UPDATE: August 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 pm – More Bodies Fall At Fallon Including Pat’s
We wrote a piece this AM about Fallon and Saatchi & Saatchi’s new deal to create a new division together called the SSF Group, which is really a way to save Fallon’s sinking profit margin. Read it here. A tipster has provided us with their thoughts about Fallon’s downfall, which include some scathing details about The Buchner brothers. This is a MUST READ:
“Having worked at Fallon right up to the point that it all went wrong (no more Subway, Lubars leaving for BBDO and fat multi-million dollar payday, and the rest of the dominoes falling) when I jumped ship just in time, the reason this is all happening is clear:
The Buchner boys have too much power. When [David] Lubars left, there was a huge void in creative leadership. [Bob] Barrie and [Dean] Hanson wanted no management responsibility, [Bruce] Bildsten was only around beacuse of his connection to BMW (everyone else hated him) and Harvey Marco had already left for Saatchi. The great creative shop was taken by the unimaginative Buchner boys, whose influence has always been outsized (see: Shetty, Baba, brought in to save BMW…didn’t turn out well. That guy is a corpo leech who takes others’ ideas and has lived off of BMWFilms for too long – his only contribution was not f-ing them up).
Pat Fallon is disinterested these days and has trusted the Buchner charlatans with the keys to the agency. They are terrible at new business development, no clients have ever liked them (I am specifically recalling BMW and Subway’s reaction to Mike Buchner) and they are pompous asses who wear shirts that show off too much chest
hair. More than that, they are directionless and it was clear as they moved up that the agency had lost its focus.
With them in charge, the agency is screwed. Just look – they have shed clients, lost their best people (Appleby, Sage, Bologna, Merkin, Barrie, Gunnerud, etc and so on), and are quickly flaming out.
They need to either reanimate Pat Fallon a la Orville or break free from Publicis and go gunning with creative in the lead like the old days.
Oh yeah, and without the Buchners.
This is more of a screed than an argument, but those muppets have ruined a great agency.”
Oh boy…. Everyone bow down to this tipster who has the real deal goods.
UPDATE: We have more thoughts from a tipster about the problems plaguing the agency – Part Deux: Why Fallon Is In The Shitter or, if you’re bored of this find out about McCann Erickson’s Recent Very Very Dumb Mistake