For the advertising industry, it is a tectonic earthquake of magnitude 9: Andreas Widmer is leaving the Y&R Group . In addition to the CEO and Chairman of the Board, the two senior executives Claus Bornholt and Bruno Rambaldi are also leaving. A few days earlier, creative director and CCO Markus Gut had already announced his move as CEO and co-owner of the branding agency Process. The Y&R Group - and this does not require clairvoyant abilities - is leaderless. In the current LSA ranking of communications agencies, the Y&R Group is in fourth place and includes the companies Advico Y&R, Futurecom and Wunderman.
Sir Martin Sorel, CEO of WPP, which also owns brazil rcs data the Y&R Group, is probably having a sense of déjà vu: 15 years ago, the then managing director and board delegate Peter Felser and a large number of his colleagues suddenly left the then Advico Young & Rubicam in Gockhausen to found the creative agency Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett. What followed were years of litigation and legal proceedings that brought the Y&R Group to the brink of collapse. It is thanks to Andreas Widmer and Markus Gut in particular that the company has recovered from the shock of Felser's departure in recent years, repositioned itself and made a fresh start in trendy Zurich West.
It was already clear in 2002 that the international network was not in a position to set realistic targets for its Swiss branch.