There are big lay-offs and then, there are small ones, too. Minneapolis ad agency, Martin Williams, just laid off 14 staffers from across media, creative, operations, print production and television production units. The lay-offs came from across the agency, since let the “primary reason was to bring staffing resources in line with workload expectations on existing clients early in 2008.” We hope the 14 find themselves a new home soon, but that reasoning by the agency is the nature of the business, no? Martin Williams has Payless (see video above), Cellular South and Cargill, as clients.
Minneapolis ain’t an easy town for ad folk. The Star Tribune once said that:
“Agency chiefs acknowledge that advertising is, if nothing else, highly cyclical, and clients tend to change their chief marketing officers more frequently than the Minnesota Timberwolves change coaches.”
True. Things may improve for the City of Lakes, though that loss by Fallon surely hasn’t helped the city’s morale. Sigh.