A flurry of job postings within the past two weeks has Gannett advertising employees on high alert, fearing that another cost-cutting consolidation may vaporize their jobs.The new positions are listed for something called the Client Solutions Group, and are based in Indianapolis and Des Moines. Those growing hubs within Gannett are the sites of the still-developing Gannett Production Centers, where advertisements will be produced for the company's community newspapers. The ad production consolidation, due to be complete by early 2011, is likely to eliminate hundreds of jobs.
The Solutions Group may be some kind of new, internal advertising agency for the community papers, I'm told. Searching today, I found five positions for the group posted on CareerBuilder and another employment site:
- Client Solutions Director in Indianapolis
- Creative Director, Indianapolis
- Marketing Strategist, Indianapolis
- Marketing Coordinator in Des Moines
- Digital Strategist, Des Moines
Haven't kept up with this blog lately, but you know that ad production folks are already being laid off, right? In Lafayette, LA, about 10 were laid off last week. Taking the work to Indianapolis.
ReplyDeleteI do, indeed. I'm not sure how far along the production centers have gotten, however.
ReplyDeleteWe've had a Client Solutions group in Detroit for a few years now so the name is not new.
ReplyDelete'Client Solutions is being used. it is a silly 'catch phrase' used by higher end design, basically glossy publications.
ReplyDelete4 of 6 production jobs in Shreveport cut. Their last day is May 14. 2 positions (ad trackers) will remain.
ReplyDeleteMichelle Krans is clearly someone who has the goods on a very senior person at USCP. She really is clueless.
ReplyDeletehow many remain in Lafayette? you say 10 were cut, but out of what number
ReplyDeletealso are they cutting any of your bosses out there in LA?
Client solutions is designed to make Mr. Car Dealer or Mrs. Furniture Store Owner in the little markets feel like big shots. Rather than shovel your ads into GPC to ship overseas, we're going to elevate you to Client Solutions. If you can increase your commitment.
ReplyDeleteThe advertisers who know better will hire the former artist they always worked with at the paper, and will drop their media buy to accommodate paying for what they used to get for free.
Client Solutions is intended for the bigger accounts you know the cream de le creme accounts that can't go to Des Moines and get churned or lost from client relationships getting severed, another way of taking care of high maintenance customers and allowing them to do whatever they want. They also provide and skew research to the customer that says why they should advertise in newspaper, online, inserts and mail, and how convenient - our paper can get that scheduled for you, i can't believe that research is so on target!
ReplyDeleteAs a graphic designer for over 40 years ( yes... I was once a commercial artist in the days of cut and paste with wax machines), I can, in an overview sense, see what they are doing. Ad agency people get a different perspective on creating advertising than newspaper people usually do. Of course there are always creatives in any business, but agencies usually garner more than production based newspaper types. I believe it takes years of experience with a large diverse base of accounts (plus the interchange of client/artist) to develop creative, thoughtful designers. Gannett, in their search for additional revenue streams, is smart in trying to create internal ad agency creative formats so they can upsell and resell creative in their existing and new publications. As one who has created over 11,000 pages of design from scratch, all on an independent (non corporate) basis, I thing they are doing the right thing but just have to be aware of the traps of internal ad agency production where creatives do what they think "The Boss" wants, instead of what is needed in the constantly changing media flux we know as advertising.
ReplyDelete