Easter Basket
Originally uploaded by BCharmer
I thought that title was apropos as Dell's external in-house agency Enfatico is now under the Y&R umbrella. I won't go into the politics behind it, which I am sure was quite nail biting.
When I heard about the idea, I thought it ridiculous, to be quite honest. WPP bent over backwards for Dell but I had serious doubts Dell would look after the Agency as handsomely. It took forever to find a CEO because most people know relying upon one client is a dangerous game. When the bubble would burst, which it did, the agency would suffer, which is has.
Dell's billings were almost 25% lower than last year. Enfatico had to let go of 8% of its staff.
Reaching out to other clients is a no-brainer but that is more difficult than it appears. It's very difficult to sell a purpose built agency structure to another client, who likely wants their own structure.
Why WPP pushed for this, I have no idea. It already has IBM at Ogilvy so it's not as though they couldn't have known how cyclical the computer business can be. If the agency were in-house, there would have been different business units that could have supported it. If it was part of a network, it could use the network's tools to get new business. Come to think of it, that's just what they did.
I feel bad for CEO Torrance Boone. But not that bad. I'm sure he's paid quite well for WPP's mistakes. Hopefully he can leverage it into something good.
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