Over the last few hours, we’ve received several tips that AKQA’s director of search marketing Scott Linzer, who is based out of the digital agency’s San Francisco office, is no longer there. Linzer has been with AKQA for over four years and has worked overseen the global search practice across the agency’s client portfolio including Clorox, Coca-Cola, Ticketmaster, HSBC, and PetSmart. Spies are telling us that Linzer’s departure could be due to AKQA losing a portion of the Coca-Cola biz–specifically paid search/SEM in January. which wound up at iCrossing.
Prior to AKQA, Linzer worked in a similar role at McCann for a year on the Microsoft business and had a two-plus year stint at, you guessed it iCrossing. Calls to Linzer are being met with voicemail, but we’ll verify and let you know.
Update: AKQA has confirmed that Linzer is leaving at month’s end as part of agency “restructuring.” AKQA adds that it’s ramping up staff in San Francisco.
Update 2: Here’s another note from AKQA that clarifies Linzer’s departure:
“Scott Linzer has left AKQA after a number of years of employment. To clarify initial speculation, Scott’s departure is in no way related to our relationship with Coca-Cola. He has been a valued member of our team, helping to grow AKQA’s Media, Search & Analytics practice more than 50% year-over-year. We appreciate all his contributions and wish him luck as he enters the next phase of his career.”