Honesty attack at IPG as spend forecasts become even worse.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

It's one of the first rules of managing. Never put into print what you really mean because it might fall into the hands of some pesky journalist and end up in the pages of Campaign. Anyway, in the past few days, 151 of John Dooner's close and personals have received an interesting five-page internal memo.

As might be expected from a chief executive whose share price went into freefall on 15 June and who issued two earnings warnings in less than two months, these are brutally honest words. Making the valid point that all the public agency stocks are down, both in the US and Europe, Dooner acknowledges that the daily and nightly struggle of managing IPG has actually turned into a bit of a nightmare: "Previous growth expectations that were nurtured when the economy was expanding are now turning into income disappointments ... as our clients slow down their communications spending, this has impacted our revenue and profits in a very direct way ... the recent IPG stock price drop is not a situation we find acceptable. Not at all ..." Etc.

There are two interesting points in the memo. The first is the explanation for the 15 June shares meltdown, which comes as Interpublic is on the point of splashing out almost $2 billion in stock to buy True North, catapulting it from the third-largest advertising agency in the world to the number-one slot.

Dooner's view on this is in a section headed "A difficult week" (for which read "oh, fuck"). Apparently, however, this little blip is due ...