Ogilvy & Mather lays off 5% of staff, says it is due to talent review

Ogilvy & Mather has confirmed to Marketing that it has laid off about 5% of its staff. This accounts to approximately 20 people.When asked if this was due to the recent loss of recent Singtel creative account, Chris Riley, group chairman, Ogilvy & Mather Singapore said it was not."This is part of our ongoing review of talent and skill mix across the agency," he said. Riley added as the largest marketing communications firm in Singapore, the agency is constantly responding to changes in the industry, clients and skillset requirements. As such it looks to make adjustments from time to time to its staffing plans."We remain committed to developing our talent pool and look to hiring across growth areas in social, UX, data and consulting, and are redeploying people to new and evolving roles within our company and wider network,” he said. He added that the agency is doing all it can to help those affected.The pitch which concluded last week, saw Singtel adopting a new agency model where BBH nabbed duties as the telco's strategic brand lead. But not cut out completely, O&M's OgilvyOne took on duties to handle Singtel's B2B business. Social and content duties were handed to Goodstuph and Hogarth is now the creative production specialist.Globally the agency's Worldwide CEO John Seifert also appointed a new global leadership team as part of a strategy to “return the company to a single-branded, integrated enterprise.” The restructure, in February, saw its OgilvyOne and Ogilvy PR, come under the same corporate roof. Seifert revealed a new structure which saw the group create four new functions to better integrate across the business.Meanwhile locally, another WPP agency Possible Singapore also saw a churn in staff.