GSP Quits Remaining HP Business

Goodby Silverstein & Partners has resigned its remaining Hewlett-Packard business, ending a 16-year working relationship that created iconic campaigns like “The Computer Is Personal Again” and “Everything Is Possible.”

“We’ve decided to move on and give another agency a chance,” confirmed Rich Silverstein, GSP’s co-founder and co-chairman.

HP has gone through a decade of management turmoil, ousting three CEOs in the past six years, with the company’s newest chief, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, named to the job in September. She replaced Leo Apotheker, who was in the job for just 11 months. The company has also had a revolving door of marketing management. In April, HP named Marty Homlish as its latest CMO. He is the former global CMO of SAP AG.

GSP "cared deeply about HP for so many years, but there have been so many administrations, so many CMOs, so many soap operas, so many things constantly changing and moving . . . There was too much chaos and it was becoming too hard on the agency and the people who worked on the business,” said one observer.

GSP had been HP’s worldwide agency, originally working on three divisions: EP (Enterprise Business), IPG (Imaging Printer Group), and PSG (Personal Systems Group).

The agency quit the EP business about one and a half years ago, IPG a few months back, and PSG a couple of weeks ago.

“HP was phasing out products, and (GSP) had lived through three or four changes in management in the last year,” said a source.

It’s believed that some of the GSP HP assignments will remain in the Omnicom corporate family. HP’s Imaging Printer Group business is now said to have moved to BBDO, which began working on pieces of that unit in 2008. A BBDO rep declined to comment.

GSP, which does not plan to make any layoffs, will continue its latest pro-bono work with HP, “Hacking Autism.” The campaign helps kids and adults with autism communicate through touch-screen computers with specially designed apps.