Mr. Silver's surrogates warned that other members ran the risk of losing their committee assignments and other valuable perks if they joined the coup attempt.

The decision returns Wieden & Kennedy to the technology category six weeks after it lost assignments from the Microsoft Corporation.

In recent months Burnett lost assignments from Delta Air Lines and Philips and resigned the Polaroid account.

Burnett has been on a winning streak lately after losing several large, important assignments in 1996.

Those that stress Spanish, he added, may risk losing assignments to mainstream agencies.

Last fall, Interpublic media agencies lost important assignments from Nestlé and Unilever.

That's not good for the larger of the two, which has recently lost several high-profile assignments.

D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles has lost and gained assignments in separate account consolidations.

The other is their growing success, often at the expense of mainline agencies that find themselves sharing clients with the upstarts - or worse yet, losing assignments to them.

Mr. Bolton left his post abruptly two weeks ago after JWT lost large assignments from clients like Unilever.