 | This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(March 2012) |
Cyrk was once one of the largest promotions companies in the world with over 2,000 employees worldwide. The company's stock was listed on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol CYRK. It was founded in 1976 by Gregory Shlopak (born 1946) [1] and Paul Butman (born 1949) [2]
The bulk of CYRK's revenues were generated from the sale of custom promotional products employed as consumer rewards in points-based consumer loyalty promotions.
CYRK had three very successful public offerings between early 1993 and late 1994 underwritten by Montgomery Securities, all of which were oversubscribed.[ citation needed ]
In 1997 the company, "already a significant player through its management of the Marlboro Gear and Pepsi Stuff continuity programs" [3] acquired Los Angeles-based Simon Marketing, making it one of the largest agencies in the promotion industry. They were named Agency of the Year by Promo Magazine in 1998. Although CYRK lost the Pepsi Stuff account in 1998 as it moved to a Coca-Cola account that never rivaled the success with Pepsi, they boasted McDonald's and Philip Morris as their two top clients. They also did significant business with Beanie Babies-maker Ty Inc. While Philip Morris accounted for 90% of the companies' business in 1994 through the acquisition of Simon, McDonald's alone accounted for 61% of the consolidated revenue in 1999. On March 31, 1997, CYRK purchased Monroe, WA based Tonkin, Inc. At the time Caterpillar Inc. was Tonkin's largest account. The Tonkin acquisition was intended to allow CYRK to penetrate the business-to-business segment of the promotions industry and to serve as a further diversification initiative.
Although based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the company's marketing arm from 1994 to 1999 was a New York-based operation called Integrated Marketing Solutions, with President Laurel Rossi, who left the company in February 1999 to move to Hill Holliday Direct as executive VP and director of client services. [4] and Joseph Sequenzia as Executive Creative Director, who left the company in 1998 to join IPG company Draft Worldwide, where he ultimately served as Executive Vice President, Executive Creative Director. [5] In 1999, they had $988M in sales. Shlopak resigned in 1999 to join Louis Marx in an investment firm Equity Enterprises (later Brae Capital). Patrick Brady, who had joined the company in 1989 as a 50% owner of the then privately held company and was, in 1999, already president, was named CEO. At the end of that year, Yucaipa Companies with a $25 million investment, became a substantial-enough owner to replace Patrick Brady as chairman with its own Ronald Burkle. However Patrick and Simon CEO Allan Brown were named as "co-chief executives" of Cyrk. [6]
In late 1999, with the company's share price still well below the intrinsic value of the company, the board of directors launched a strategic initiative with DLJ (Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette later CS First Boston) intended to maximize its share price through a plan that would divest certain legacy accounts and certain businesses acquired previously. The plan was consummated in the spring of 2001. In October 2000, the company is described as consisting "... primarily of the Cyrk promotional products operation in Gloucester, the Los Angeles-based Simon Marketing ... and a newly formed Internet division ...." [7] In the June 2001 and upon the successful conclusion of its strategic initiatives, Cyrk co-founder Patrick Brady, EVP-CFO Dominic Mammola and Exec VP Ted Axelrod, all resigned. In or around May 2001, the company split into two pieces. The Corporate Promotions Group was sold "once worth $147 million, for a mere $14 million to investment group Rockridge Partners, Inc.", [8] an investor group led by Gemini Investors, LLC. and the Cyrk name along with that. "Bob Siemering, a principal with Rockridge Partners, was COO of Marketing Incentives", a company acquired by Cyrk in 1998.[ citation needed ] Siemering became the CEO of the new company [9] The remainder of the company changed its name to Simon Worldwide. [10]
With the Simon Marketing entity as the principal remaining business in the wake of the earlier divestitures, the enormous reliance on income from McDonald's proved disastrously short-sighted when McDonald's Monopoly Best Chance Game turned out to have been rigged fraudulently by Jerome P. Jacobson, the security officer at then-Cyrk-subsidiary Simon Marketing. Although arrests were announced on 22 August 2001, [11] with convictions following, and only one Cyrk/Simon employee was charged, this did not stop McDonald's from voiding its agreement. Phillip Morris quickly followed suit, thereby together removing more than 70% of Simon Worldwide's revenue.
The fallout erased the benefits of the strategic divestitures and severely hurt the remaining business of Simon Worldwide; Ronald Burkle resigned from the board, and fourteen executives left to join Draft Worldwide (later called FCB) in Chicago, part of the Interpublic Group, in forming a new unit called Premium Surge within their promotional marketing division Surge. [12] Although initially maintaining an amicable relationship, there were still several unresolved issues between Cyrk and Simon. [13] In May 2002, Simon Worldwide went into liquidation. [14]
The Massachusetts-based portion had evidently been sold. [15] On May 20, 2003, PPB Magazine reported that under new owners Sun Capital Partners, Inc., Gary Vonk had replaced Bob Siemering as CEO of Cyrk.[ citation needed ] In November 2004, Cyrk, now based in Monroe, Washington appointed Alan Patrick as CEO. [16] Patrick quickly returned Cyrk to a break even position and with the company poised for future growth, increased the client list with the addition of GM, developed Caterpillar's new direct-to-consumer website, winning Cat's Platinum Licensee of the Year Award in 2005 and 2006 and managed an acquisition of a European and Asian subsidiary company. Alan Patrick, Cyrk CEO, left the company by mutual agreement in late 2007 to pursue other business interests back on the US's east coast.
Following that, Cyrk introduced Jeffrey Werner as CEO and in January 2008 welcomed Frank Bakirdan as VP of Global Sales. At the same time, Cyrk's financial statements indicate that the cash benefits of layoffs and withheld supplier payments, instituted first by interim leadership and then continued by Werner. As Werner and Bakirdan attempted to formulate their own strategy, further layoffs were executed in a desperate attempt to conserve cash. By the end of October 2008, the bottom fell out of consumer confidence, and sales volumes fell further. Cyrk was forced in November 2008 to release all unessential personnel as well as global sales staff in an attempt to reduce costs, and to sell all business units and assets. [17]
On January 22, 2009, an auction held at Cyrk's headquarters liquidated the company's assets.
Meanwhile, Simon Worldwide was still being traded as late as 2009 as OTCQB : SWWI on pink sheets. [18]
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink with a cola flavor, manufactured by PepsiCo. As of 2023, Pepsi is the second most valuable soft drink brand worldwide behind Coca-Cola; the two share a long-standing rivalry in what has been called the "cola wars".
John Sculley III is an American businessman, entrepreneur and investor in high-tech startups. Sculley was vice-president (1970–1977) and president of PepsiCo (1977–1983), until he became chief executive officer (CEO) of Apple Inc. on April 8, 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. In May 1987, Sculley was named Silicon Valley's top-paid executive, with an annual salary of US$10.2 million.
Donald Mcintosh Kendall was an American businessman and political adviser. He served as CEO of Pepsi Cola and as CEO of PepsiCo from 1971 to 1986.
Scott McNealy is an American businessman. He is most famous for co-founding the computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim. In 2004, while still at Sun, McNealy founded Curriki, a free online education service. In 2011, he co-founded Wayin, a social intelligence and visualization company based in Denver. McNealy stepped down from his position as CEO of Wayin in 2016.
New Coke was the unofficial name of a reformulation of the soft drink Coca-Cola, introduced by the Coca-Cola Company in April 1985. It was renamed Coke II in 1990, and discontinued in July 2002.
DDB Worldwide Communications Group LLC, known internationally as DDB, is a worldwide marketing communications network. It is owned by Omnicom Group, one of the world's largest advertising holding companies. The international advertising networks Doyle Dane Bernbach and Needham Harper merged their worldwide agency operations to become DDB Needham in 1986. At that same time the owners of Doyle Dane Bernbach, Needham Harper and BBDO merged their shareholdings to form the US listed holding company Omnicom. In 1996, DDB Needham became known as DDB Worldwide.
Nielsen Holdings plc is an American information, data and market measurement firm. Nielsen operates in over 100 countries and employs approximately 44,000 people worldwide.
The McDonald's Monopoly game is a sales promotion run by fast food restaurant chain McDonald's, with a theme based on the Hasbro board game Monopoly. The game first ran in the U.S. in 1987 and has since been used worldwide.
BBDO is a worldwide advertising agency network, with its headquarters in New York City. The agency originated in 1891 with the George Batten Company, and in 1928, through a merger with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO), the agency became Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn. With more than 15,000 employees at 289 offices in 81 countries, it is the largest of three global networks of agencies in the portfolio of Omnicom Group.
Indra Nooyi is an Indian-born American business executive who was the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2018.
Interfax is a Russian news agency. The agency is owned by Interfax News Agency joint-stock company and is headquartered in Moscow.
Brenda Czajka Barnes was an American businesswoman who served as president, chairman and chief executive of Sara Lee, and was the first female CEO at PepsiCo.
Davie Brown Entertainment was founded in 1980 by Jim Davie, who had created the "Pepsi Challenge" marketing program, and Brad Brown, as the entertainment marketing agency of PepsiCo, which was concerned about how much exposure its primary competitor, The Coca-Cola Company, had in the entertainment space. At the time it was founded, it was known as the "Pepsi-Cola Entertainment Group," according to the book Madison & Vine by Scott Donaton. At the time it was founded, the agency was one of the first product placement and entertainment promotion agencies in the U.S. For the first five years it was in business, the agency worked exclusively for PepsiCo.
GOOD Worldwide Inc. is a United States-based company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle that reports on businesses and non-profits. GOOD produces a website, a quarterly magazine, online videos, and events. Content covered includes environmental issues, education, urban planning, design, politics, culture, technology, and health. Good Worldwide Inc. is the consolidation of originally separate brands: Reason Pictures, GOOD magazine, and GOOD Digital, in partnership with Causes, a Facebook/MySpace app promoting donations of time and money to charities and non-profits; Goodrec and Govit, an application that connects US citizens with their elected representatives. GOOD Worldwide Inc. is made up of three organizations: GOOD/Media, GOOD/Community and GOOD/Corps.
Steven S. Reinemund is an American businessman who was chairman and chief executive officer of PepsiCo between 2001 and 2006 and dean of the Schools of Business at Wake Forest University between 2008 and 2014. Reinemund spent 22 years working for PepsiCo in various capacities. During his CEO tenure at PepsiCo, revenues grew by $9 billion, net income rose 70%, earnings per share were up 80% and PepsiCo's market cap exceeded $100 billion. He led the acquisitions of several other food and beverage companies including Quaker Oats, Naked Juice, Izze and Stacy's Chips.
Dunnhumby Limited is a global customer data science company.
Joseph Sequenzia is an American advertising executive and entrepreneur. He is the CEO/owner of milk*, a Connecticut based advertising agency, Founder of YUP PUP a health-based dog food and nutrition company, a board member of the West Chester University Poetry Center, a co-founder of Ashe Collection, an advising artist of Evolve the Conversation, an endeavor centered on the arts and conversations surrounding them and owner of m2 milk*media. In 2017 Sequenzia founded a cannabis infused all natural protein bar, which through an acquisition became partners with Acreage, a cannabis investment company. In 2019 consulting, Sequenzia became Chief Marketing Officer of Caliva, a cannabis company. While at Caliva, he launched Monogram, the cannabis venture with recording artist and producer JAY-Z.
Frank Cooper III is a business executive, branded entertainment leader and current Chief Marketing Officer for Visa. Cooper was earlier CMO of BlackRock, CMO/Chief Creative Officer of BuzzFeed and served as CMO of Global Consumer Engagement for PepsiCo, Inc.
Michael (‘Mike’) Bernard DeNoma is an American banker and businessman. He is a director and board member of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, where he has held the position for seventeen years. DeNoma was previously at KBZ Bank, Myanmar’s largest private bank. where he served as the bank’s CEO from 2017 - 2020. DeNoma’s career has seen him participate as Executive Board member at some of the most successful banks and brands in Asia. Examples include chairman and board member of Chinatrust Commercial Bank and board member of Standard Chartered.