With its second quarter numbers set to be released tomorrow, Publicis Groupe is now quantifying the impact of GM’s bankruptcy on its agencies with projected losses shrinking from 55 million Euros to 9 million. According to the umbrella company, its various agencies will continue to work with GM 2.0, stating:
“Old GM has signed agreements with some of our agencies and assumed and assigned contracts with other of our agencies to New GM. As a result, we have received payment of the bulk of our fee receivables as of the date of the bankruptcy, and GM has committed to pay us our remaining pre-petition fee receivables over the next few months.”
Interestingly enough, as our sister blog PRNewser has reported, GM’s new marketing head Bob Lutz, who hasn’t had the most flattering opinion about the brand’s advertising in recent years, sounds somewhat optimistic in a chat with NPR saying, “[W]here we really messed it up and took our eye off the ball in terms of product was in ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s. And I think we’ve – in the last five or six years – we’ve had a radical transformation in the way we approach the product and our goals for products and look at the awards we’ve gotten. We got car of the year.”
Update: As promised, Publicis Groupe did reveal its Q2 earnings report today. Among the more notable bits of info are the agency’s continuing interest in Razorfish (and possible battle with WPP to obtain it), the Latin American market’s surprising growth and a 2.2% year on year revenue drop in Q2.