Bloodbath Today In CAA Marketing Group

I’m told that 4 agents and 5 assistants have been laid off in the CAA marketing group. Also Lenny Stern has been bicoastal managing CAA’s marketing group for the past few years, always with the agency’s intention to have full-time leadership based in LA. So Lenny’s returning to NYC full time (as a partner in his marketing services firm SS+K), and the two guys running the business day-to-day from here — David Messinger and Jae Goodman — will just keep doing it as the new heads. The downsizing is a reflection of the devastated corporate environment which has particularly impacted marketing services. The way I hear it, revenues for this group have actually remained stable, but it’s an issue of margin pressure. So CAA has now “brought the marketing group to a scale that now makes the most sense in this economy”. Some of the marketing clients whom CAA reps include Mattel, Product “RED”, Moet & Chandon, Coke, Harley-Davidson, Elle magazine, VAustralia Airlines.