Here's How Leo Burnett Says 8 Execs Allegedly Sabotaged The $710 Million Kellogg Account

In papers filed as part of a lawsuit in Cook County, Ill., Leo Burnett has described in detail just how much trouble it is in on its Kellogg account.

Go straight to our blow-by-blow retelling of the walkout >

Kellogg spent a total of $710 million last year on ads, according to Ad Age, and Burnett regards it as one of its "flagship" pieces of business. (It has served the company for 60 years.)

But on Friday, Nov. 2, eight staffers working on the customer relations management portion of the business resigned en masse — and Leo Burnett then sued them, alleging it was an act of sabotage.

The executives who left were Amanda Ashley, Nate Buechler, Allison Chaplain, Jeremiah Dy-Johnson, Kristy Gibbs, Lisa Hamming, David Rasho and Matthew Johnson.

The complaint — obtained by Business Insider today — goes into detail about how the resignations went down, and how much financial damage there could be. Among the allegations:

• The agency and its Arc Worldwide unit has lost svp Kristy Gibbs, the only executive at Leo Burnett who actually understands how the Kellogg CRM database works.
• Gibbs was pitching other clients for Leo Burnett, and the agency may now lose that business, too.
• Also resigning was director of optimization David Rasho, who holds the key client relationships with Kellogg's CRM staff.
• That Leo Burnett believes it may lose the CRM business as Kellogg has not guaranteed it will stay with the agency.
• And that the agency believes Kellogg cannot tolerate a delay on its CRM assignment.
• Leo Burnett waited four days — across a weekend — to tell Kellogg what had happened.

We've compiled a blow-by-blow account of the resignations, the financial impact it could have on Leo Burnett, and the agency's confession to Kellogg from the lawsuit. We were unable to reach the defectors for comment; they have not yet filed papers in their defense. Currently, we only have Leo Burnett's side of the story. Presumably, the eight have a different interpretation of events. Nonetheless, this is the most detail available on what the agency describes as the "crisis" that hit on Nov. 2.

Here's the broad overview: Leo Burnett believes the eight resigned "to create a crisis" on the Kellogg account.

The agency confesses that Kellogg is a "flagship" client worth several million dollars to the agency — and that it is using its Kellogg experience to pitch other clients.

At 2.41 p.m. on Nov. 2, the alleged mutineers walked into the office of Steve Grosklaus, evp/director of optimization, and resigned.

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