“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.