Lord Geller Federico Einstein Inc

International Business Machines Corp. said Tuesday that it has assigned some advertising business to the new ad agency formed by former officials of the agency Lord, Geller, Federico, Einstein Inc. The huge computer concern declined to specify how much business would be going to the new agency, Lord, Einstein, O'Neill & Partners Inc., and said that the bulk of its work remains at Lord Geller.

Rolling Stone Mick Jagger isn't the sort of guy you'd expect to find as a pitchman for fighter and attack aircraft. Rest assured, he's not doing that. But the title to one of Jagger's best-known songs, "Get Off of My Cloud," has found its way onto a poster that is part of a McDonnell Douglas campaign to promote its F/A-18 aircraft. McDonnell Douglas, however, didn't stop there. It snatched the title to an old Lovin' Spoonful tune about love and romance, "Do You Believe in Magic?

Corporate merger specialists, tired of subsidizing co-worker salaries, quit and create their own company. One of the country's biggest law firms splinters in a feud over money and expansion. An advertising giant teeters when executives join a newly formed rival, wooing valued clients.

A long-rumored takeover bid for Ogilvy Group Inc. materialized Sunday with the announcement that Britain's WPP Group PLC has made a cash offer of about $720 million for the New York advertising company. Ogilvy greeted the bid frostily, declaring that the proposal "suffers from serious flaws in business logic." In a prepared statement, Ogilvy Chairman Kenneth Roman attacked the price, style and substance of the WPP offer by saying: "The boot strap character of WPP's approach is further underlined by the lack of committed financing even for what is obviously intended to be a starting price."

He admits he doesn't know much about advertising, but that hasn't stopped Martin S. Sorrell from trying to build the world's largest ad agency. Twice. The 44-year-old Briton went after his goal the first time as principal architect of the acquisition drive of British ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi PLC. Now, as chairman of Britain's WPP Group, he's chasing it a second time with a $725-million takeover bid for Ogilvy Group, which could make WPP even larger than Saatchi. Quiet and diminutive, Sorrell has shaken up the ad world in other ways.

Even with the advertising industry in a tortuous tailspin, last week several tiny new agencies in Los Angeles and New York hung out shingles. That's right. They opened for business. Even as job security at agencies nationwide grows more tenuous, there are growing indications that the downbeat atmosphere could lead to a sudden surge of new, smaller ad shops opened by people who have nowhere else to turn. "My wife says people will call, but if no one does, how can I stay in business?"