2 Executives Quit Agency, Take Big Client Along
While First Interstate Bancorp. is concentrating on getting into a big-time merger, its advertising agency is in the process of getting out of one.
Late last week, two key executives resigned from Foote, Cone & Belding Communications Inc. to start their own agency--and hauled the $30-million First Interstate account with them.
Craig Campbell, general manager of the Los Angeles office, and Michael Wagman, the L.A. executive creative director, will leave next month to form their own agency, Campbell & Wagman.
The stage for this upheaval was set last spring when Foote, Cone acquired the New York firm, Leber-Katz & Partners, that handles Citicorp’s $30-million account. The obvious conflict of representing the two competing banks meant that Foote, Cone had to choose between the two.
It chose Citicorp. And that choice has now resulted in the birth of yet another Los Angeles advertising agency.
“We didn’t steal the account,” Campbell said in an interview. “First Interstate asked us to set up our own agency.”
The brass at Foote, Cone are downplaying the departures. “We don’t expect to lose a beat in servicing our clients,” said Tom Randolph, chairman of the firm’s West Coast operations. Chicago-based Foote, Cone has other clients in the West, he pointed out, including Mattel, Albertson’s and Denny’s.
Randolph refused to speculate on replacements for Campbell and Wagman. But he said that he will spend more time in the Los Angeles office and that successors to the departing executives will likely be named in a few weeks.
Meanwhile, a fresh set of First Interstate ads will begin running early next year, but Campbell was reluctant to discuss the campaign. Much depends on what happens with First Interstate’s merger discussions with Bank of America.
“It’ll be a lot of fun,” Campbell said, “whether or not the Bank of America deal comes through.”
Outsiders in Catalogues
Smack in the middle of Bloomingdale’s 1986 Christmas catalogue, tucked between photos of Laura Ashley comforters and Italian leather dresses, sits something catalogues rarely offer--paid advertising.
The ad is for MasterCard. Likewise, in the 1986 winter catalogue for Mark Cross, a two-page ad for the American Express Gold Card beckons gold-thumbed customers.
What’s going on here?
In one sense, catalogues themselves are glorified advertisements. But until very recently, most catalogues had closed their pages to the intrusion of outside ads. Now, the catalogue giants have discovered that even a few ads can raise big revenue.
It is the beginning of an uncanny advertising niche that some ad industry experts project could become a multibillion-dollar business within the next five years.
This is the time of year when shop-by-mail magazines are flooding the nation’s mailboxes. And those who flip through recent editions of the nation’s estimated 6,500 mainstream catalogues will discover that once-outside advertisements have found their way inside.
The key question remains: Are catalogue browsers bothered by the ads?
Recent industry surveys revealed that about one in four people are. And readers say they are especially incensed when the ads are for items such as cigarettes. One such ad, for More cigarettes, ran in last year’s Bloomingdale’s catalogue. It irked enough of Bloomies’ mail-order customers that store executives now promise there will be no More.
Generally, however, this advertising is catching the ad world’s fancy. The new American Express Christmas catalogue includes full-page ads from Avis and Ford’s Lincoln division. And next fall--for the first time--Spiegel Inc. will include advertising in six of its specialty mail-order books.
“For the advertiser, it offers a climate not so cluttered with other ads,” said Marian Larson, vice president of advertising at Spiegel. Its 60-page specialty books will only accept four pages of advertising, she said. Besides added revenue--about $25,000 per page--”it gives us an association with upscale advertising,” Larson said.
But some advertisers are unimpressed. Among them, Chevrolet ran a splashy Corvette ad in last year’s Sharper Image catalogue. But Chevrolet has since dropped all catalogue advertising, said Jack Martin, media-buying vice president. “I don’t think consumers are comfortable with this form of advertising.”
But two entrepreneurs have found it profitable to sell advertising space in catalogues.
The biggest is New York-based Catalogue Advertising Sales Ltd., which sells ad space for Bloomingdale’s catalogues. “Very soon,” said Milton Kaplan, president of Catalogue Advertising, “catalogues will be competing head to head with magazines for ads.”
The trick is knowing what ads not to run. “Our catalogues turn down far more ads than they take,” said Jay Walker, president of Catalogue Media Sales of New York, which represents 30 catalogues, including Mark Cross, Bergdorf Goodman and Sharper Image.
“Remember,” Walker said, “catalogues live and breathe based on the fantasy they maintain.”
Birth Control Ads
“When J. R. took Mandy for a little roll in the hay, which one had the condom?”
This is not a teaser for the next episode of Dallas. It is the headline over an advertisement that Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. will unveil--along with a dozen other print ads--in the nation’s 100 largest markets next month.
The $600,000 campaign, created by Public Media Center of San Francisco, marks the first time that Planned Parenthood has assembled a comprehensive ad effort that targets teen pregnancy, said Faye Wattleton, president of the New York-based nonprofit organization.
Radio and cable-TV spots are also planned. But the ads won’t be seen on ABC, NBC or CBS, she said. The major networks have long refused to air contraceptive advertising.
Wattleton said one goal of the 18-month campaign is to persuade the major television networks to lift these bans.
In fact, one of the organization’s print ads features a photo of a young couple necking in an open field. The headline reads: “They did it 9,000 times on television last year. How come nobody got pregnant?”
New Pitch for Cops
Where’s a cop when you need one?
Well, maybe at the ol’ ballpark. At least, that’s what the Santa Ana Police Department discovered last week when--in search of 40 new police officers--it booked air time on an ad-peddling airplane that flew over Anaheim Stadium during the Angel’s home playoff games.
The $1,500 investment with Chino-based Banner Airlines paid off better than a bet on the Boston Red Sox, said Maureen Thomas, a department spokeswoman. Since the plane’s stadium swing, the department has received scores of calls, including some rather unexpected ones.
One Boston sportswriter picked up on the hire-by-air gimmick and incorporated the ad--complete with the police department’s phone number--into his story. As a result, said Thomas, “we’re still getting phone calls from people in Boston who want to join the force.”
