Today Saatchi & Saatchi New York confirmed that it has shuttered its music department in a move that required the agency to lay off all members of that team.
A spokesperson tells us that the Manhattan office is “restructuring to better serve clients” and that the agency greatly appreciates the contributions of all who had served within the department.
We have no official word on the number of staffers affected or the weight of the roles they played within the Saatchi organization, but we know that some senior members of the production team had been with the agency for 20+ years.
Saatchi’s New York office has utilized pop tunes in quite a few of its recent campaigns, including this one for Pampers created in collaboration with MassiveMusic–but most involve third-party studios. The larger Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide organization also recently hired former Jay-Z employee Jeff Geisler as its first global CMO. But he has a background in music marketing, not production.
The shift does not apply to the agency’s Los Angeles office, which just hired music/radio vet Kristen Hosack to run its own internal team.