Publicis Groupe continues to ponder future of D'Arcy

The decision to close D'Arcy, which was taken at the beginning of October by its owner Publicis Groupe, has turned out to be easier to say than to do. At the end of November speculation arose on the issue and currently everybody is awaiting the reaction of D'Arcy's most important customer, Era GSM operator Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC) which provides around 65% of D 'Arcy's revenues. However, PTC is silent on its intentions. Managing d irector of Leo Burnett, Jaroslaw Ziebinski, who is responsible for D'Arcy's reorganization refused to comment on the fate of the agencies employees and assets. "At this stage, there is no point in speculating," he said. Ac cording to unofficial information, Leo Burnett is proposing to set up an independent advertising agency. However, Tomasz Pawlikowski, the president of Publicis in Poland, is hoping to incorporate the majority of the old staff into Publicis. "D'Arcy has been closed in order to rationalize costs and not to increase them under a different company name. The creation of another new agency makes no sense. Otherwise, we could as well decide not to close D'Arcy" he said. To a certain extent the final option depends on the decision of PTC. At the same time, the network's largest clients are not awaiting the outcome, but have begun to look for another advertising agency. (Media i Marketing Polska, November 28 - December 11, 2002, p. 8) A.Z.