Drama in Detroit

There's a drama playing out in the Detroit ad market right now that some are saying is only the beginning of a change in trends in automotive advertising. Shifting of accounts with no consideration for the creative work is of grave concern to the tightly knit Detroit ad community.

I have cut and pasted an article from reuters.com below but would be interested in what those of you outside of the turmoil think of the situation, or if you care. Please post comments. More information (although biased) can be found at the autoextremist's site and many other press released can be found at ad age and PR NewsWire.

NEW YORK, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Advertising company Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC) promised to hire key executives from competitor True North Communications Inc. (TNO) to win $1.5 billion in advertising business from automaker Chrysler Group, the Wall Street Journal reported in its electronic edition Monday.

Earlier this month, Chicago-based True North's ad agency group, FCB Worldwide, lost the Chrysler advertising account to Omnicom unit BBDO Worldwide. True North estimated it would lose $140 million in annual revenues from losing the Chrysler account, which it held for 21 years.

In order to win the Chrysler account, BBDO Worldwide officials had to agree to hire the top people at True North's FCB Worldwide, the paper said.

As a result, Mike Vogel, president and chief executive of FCB Detroit, will serve as the new chairman and chief executive of Omnicom's new PentaMark unit, which will handle the consolidated Chrysler account, the paper said, citing an internal BBDO memo.

Chrysler's marketing team pushed Omnicom to give Vogel the top job, the paper reported, citing people familiar with the negotiations. "We went after him from the beginning," the paper quoted a person at Chrysler as saying. "Mike is the key to bringing over the top talent at FCB."