The 'Mad Men' Behind Ford's Ad Agency Drama

If you are one of the roughly 3500 employees of Ford Motor Co’s lead ad agency, GTB, you have your resume on the street after the automaker seriously ruptured its 75-year relationship with WPP agencies when it granted independent Portland, Oregon-based ad agency Wieden & Kennedy an assignment for a new brand and retail campaign expected to launch in October. That assignment, though, is expected to blossom into control over creative ad strategy for Ford nationally.

And if you love working on the Ford account, as most at GTB do, you are probably ticked off about how the review for the global account is dragging into its fifth month.

In the Request-For-Proposal (RFP) from Ford, according to executive sources familiar with the review who are not authorized to speak with the media, Ford specifically called out for GTB to address “culture” at the agency, which in the opinion of key Ford executives, has not been conducive to producing top-flight engaging creative at a time when Ford is fighting for respect both at the dealership and on Wall Street.

Requests for comment to WPP and GTB were referred to Ford, and Ford spokesperson Jennifer Flake said the review is ongoing, and that the company doesn't discuss machinations of the review with the media.


However, several sources connected to the review have indicated that the outcome is largely determined, with GTB to hold on to an array of marketing and advertising services, from PR to media production, Tier-2 advertising, overseas marketing services and possibly truck advertising. Wieden is being set up to set U.S. national creative strategy, at least for the non-truck side of the business. BBDO, another contender, has unofficially been eliminated from contention.

Agendas and Dysfunction

According to interviews with executives at Ford and WPP, the relationship between GTB and the automaker first fractured when GTB CEO Satish Korde and COO Kim Brink ousted creative chief Toby Barlow, a 15-year veteran of WPP, in February 2017. Barlow had led GTB’s Ford creative work since 2006 when Alan Mulally took over from Bill Ford as CEO, who in turn recruited James Farley from Toyota to be the company’s top marketing executive. Farley, now EVP and President of Global Markets, and Barlow had forged a tight partnership over the years. The decision to oust Barlow was supported, some say driven, by then-CEO Mark Fields and current Ford North American sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve, who personally recruited Brink to GTB.

Source: Forbes