Wow...this is pretty big. Great to see this space finally taken up. I'll be curious to see how long it takes to fill up the building PwC was in before they headed to Woodward.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ehouse-at-ford
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Wow...this is pretty big. Great to see this space finally taken up. I'll be curious to see how long it takes to fill up the building PwC was in before they headed to Woodward.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ehouse-at-ford
Here is some great news for downtown...
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20130305/NEWS/130309949/campbell-ewald-to-move-headquarters-to-hudsons-warehouse-at-ford
Obligatory "Will House of Blues follow them to that space?" post.
Now this is a surprise.
I guess they grew tired of Warren.
This is great because it helps expand the ring of downtown outward a bit.
It makes sense. Their huge account for almost a century was Chevy and they lost it a few years ago. Not nearly as much reason to be near the GM Tech Center in the middle of nowhere of Warren...might as well come downtown and broaden their horizons. This adds an element of excitement to the agency. Solid move.
It's great when Detroit poaches jobs from the suburbs but not the other way around. Campbell Ewald had a big office in Warren. Is the space in Ford Field bigger? perhaps they're downsizing after losing the GM account?
Sounds like more than 600 employees and move-in is set for January, 2014. Great stuff.
http://www.freep.com/article/2013030...text|FRONTPAGE
Great news! imo it's hard to take them seriously at their old location. Could you imagine being a client, going to meeting about your ad that's going to cost millions to create and then millions more to run on tv, and you thought you hired some cutting edge ad agency, and there you are, driving on van dyke entering into a dumpy building. An ad agency should know better than anyone the way a building and location affects branding and impressions.
But now they're moving into Ford Field which isn't exactly architecturally distinguished. You'd think that being a design company, they would move into an architecturally distinguished building that reflects their company's image. Ford Field is pretty much as undistinguished and bland as you can get while still being downtown. I also feel like, even though it's downtown it's not very close to anything and their employees won't really get the benefit of being downtown.
So, based on some back of the envelope calculations considering that the entire leasable space is 230,000 square feet, a typical floor plan as 24,000 square feet [[source - Ford Field website), Campbell-Ewald is leasing 5 floors and the building is currently at 30% occupancy; this move should raise the occupancy rate to roughly 82%. Not a bad day for the management team.
Yikes I didn't realize how much space they took. I take back my comment about them not finding a better building, I think it would be hard to find that much space.
Could you imagine being a client and driving down 75 and seeing the abandoned looking Russell Industrial Center, abandoned Fisher Body Plant, abndoned Brewster-Douglas towers, and who can forget all the vacant land surrounding the Massonic Temple if they come down Woodward, and then come to a company headquartered in a football stadium?
What benefit does downtown offer besides a longer commute and Detroit income tax?
Huge loss for Warren, that has done over 10 mills of tax increases the last 4 years.
Great addition for downtown!
There are a lot of reasons...most notably likely being much closer to clients/potential clients and - since they like to push how they are a "Detroit" agency - the shift will help their image. Some companies here in Detroit will only do business with other organizations that are located in the city [[also likely will help with out-of-state clients).
If you don't see the benefit for CE you really know nothing about their business at all.
Given Chevrolet's lackluster [[I'm being kind) ad campaigns since dumping Campbell Ewald perhaps the marketing guys at the Ren Cen could take a little walk over there to try to rekindle the old flame.
Plus being across from the GM Tech Center in Warren only reminds people about losing the Chevy account. That was an absolutely huge development in ad circles and was the only reason they were there in the first place.
Moving downtown really helps them reinvigorate their brand as not just GM.
Unless Campbell Ewald scored a contract with Dan Gilbert, I don't see what companies they are closer to? Besides, they're only a stone throw from GM's headquarters where their biggest contract went to.
According to the article I read, none of their major clients were in Detroit. They ranged from University of Michigan to some company in California. Go ahead and list the coporate offices in Detroit that aren't Gilbert owned. We have GM [[which dumped them) and DTE. Who else is there? the Casinos? Little Caesers? Also, why does a company in the 21st century need to be in the same proximity of its clients? i guess global marketing isn't their strong suit.
I'd like to thank Shollin for all the comic relief in this thread.
The commute may or may not be longer depending on where people live. From Bloomfield the commute would be roughly the same. I also wonder how many of the younger employers live downtown and actually commute to Warren.
From the airport, downtown is much more convenient than Warren, and it's also more convenient as far as hotels and transportation is concerned. Clients could stay at the Book Cadillac or Ren Cen, go to meetings, do fine dining and cultural activities without the huge hassle it would be in Warren.
It also helps them attract talent and improves their branding and image. It's hard to think of a type of business that combines more creative disciplines. And the top young talent in those fields strongly prefer urbanity.
I would say it is much more likely the younger employees live in Royal Oak and take the short drive down 696. I wouldn't say downtown is much more convienient than Warren. You just have to take 275 to 696. There's plenty of hotels around Campbell Ewald. I guess Warren lacks an art museum. Campbell Ewald could market living in Royal Oak to their young recruits. My guess is they got some incentive to move to Detroit.
Seems a lot of people disagree with you. The problem is that you are assuming that 'better than Detroit' equates to good. That is one of the largest issues in Metro Detroit. It is equivalent to saying, "Yeah, my city sucks but it sucks less than Detroit." Kudos to you for being the thinnest person at fat camp.:
How about this. Let's say that CE does not currently have any office space anywhere, and it needs to find somewhere to locate in metro Detroit.
Tell me why Warren is a good place for them to locate.
The context of the conversation is Campbell Ewald moving from Warren to Detroit so it seems natural to talk about the differences between the two.
Well at least we now know "why he doth protest too much"... you live in Warren... and you gave all these lame excuses [[the "what they're driving past" is the lamest) on why they should not move... and then ended it with "I guess global marketing isn't their strong suit" as a slap at them. FYI... their clients also include the US Post Office and MotorCity Casino.
If anything this is the "schadenfreude" that Warren Mayor Jim Fouts deserves for his attempt to move the GM HQ from Detroit to the GM Tech Center.
GM and Campbell-Ewald [[founded IN Detroit) had a 91 year relationship... maybe they felt like a jilted lover... and decided they just didn't want to stick around anymore.... and just leave it at that.
But none of the excuses that they shouldn't move have convinced folks [[even suburbanites like myself)... why they shouldn't.
Warren will survive... we all know that... so end of story.
P.S. You still have Matty's CENTRA corp in Warren... as well as the vast Tech Center... and all the developments on the Tank Plant site... not to mention all of the commercial businesses along the Mound corridor...
GM, Blue Cross, Comerica, Chase, Compuware, E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and Chrysler – ten off the top of my head, not owned by Gilbert, and all are large companies with sizable corporate offices in downtown Detroit. Those are just global companies…not even to mention a ton of other ones I didn’t bother to list. Now please name 10 corporations like those who have sizable offices in Warren.
Heck, the image part of this is just as big if not bigger. I just spoke with someone who worked at CE for six years on my drive home and he thought this was an excellent decision for all the reasons already mentioned.
Not only are you incredibly ignorant on the advertising business, it is somehow matched by your ignorance of the downtown corporate scene. You are blabbering nonsense.
For the record, I have zero problem at all with the city of Warren. I am sure it is a fine place to raise a family.
But to somehow not see how locating downtown does not make business sense for CE - when considering their past and future - is ridiculous.
They just lost their account with GM and the Tech Center is across the street in Warren. How is that relevant? Comerica's headquarters are in Dallas and not Detroit anymore. Compuware is almost insolvent and could be owned by a hedge fund and moved out of Detroit. Chase is not headquartered in Detroit. Ernst and Young is not headquartered in Detroit. PWC is not headquartered in Detroit. Chrysler is not headquartered in Detroit. In fact, CE is moving farther away from Chrysler. None of these companies make their marketing decisions in their offices in Detroit.
My sister works at CE now and mentioned that this was an office rumor for ages. I am not sure how well it will work to attract talent and new accounts. With that said, she stated that the majority of CE employees live on the east side in Macomb County or GP. I suppose this shakeup will leave some folks in Warren feeling jealous but oh well.
I must be being trolled here if someone is actually suggesting international attention on a city being bankrupt is positive. There should be a Pure Michigan ad about Detroit being bankrupt. Perhaps Campbell Ewald can make it.
Maybe CE decided to move a bit closer to their competition:
http://www.freep.com/article/2012041...ffice-downtown
It's about time you came around. We're talking about Detroit's come back because of a Buffalo Wild Wings and 7-11, when Warren already had those plus multiple Krogers, Meijer, and Target. Apparently retailers see Warren as being more relevant than Detroit. More Detroiters have moved into Warren than Warrenites [[?) moving into Detroit. I guess they know that their children won't burn to death while waiting for a firetruck or ambulance in Warren.
So is Warren bankrupt? Warren has 100,000 jobs. Detroit has 350,000 jobs despite being over 5 times larger than Warren, and twice as many people commute from Detroit than from Warren to Detroit. Warren has lower poverty and lower unemployment. More people are moving from Detroit to Warren than the other way around. I guess in terms of who grabs the news headlines it would be Detroit simply because it's larger. It terms of being a functioning city with an economy that can support it's population, Warren is much more relevant.
As to nobody giving a shit, you will forgive me if I and others who actually live in those suburbs feel differently. Strengthening Ferndale's tax base does more for my city than strengthening Detroit's does - at least for the foreseeable future.
The point about poaching jobs is valid - regardless of whether its city to suburb or vice versa. Its not job growth, its [[as others have put it before me) rearranging deck chairs.
I'm not bitter. I'm not jumping up for joy because a company who lost its biggest client and downsized decided to move into a football stadium. If some ad agency from New York said they were opening a new office in Detroit and going to hire x amount of people, then I would be excited. You have provided nothing to state how this helps the area besides Detroit. I bet their office is in some renaissance zone and they're getting a subsidy to move there.
Having a strong downtown helps a region more than having larger companies spread across the metropolitan region. It helps attract more businesses and the image of the community itself.
I agree that new jobs would be much better, but you still have utterly failed to explain why CE should stay in Warren.
Warren, a city of 134,056 residents according to the 2010 census, has 100,000 jobs? Could you provide your sources?
I tried to find a source for this on Wikipedia, but found these interesting tidbits instead:
Quote:
Since 1970, Warren has been consistently one of the faster-declining cities in population in the country. The population declined by 10% during each of the next two decades [[1980: 161,060; 1990: 144,864), and dropped by 4.6% between 1990 and 2000.
Quote:
Warren's population is currently one of the oldest among large cities in the United States. 17.3% of Warren's population was 65 or older at the last census, tied for fifth with Hollywood, Florida among cities with 100,000+ population, and in fact the highest-ranking city by this measure outside of Florida or Hawaii.
Quote:
Racial integration came slowly to Warren in the ensuing two decades, with the white portion of the city dropping only gradually to 98.2% in 1980 and 97.3% as of 1990. At that point integration started to accelerate, with the white population declining to 91.3% in 2000 and reaching 63.4% as of the 2010 census.
You asked for companies not affiliated with Gilbert located downtown...I listed a ton of huge ones. You did not specify they had headquarters downtown. You are now fabricating crap knowing you have no defense.
I then asked you to say equilvant companies in Warren and you, not shockingly, completely avoided the question.
First you're comparing a city a fifth of the size of Detroit. Plus having a corporate office who doesn't make marketing decisions is irrlelvant, but I'll play along. Warren has GM, Comerica, Big Boy, and Art Van. I didn't mention Chrysler because there are only factories in Warren, but I guess if Chrysler moves a couple into the dime building that qualifies for Detroit, it should qualify for Warren.
That makes sense. There's US Manufacturing, the big GM and Chrysler plants along Mound, the TACOM campus, the GM Tech center, all the job shops and freight companies along Groesbeck, the distribution centers and HQs for Big Boy and Art Van, the MCC south campus and a couple of smaller colleges, a few hospitals. Warren is a good sized city, there's a [[kinda weird) assortment of business going on there.
Anyone know if the CE Southfield offices are still open? One of my friends used to work for them, and said they had a really impressive VR cave out there.
Shollin, you're becoming the lady that doth protest too much. CE was in Warren because it had GM accounts. It lost them and laid off more than a couple of people. Its Warren location, though right across the street from a lovely GM campus, was in a shabby commercial strip. They needed to reinvent, and query what creative types want to work in that location [[I'm sure Team Detroit would be downtown if Ford wasn't, ahem, encouraging it to lease space from Ford Motor's real estate division).
You give us Art Van [[a regional concern that is not buying what CE sells), Comerica [[all of whose decisionmakers are now consolidated in Detroit), and Big Boy [[whose advertising is... subtle). You can still go after those from a Detroit location. But from a Detroit location, you can also have access to business that do a lot more volume and are more plugged into the Detroit image, like:
- BCBS of Michigan
- Compuware
- DTE Energy
- Little Caesars
- The DMC [[9 hospitals)
- Henry Ford Hospital
- Several large law firms
- Three casinos
- The art museum, orchestra, opera, and historical museum
- Three sports teams
- Two universities
- Regional offices of national accounting firm, which probably have authority to spend their own ad budgets
And that is not mentioning Dan Gilbert, whose ad spending has been big. By the way, GM has now has a fair number of its marketing people in the Renaissance Center. Per the NYT article today, Chrysler's regional marketing division is now in the Dime Building.
Look, I know it burns you up that a relatively small employer is leaving Warren for Detroit - but put it in context. Warren was going to be part of Detroit, incorporated to prevent that, redlined, and did its level best to suck businesses and people out of the city and made no attempt to hide it [[including Jim Fouts' kicking Detroit when GM was going under). Times change, fashions change, and things move. Campbell-Ewald decided to move. Trying to rationalize why they should not [have] do[ne] it seems like a waste of time. If you are emotionally invested in Warren and have a lot of time on your hands, work on cracking how to attract businesses to inner-ring suburbs - especially on the east side.
HB
Great news for Detroit ! Warren shouldn't bitch because the former Walmart location on 12 Mile and Van Dyke , has been purchased by ...... Walmart which will open at that location again soon , the may have bought the whole shopping center not sure .
http://www.freep.com/article/2013030...text|FRONTPAGEQuote:
The search for a new headquarters for the 102-year-old agency, Ludwig said, was driven by a need for culture change because of the explosion of technology and social media, along with Campbell Ewald's need to diversify its client base as the auto industry struggled through the crisis of 2008-09.
Does anyone remember where the original Campbell-Ewald offices were located? My guess would be on West Grand Blvd at Cass, ... There is a large empty lot at that corner and I have to think something was there once upon a time.
First of all, I am thrilled with this move. However, that isn't really the best location in my mind. They must be getting the space really cheap because of the lack of tenants in there. When I look at that area, I don't see a ton of amenities for the employees. The Elwood should see an uptick in customers which is especially great for the offseason. Obviously no shopping either. Not a great space to me. That being said I hope that the increase in employees will spur some business development over there on Brush. Now I can definitely see an advantage when it comes to schmoozing clients. You just walk down the hall and you're at a Lions game or across the street and you're at a Tigers game. Well played in that respect and some of the employees will probably appreciate that too.
You have to look at this from the perspective of the company's management. They are in a transition period, after loosing a major client [[Chevy), and diversifying their client base. They are looking for a new jolt of energy and inspiration and moving to Detroit can deliver that. Just look at the office renderings... seems like a breath of fresh air compared to the bland dilapidated office in Warren [[although who knows, maybe the inside is great). It really looks the way a major ad agency's office should look like... modern, urban and displaying, architecturally, what the firm is about. Advertising is all about being on the cutting-edge, and people who say this is a bad move are just failing to realize that Downtown Detroit is on the cutting-edge, despite the city as a whole continuing on its downward spiral. Someone mentioned New York City in the 70's as being the only bigger municipal failure than Detroit... well, look at New York now.
It doesn't "burn me up." I just don't get the excitement of moving jobs to Detroit and then giving a line of bullshit how it will help the suburbs. You're robbing Peter to pay Paul. The hypocrisy is amusing. When the suburbs do it their racist and trying to kick Detroit etc. I really don't care about CE leaving since the company was downsizing and according to Fouts were trying to get subsidies from Warren before they left. As stated earlier, Warren has over 100k jobs and has a pretty large economy relative to its population. I also trust Warren more than Detroit with the vacant CE building.
That, and buying and giving away tickets as perks. All part of doing biz. How's the parking situation @ their new locale? Plenty of space with easy in & out? Not everyone shares the enthusiasm for paid parking, or hiking and mass transit. As far as Warren goes, it's a great little 'burb, but even 10 years ago when I was a regular in those parts, it was chock full of empty machine shops either for sale or lease. CE, in the spirit of survival, merely went where they thought they could earn a living.
is campbell-ewald hiring?
I'm guessing their parking situation will be perfectly fine. PwC just moved out of the office building that was built just east of Ford Field and utilized the nice structure attached to Ford Field. I'm sure CE will basically just take those spots over. It has instant access to 75.
If I were a 9 to 5 employee of CE with a 45 minute lunch break, I am not sure I would want to be housed in this new location. In addition to now paying a city income tax and perhaps having a more stressful commute to and from work, what is there to do at lunch hour? Campus Martius is a good hike as is a walk to RenCen. Take in a few minutes of a Tiger game on a rare afternoon when they are playing? I'd say this location is a tad removed from the action on or closer to Woodward. Certainly nothing happening North or East of their new digs. I know of a couple of Bodman employees who are quite disenchanted with this location. or has Bodman now left that area?
I'm with you on that front, Rock. There is really nothing walkable except Elwood, right? Like I said, having more people there MIGHT entice some new businesses/restaurants to open. I don't know if maybe Slow's in Ford Field would open up during the week for employees. How much BBQ can you eat, though?
CE is busing all their Warren employees over this AM for some sort of event/tour. Anyways, will this start a trend with all the other agencies in Southfield? Will Doner and Mars move?
Eastern Mark-up. Nice.
I basically agree with these sentiments - that location is not all that great in terms of access to cool things downtown.
Nonetheless, one of the things with ad agencies is being cool and hip - having the ability to work within an old warehouse and keep that old Detroit feel will be very cool...a lot more interesting than just taking a few floors in the RenCen or One Woodward or something.
Here are some renderings about what I'm talking about...
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/g...3050809&Ref=PH
Those renderings look friggin sweet!