We’ve received multiple tips over the last few days that Fiat USA has officially fired Impatto, the Southfield, MI-based shop that was handpicked last year by the automotive brand’s U.S. CEO Laura Soave to serve as its lead AOR. If our sources are spot-on, from the looks of it, the situation hasn’t been pretty over the last couple of weeks at Impatto.
One spy claims, “I was at Impatto on Monday and the entire warehouse has been emptied out. Chrysler took everything back, apparently this audit thing is pretty serious.” What they’re referring to is an apparent financial and accounting audit that the agency has been undergoing. When we called Impatto, we were referred to Universal McCann (?) and our inquiries to Chrysler about the alleged Fiat move are being passed around the company’s media relations camp as we speak.
But from what we’re hearing, the brand’s movie theater program currently in place has been shifted to George P. Johnson. More importantly, sources say that a new AOR has already been briefed and one of Fiat’s existing agency partners (Doner, 72andSunny) could be handed the full account. An announce is expected before the holiday weekend. We’re looking into some of the agency names that have been mentioned and will update if and when we hear from Chrysler.