You’re probably not too familiar with GlobalWorks, but the 15-year-old New York City multicultural shop has boasted such clients as Procter & Gamble, Dish Network, Harvard Business School and Weight Watchers (among others).
The agency also produced this possibly sarcastic reggaeton ad for Optimum waaay back in 2008 in case you thought it was a complete fiction.
Now it would appear that GlobalWorks is no more.
The organization was founded by the not-at-all shady Russian expat Yuri Radzievsky and his wife Anna in 1999, and its leadership included such agency vets as Valentin Polyakov, who was a media director at Y&R in a previous life and now works for IPG Mediabrands’ Identity. The New York office also hired accounts people who’d worked at Leo Burnett, JWT and BBDO, so it was–for a time at least–a legitimate operation.
Adweek even profiled GlobalWorks in 2011, calling it “a pioneer in the multicultural milieu” and noting its “inclusive philosophy” while speaking to then-CCO Inaki Escudero, a former creative at GlobalHue, Y&R Miami and Bromley Communications who seems to have left the agency world entirely.
In late 2014, GlobalWorks was acquired by newly formed holding company Stealth SME in its “initial round of acquisitions,” and the rest of the story is not so encouraging. GlobalWorks lost the Dish account several months ago when the client allegedly complained that its media vendors had not received payments due–and now it would appear that the agency itself is history.
Multiple emails to GlobalWorks executives have gone unanswered this week, and attempts to call its Manhattan headquarters resulted in this automated reply:
“I’m sorry, the user’s mailbox can’t accept more messages. An error has occurred.”
We have also reached out to Stealth SME for comment.