Host/Havas makes redundancies after losing Defence recruiting account
Advertising agency Host/Havas has made a large number of redundancies following the loss of its biggest account, Australian Defence Force Recruiting, Mumbrella understands. Mumbrella has heard industry speculation that the number of affected staff could be upwards of 70, but so far, Host/Havas has declined to comment or confirm the number.
The Department of Defence started the tender process of seeking a pitch consultant in late 2017. In April last year, the DFR then rolled over its current contract with Host/Havas for an additional year.
Mumbrella understands the winner of the DFR digital and creative contract has not yet been notified
Who won though? And how cheap did they go?
Shame.
it seems creating the most effective long term campaign in Australia isn’t good enough for some clients.
Agreed Nick, there seems to be some very dubious decisions made when it comes to Government accounts.
Grey losing TAC also springs to mind.
That’s true, Nick. Except the same could’ve been said about GPY&R at the time who were undercut by H/H low balling it by a significant margin, effectively buying the account.
Did that other wpp agency forget to submit its tender again?
Some very good people were cut from the ranks. Agencies be on the look out.
Congrats to whoever won AD
Congrats dude!
I hear you Julian and Matt wrote the majority of the submission.
Y&R owe you guys a bonus
How much is this account worth to chop 70 people??? It can’t be worth $70 million.
When we lost Woolies we lost less than half the amount of people. So says they have lost far more than just one account.
Sorry to those who lost their jobs especially those over 40…you battle to find something else in this horribly ageist industry.
Sad for Havas. Great people. But congrats to who ever won the gig
A tough client. Will take all their skills.
This isn’t even remotely accurate.
Exactly Captain – Losing an account like this is a sad blow for any agency- but this stinks of either mis-management of the business or terrible management of people.
Presumably Freedman has gone, I mean how many failed agencies can you preside over before getting the proverbial guillotine?!?
Considering you were one of the key people Havas would have lost to, is it really appropriate to comment?
A certain recent merger might very well have worked greatly in favour for CADS…
“Host/Havas’ clients include the National Heart Foundation, Oroton, Air New Zealand and Chatime.”
Don’t Havas have Reckitt Benckiser anymore? Wouldn’t that be bigger than the likes of Oroton and Chatime?
If that’s really all the significant clients they have left, god help them
How can Defence appoint an agency that has nobody left there? Of those that pitched barely two of them remain.
Good point, losing over 70 people for one account is a bit too much. Would it be a combination of factors? Sad to see anyway, tough business!
Is it common in agencies to have such a massive layoff because your business runs mostly off one client? Sounds like the system is seriously problematic. Obviously (at the very least) someone from the leadership team at HH is out, good luck to whoever that is.
They published figures earlier this month. Apparently they spent almost $13M with Host/Havas alone.
Which would account for 13 redundancies, at the average of $1M per employee. In other words, they’ve lost more than DFR.
And/or are using the opp to be cheap and save $.
Correct – the end is nigh.
$1m per employee is way off the mark.
You would have to be charged at $500 an hour five days a week for 52 weeks a year to generate $1M in hours. And that’s not taking into account public holidays, leave and, the biggest one, salary.
Given that most staff on an account are charged at well under that you can see why they had to lay off a much larger number of staff than 13 for a $13M account.
Sounds like the result of complete mismanagement from senior leaders at H/H.