Our snitchers are reporting that Campbell Ewald is on verge of collapse. In some ways we knew they were in trouble due to many of the car brands shifting and pitching their accounts away from Detroit based agencies. The recent merger also saw them move their office to mix with McCann/MRM but it seems they will actually merge completely with staff working under the McCann umbrella.
They have let go most of their HR staff and have retained only a few people to handle their minuscule piece of Onstar/GM work and a few project based clients that they still have. Current CEO Kari Shimmel who was promoted from the previous role leading strategy seems to be failing at the job as she hasn’t been able to land any new clients during her tenure as CEO.
CE has been plagued by a few controversies in the past with a racist email sent in 2016 by one of their CDs out of the San Antonio office resulting in the firing of both the CD and CEO Jim Palmer. That caused several large accounts to leave the agency on top of losing the GM/Chevrolet business back in 2010 after a 90 year relationship.
Do you think merging CE into McCann and even potentially dumping the name CE is a good or bad thing? Let us know in the comments.
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