Crispin Porter + Bogusky‘s (CP+B) Toronto office has laid off 11 staffers, including creative director Darren Richardson.
The agency has declined a request for comment, but CEO Andrew Keller issued a statement Monday saying the layoffs are the result of redundancies arising from the Toronto agency’s further integration into the MDC Partners network.
“As we continue to align our six offices with our one agency model, we have simplified our structure,” Keller said. “One consequence of this is that 11 of the positions in the Toronto office are no longer needed. Although we do not take the laying off of employees lightly, we believe that we must act in the best interest of both our employees and our clients at all times. We are confident that this move allows us to bring our clients the most powerful CPB thinking from across the globe.”
CPB arrived in Canada in 2010 following its merger with Zig, another MDC Partners-owned agency.
MediaBistro, reporting on the layoffs on Monday, said the office has approximately 50 staff at present. This is a marked decline from a year ago when it had approximately 100 Toronto staffers. Since that time, the agency has seen the departure of Shelley Brown, its then-president, and Aaron Starkman, its then-executive creative director. (Subtej Nijjar assumed overall leadership from Brown while Michael Murray assumed the ECD role.)
CPB Toronto has also seen some significant client changes over the past year. It contributed to the network’s successful pitch for the Under Armour brand in the U.S., but also lost its Canadian IKEA and Molson clients.
