Our snitchers have reported that the agency 22Squared based in Atlanta with offices in Tampa is in serious trouble. They’ve let go most of their executives including the CEO and CFO. If an agency lets go of their CFO you know they’re in deep shit. Remember this was the agency led by the infamous Toygar who lasted only a year there before being fired.
They’ve lost their biggest client Publix to Fig although it seems they’ve been retained for media. (Southeast) Toyota is rumored to be leaving the agency as well. Other clients they have is Baskin-Robbins, Varo Bank, Nathan’s Hotdogs, Advent Health although we don’t know if they are all still there or what state those accounts are in. (Snitchers let us know).
Lots of reported bad management and bad hires (who?) with Amanda Ferber being pointed to be the main culprit.
They’re technically still an independent agency so maybe they’ll be bought out. As of yet no mass layoffs reported but it could be only a matter of time.
👀We will update this post as more snitches come in.
What happened to Toygar?
Let’s start with this-Toygar was the least the the problems. He came into a sinking ship. He may not be the greatest leader, but he was far from what brought this agency down.
First bad hire, Matt O’Rourke. A wanna-be CD with a questionable book who came in saying how much he “loved” the agency and its culture, then immediately set out to mold it into his own terrible, fat image.
Turned off clients. Turned off the creative department. Fired.
Then came Erica Hoholick. Nice enough woman with great credentials. Everyone had high hopes for her. But she proceeded to lose half the agency’s revenue, ignore our biggest client and care about the past culture as much as Matt O’Rourke cared about not being fat.
Then came the genius hire of a CFO. Vivek, maybe? He proceeded to raise rates on a historical client without telling them. Genius.
22squared was a great place to work. Everyone got along and these “big shot” agency people came in and destroyed it. RIP 22.
Yes, but Toygar wasn’t even on the same page with his handpicked NYC-based ECDs. They kept trying to push clients who were cash cows to do award winning work. Then Toygar would come in and crap all over their work and make people start from scratch literally an hour or two before the client meetings. most of the time they’d have to reschedule the cleint meetings which upset the clients. Then after he blessed the new work and the clients would see it and kill it all because it was off strategy, off brand and a lot of times over budget. It got to the point that certain legacy clients told the agency to not bring him to meetings. By the time the agency pulled the plug on him it was too late for a lot of their business. Word on the street is Toyota SE is possibly out the door. I haven’t heard that from anyone who works there, but If they lose that, it could be the fatal blow. Hope they can regroup and get back to winning again. Now that WPP is about to lose all of Coke, Atlanta can stand to lose another agency.
I like you Guy. You’re in the know.
The company lost Nathan’s, Varo, and Advent Health back in 2023. Barely any new biz wins since then