In an e-mail to senior staff seen by Brand Republic, it was made clear that clients of WPP are holding back on their spend, which, of course, means WPP has to react. What will this reaction look like?
1. Marty Sorrell “has ordered that any job offers made but not accepted must be withdrawn immediately.” WPP is now in a hiring freeze. Brr…
2. Headhunters are no longer in play, and freelancers are being reigned in.
3. Any firm under the WPP caught poaching staff, will be severely reprimanded.
The email goes onto say that “Preliminary results for September show another month in which even our recently prepared forecasts for revenues have not been achieved.” And there goes WPP’s stock price. Tribble is predicating “…pink slips for Christmas… mark our words…”
Hmm… Maybe George Parker might actually be able to pull of his hostile takeover.