismissed were low-level, and that they were let go for performance reasons. Another source tells us at least three producers are gone.
We hear that the agency’s creative leadership was not affected, but we’ll update this post if more information comes in.