Ex-BBDO-er Thinks Chrysler Should Be Left to Die

(MoneyWatch)  A former BBDO exec who claims to have launched Chrysler's PT Cruiser in Canada thinks the car company should be left to die. In a post on his blog, Steve Roper, a former associate creative director at BBDO in charge of Chrysler Canada, suggests that the company "makes cars which no one wants and continues to throw money at them ... The two car companies in trouble have squandered so many opportunities to change and now, they want us to bail them out."

Roper's suggested solution:

Would it not be better to let them close and have another car company come in and but their plants and re-tool them to create the next generation of cars?

Roper is probably only saying what many are thinking. But few currently employed at agencies with car clients are likely to join him. Before Congress balked, Interpublic asked its employees to lobby Congress in favor of the bailout. Also, it is extremely rare to see former agency employees badmouth their clients in public.

Roper's suggestion comes after he learned by accident that Chrysler pays factory workers with high-school educations more than BBDO pays its associate creative directors:

Ten years ago, as an Associate Creative Director for BBDO, and in charge of Chrysler Canada as my only client, my next door neighbor worked for GM in an assembly plant. He placed one part on a transmission six or seven hours a day, year in and year out. He had completed grade ten and got a summer job in GM and never left.

One day while we were having a cross fence talk during dual barbeques, he was compalining about his salary and benefits so I asked him what he was earning.

He was making $75,000.00 annually, had six weeks vacation annually, a guaranteed pension to look forward to and three weeks of job training (I thought to myself, 'Gee, there is only one way to tighten a bolt, is there not?), and after he told me, I had to walk away from the fence to catch my breath. He was earning more money than I, who had a College and University education.

Ironically, Roper is using images of old PT Cruiser work to sell his services as a creative/marketing consultant. (That's his logo, above.)