Thursday, December 6, 2007

Bob Berenson's the new Dell dude

You could've knocked me over with a feather when I read an email this morning from an FOA (Friend of Adverganza) informing me that Bob Berenson would be the new chairman of the Dell agency, DaVinci, that WPP is setting up. You can read one of the many stories about it here. Berenson, in case you don't remember the name, was the right-hand man to Ed Meyer at Grey for several decades, keeping the agency on the straight and narrow from his roll-top desk in a corner office next to Ed's suite of conference rooms, assistants and offices. I actually saw Berenson do a speaking engagement earlier this year; his compadre on stage was Jeff Dachis. Yes, that Jeff Dachis. And I came away thinking he felt his days in the ad biz were over. (Here's video of it.) Well, I guess not if someone asks you to set up an entirely new ad agency set to run a really, really, really, really big account (remember, I said I wouldn't post billings figures on this blog; only revenue figures).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't remember Bob Berenson keeping Grey on the "straight and narrow" - on the contrary...Bob, as George Parker put it so well, just barely dodged a bullet in Grey's print production scandal and was clearly one of the more "flat footed" executives that inhabited Grey. He and Casey Jones of Dell go back to Grey days (Bob even fired the very good head of Grey's SF office so Casey could get his wish to run that office. No doubt Casey will realize a comfort level with Bob at the helm of the new operation...

Anonymous said...

Grey has a long history with Dell. They launched it online way back in the early '90's. Will be interesting to see what other former grey guys come out of hibernation to work on this.