CJRW at 300 Main St. in Little Rock.
CJRW, the longtime Little Rock marketing agency and the state’s tourism account holder, laid off eight workers yesterday, eliminating more than 10% of its workforce, Chairman and CEO Darin Gray said Friday morning.
He said the company had been looking at staffing in view of the continuing coronavirus pandemic and the widespread business shutdowns and disruptions it has caused.
“Like most every business across the globe right now, we are evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on our current and future financial projections,” Gray said in response to questions from Arkansas Business.
“Unfortunately, we took the difficult step of parting ways professionally with friends and colleagues yesterday whose contributions to CJRW and our clients are greatly appreciated,” he said. “We eliminated eight positions yesterday. We had a total of 61 employees prior to the layoffs.”
Media and marketing firms are struggling as the pandemic’s effects fall heavily on advertising-intensive industries like restaurants and hospitality, said Pam Jones, president and lead strategist of Culturally Connected Communications of Little Rock. Business travel has ground to a halt, and vacationing is coming back slowly.
Jones, a former CJRW employee, spoke to Arkansas Business for an upcoming article on media industry trends before Thursday’s cuts at CJRW. In the interview, she mentioned growing concerns about staffing.
“Agencies will need to adjust service offerings, diversify their client base and embrace distribution and marketing channels,” Jones said, suggesting that firms would have to search beyond the typical industries they serve, allowing them to “maintain current staffing levels.”
In April, as the travel industry was shutting down almost completely, Travis Napper, director of Arkansas Tourism, delayed all media plans for his agency and its industry partners through June 1, adjusting the marketing plan.
“This will allow us to reserve the needed media inventory and will provide time to gauge how the current situation evolves, as well as travel sentiment,” Napper said at the time, adding that Arkansas Tourism would “continue working closely” with CJRW, adapting plans and creative messaging.
In mid-May, a new $650,000 communications campaign for the state’s COVID-19 economic recovery task force was taken up by CJRW.
Stacy Hurst, secretary of the state Department of Parks, Heritage & Tourism, said the state had obtained an exemption from state procurement law to speed that messaging process.
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