LaBov & Beyond must be f*cking incredible, to make the list with a megalomaniac for a honcho.

No shit. I bet he (Barry LaBov) paid off his employees to enter comments in the contest. Or worse yet, threatened them into submission.

I have personal experience there. LaBov is obsessed with himself. He’s burned more bridges in this town than anyone I know. The turnover rate there is horrendous and they have are hard time keeping anyone more than one or two years. Want a real opinion, ask Matt Kelly of One Lucky Guitar. He escaped before Barry could ruin his reputation.

AWB, you should post what Barry & Co screwed you out of on the NAVL project. Wasn’t it something in the neighborhood of $10K?

You’re close. They left this amount unpaid.
LaBov & Beyond, Inc. Open Balance Amount 9,895.84

The interesting part is we did the 98% of a interactive CD project for NAVL through LaBov, and they just put their name on it and according to one of their former employees charged NAVL more than three times what we charged.

We did get a lawyer invovled but the cost would have exceeded the recovery. I was warned about partnering with Labov and didn’t listen. Barry is quite the snake.

Since someone above has mentioned my name, I’ll chime in on this. I worked at L&B for just shy of five years, straight out of college, and don’t regret it at all. Looking back at it now, my run there served as “grad school” for me in marketing, design, advertising and real-world business. In many ways, I learned more on Cook Road than I did in Bloomington, skills and ideas that serve me to this day. It didn’t “ruin my reputation” at all — instead, I had credibility and a track record that blew away my early clients. Continuing with the “grad school” idea, when I look at my contemporaries who have since left the company, so many of them are absolute superstars now, part of that being attributable to their experience in the LaBov world: John Crilly at BIG, Barry Armbruster at Nichols, Kathy Jauregui at Formula, Jason Roemer at Lodge, and on and on.
I think part of the problem is that people expect or desire an “ad agency” job to be fun and easy. That’s half right. And I laughed my ass off at LaBov & Beyond, we had a blast. But if you want to come in and ride out the clock standing around the coffee maker while talking about ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and coast through the day, week, month collecting your check, it’s not the place. My old classmates who went to Chicago or NYC to work in ad agencies would laugh at the “tough hours” I had at LaBov, they LIVED (sometimes literally) at their workplaces. Perhaps it’s that L&B has a “big city” ad agency perspective in a climate that would rather phone it in? I never wanted “easy” and I still don’t. I like to be mentally engaged, challenged, pushed, pulled and given the opportunity to hit the ball out of the big league park when the pressure is on and the world is watching. LaBov & Beyond is not a sandlot.
That said, I was young, single and outside of work, only concerned with making it to band practice on time, or plotting out my next concert trip. I can imagine that if you’re married and, in particular, have children, it can be a trial to work through some of the more intense situations there.
Is it the best place to work in FW? I don’t know, I suppose part of me would rather work in the tasting department at Edy’s. But I do know this — I received many job offers while I was working at LaBov, and I’m quite thankful I never took a single one of them.

Mr. Kelley -

Well written. Well done.

Anyone ever visit that wonderful winery in Fremont, Indiana? Now that is an occupation. Why not on the tops list?

I see Labov won yet another award for best places to work. I have never worked there, but I know someone who did and still knows people there. Their turnover is extremely high, so how do they win?

Editor’s note: I believe it’s called self-nomination. In addition, they are required to have their employee’s fill out what is called a “The Employee Engagement & Satisfaction Survey”. Now tell me, just how bad a survey are you going to turn in if it could cost you your job?

The survey system of the “Best Places to work” is not anonymous. Each employee gets an individual link and must login, further the raw data is provided to the employer and therefore the “fear” of losing your job is very real. Labov puts a lot of emphysis on these awards internally and although they do not “force” they do “strongly encourage” everyone to fill it out. Further, everyone knows that labov gets the raw data, therefore it is suspect information.

For their recent “ethical award”, I inquired to the BBB as to how they verify that applications. To my surprise, they do NOT. The award is given solely based on the application submitted by the companies, with no verification, follow up, investigation, etc. What good is the award????

I have heard that a substantial lawsuit was filed against Labov & Beyond in Allen County Superior Court by two former employees and their spouses. Can anyone confirm this?

A Labov & Beyond lawsuit by an employee would not be surprising. From what I have seen, Labov & Beyond’s turnover is extremely high even for an ad agency or whatever they call themselves these days. Has anyone looked into this? Can we have details?

Lawsuit? I guess the only question is what for? If it was class action, I bet that the entire historical employee list would come out to join the suit. I never worked there but i had a friend that did and told me horror stories. My bet is that it is for defamation or wire-tapping. Everyone always thought that big baldie was watching and listening. Probably some sort of illegal activity that he can’t threaten or sue his way out of. If anyone knows more, please post.

Hey — did you see all the videos on youtube posted by someone?? they are of Barry and his band from years ago — they are a riot — i heard they broke up because of barry and his need for control

I have confirmation that Labov has been sued. In layman’s terms they have been sued for installing keystroke monitors on the personal computers owned by several employees. The sued has been filed in superior court.

so what does that mean? i would love to go watch that trial and see him finally get caught for all the stuff he pulls on everyone

What does that mean? It means that Labov has been sued by by at least two employees. I have heard that more suits may be coming. Odd that a place “voted” (note the cynicism) Best places to work has to monitor the computers of employees, and their personal computers as well.

more suits coming? there IS a santa claus. what glorious news at this time of year. if there is a class action of some sort, i would like to know. . . . mr profitable would have to give up his precious little plane and golf club. better too if it there were criminal charges since he is the perfect guy for a perp walk. he wouldn’t make it very long in prison

There may be more suits coming and of course there is a Santa Claus. However Santa probably does not visit Barry Labov. Interesting that you mention “Mr. Profitable”. I have heard that the entire focus at Labov is on profit, even to the point that Labov & Beyond seems to have continued to lose clients without being able to replace them at an alarming rate. I wonder how the Automotive industry troubles will affect Labov? Since the company seems to be dependent on Audi of America and Volkswagen of America, Labov & Beyond could see deep trouble through these trying times. Labov has a plane? I did not know that, but it is not surprising. I have read comments on AdRants that Labov & Beyond seems to be “trying” to be a large agency and I imaging the plane is part of that. However, I predict failure in that endeavor.
Barry Labov on a perp walk? THAT IS FUNNY!

profit IS king .. and he gives the appearance that he shares with employees — through selling stock in his company or sharing the profit — but this is all in a way to control you and threaten you .. he then tells everyone how great he is and, in fact, he is not a good man at all — you are dealing with the devil, for sure . . . and his reliance on automotive has been huge — and training . . . and it is mostly audi and suzuki — thanks to one employees “close” relationship with the decision makers at those 2 companies — but vw is hardly anything at all….look at their other clients listed on their web site - they are all BS and companies that did one small project with them and then never came back becasue barry would put pressure on his people and the clients to do projects to the point that employees are beaten and clients are offended — there is not one client that genuinely likes barry — that’s why he broods in his corner office and brings in people for a good beating every day. The stories i have heard are crazy. I hope that this lawsuit becomes public in the Journal Gazette — it will, for sure, make him very unhappy. What a happy new year it will be!

Profit sharing? I heard that Labov & Beyond takes the net profit of the compay, divides it in half (under the pretense that this is to pay the taxes on the profit) and then gives the employees 5% of this half that is left.
But wait…there is more
Then, each time an employee makes a mistake, that mistake is subtracted from this 5% of the half of the net.
However, when management makes mistakes, these are also subtracted from this 5% of the half of the net.
Obviously the money that Labov & Beyond pays to Above Aviation, for the plane, is an expense but it is actually a tax shelter and one of the ways the drive the “official profit” down.
I have also heard that clients do not like barry. Specifically I heard that several people in senior management at Cessna referred to Barry Labov as a shyster. Is that true?
And yes, everyone knows that many of those “clients” are not actually clients at all.