Northwest Acts to Get Ad Agency Off the Hook

Northwest Airlines said Wednesday that it is putting another advertising agency in charge of creating commercials for its smoke-free flights to relieve pressures on the agency that created the first ads for its program.

Saatchi & Saatchi DFS Compton, a huge New York-based agency, created the first ads for Northwest’s no-smoking program and remains the airline’s agency for other advertising.

The commercials showed passengers applauding Northwest’s plans to ban smoking on nearly all its domestic flights.

Shortly after they started airing last month, Saatchi was fired from its longtime job making cookie and candy ads for RJR Nabisco Inc., which also makes cigarettes.

Northwest said Wednesday that it was moving the no-smoking program assignment to the Kolesar & Hartwell agency, based in Minneapolis. The agency already handles Northwest’s ads aimed at the travel trade.

The job involves about $2 million of the estimated $50 million in Northwest billings handled by Saatchi.

RJR had cited “philosophical differences” for pulling its cookie and candy assignments from Saatchi, but those familiar with the decision said privately that RJR executives were troubled that Saatchi created the no-smoking ads and failed to tell them about it.

“We are extremely disappointed that a reactionary faction of the tobacco industry continues to put literally dozens of Saatchi & Saatchi professional careers in jeopardy,” A. B. Magary, executive vice president for marketing for Northwest, said in explaining why it moved the no-smoking assignment to another agency.

Magary declined in an interview to be more specific about what pressures Saatchi was under from the tobacco industry, but said the airline had been told that the agency continued to feel pressured.

But one advertising agency executive familiar with Saatchi said Wednesday that RJR may be threatening to also pull from Saatchi the substantial advertising that the agency creates for RJR’s Nabisco products in Europe.

There is also industry speculation that Saatchi may be to taking these actions in order to try to win back the $84-million RJR business. “My understanding is the relationship was a good one,” said Steven A. Sjoblad, president of the Minneapolis ad firm Fallon McElligott. “They’re probably trying to recover the business. This way, they can go back to RJR and say, ‘We figured out how to fix this’ .”