Japanese Agency Grabs for Attention in L.A.
She wears a heart-shaped necklace, and her bangs fall in her eyes. She looks like many other teen-age girls. But underneath her photo is this headline: Spend $10 on a teen-age prostitute.
This attention-grabbing print ad is for a Malibu treatment facility that houses teen drug addicts and alcohol abusers--some of whom have already turned to prostitution as a quick way to make money. The $10 that is mentioned in the ad is actually a call for donations to the center, Teamm House.
But the advertisement wasn’t just created to bring attention to the drug treatment center. It was also created to bring attention to the ad agency that made it--Hakuhodo Inc.
If you’ve never heard of Hakuhodo, you’ve got plenty of company. “I can’t think of one piece of work they’ve done,” said Clifford M. Scott, vice president at the Los Angeles ad agency Scott Lancaster Mills Atha. “Maybe it’s because they don’t circulate in the community. They’re isolated in their own company.”
Although Hakuhodo is the second-largest advertising agency in Japan--with annual billings of more than $4 billion--until now, its 13-year-old Los Angeles office has mostly been content to serve a handful of Asian clients.
But the agency has recently been trying to leave its mark in the highly competitive Los Angeles ad market. Sure, it might seem odd for a usually reserved Japanese agency to create a series of soon-to-appear print ads that talk about things such as a 13-year-old prostitute and a 14-year-old crack dealer. But this represents just one of a handful of tactics that Hakuhodo is using to create a stir--and pick up new business--in Los Angeles.
“We are coming out of our shell,” said Taka Arai, general manager of Hakuhodo/Los Angeles. “It’s time that everyone knows who we are.”
Agency executives candidly admit that not all the motives behind its public service ads for the drug rehabilitation center are entirely altruistic. The facility is a personal favorite of several Hollywood stars, including Ali McGraw and Dick Van Dyke. “The cold, analytical way to look at it is as a marketing tactic,” said Kent Cooper, vice president of public relations at Hakuhodo. “When we need some celebrity at an event, we know we can call up Teamm and they’ll deliver.”
When it opened, Hakuhodo’s Los Angeles office was regarded as little more than a satellite of its Japanese parent. “It used to be pretty laid back around here,” said Brian Ribbey, recently hired as vice president and account management director at the agency. “But I can assure you, that’s changing.”
Over the past six months, this small office has generated almost as much interest as many of the largest ad shops in the city. Hakuhodo was recently named one of four finalists for what many regard as one of the most sought-after pieces of available advertising business in Los Angeles, the estimated $30-million automotive advertising business for American Suzuki. It just picked up its first American advertising client--a software supplier with $2 million in annual billings. Hakuhodo has nearly doubled its annual billings over the past two years to nearly $25 million. And during that same period, the number of Hakuhodo’s employees almost doubled to 55 people.
About a year ago, Hakuhodo raised some eyebrows with a “talking” print ad that it created for NEC America, a manufacturer of computers and pocket paging devices. The ad, which appeared in several trade publications, had a computer chip that made the identical beeping sound of a new line of NEC paging systems.
Although it was hardly the first print ad to make noise, it was regarded as the first one to make the same sound as the product it was advertising. “The ad only ran once, but it created a demand we couldn’t handle,” said Bruce McClelland, director of marketing for NEC’s mobile radio division. “We hand to extend the delivery date.”
Earlier this year, Hakuhodo executives figured that they could garner some attention by entering some ads in a Los Angeles advertising competition. But even Hakuhodo executives didn’t expect to win awards for all seven ads they entered in the Lulu Awards sponsored by Los Angeles Advertising Women. This led the competition’s master of ceremonies, James D. Helin, the managing director of the Los Angeles office of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles, to comment at the time, “For those who don’t know what Hakuhodo means, it means winner.”
Certainly, there is nothing Hakuhodo executives would like better than to be named the winner of the ad business for American Suzuki’s automotive division. Hakuhodo already creates ads for Suzuki’s marine division. And one of those ads, which appeared within days of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, served notice on the entire marine industry that Suzuki was taking a tough stand against drunk boaters. The ad features a picture of a wrecked pleasure boat above the headline “Scotch and water don’t mix.”
Until this year, Hakuhodo had never even tried to win an American client. But earlier this month, Hakuhodo pitched and won its first American piece of business, Interactive Systems, a Santa Monica software supplier that is a division of Eastman Kodak. “If they have the resources to treat their other clients the way they’ve treated us,” said Don R. Gammon, vice president of marketing and sales, “they have the potential to become a power in the L.A. ad community.”
But not all has been smooth sailing for Hakuhodo’s Los Angeles office. It recently lost one of its top creative directors to another Los Angeles ad agency. And it is no longer creating ads for one of its best-known clients--All Nippon Airways (“ANA, We’re Flying Your Way). Hakuhodo’s Japanese parent recently took control of creating all ANA advertising worldwide, although it’s Los Angeles office will continue to buy TV and radio time for the ads here in the United States.
Despite these setbacks, Arai vows that within three years, Hakuhodo will rank among the 10 largest ad agencies in Los Angeles. “We’re going to get more aggressive,” he said, hitting a fist in his hand. “We’re going to pound away.”
Agency Tells Longtime Client to Store It
One of the most familiar names in self storage, Public Storage, suddenly found itself without its longtime advertising agency last week.
The Los Angeles agency, Abert, Newhoff & Burr, said it resigned the estimated $2-million business. The ad firm, which had created ads for the Pasadena chain for nearly nine years, persuaded Public Storage to launch a major television campaign about four years ago. But the agency says Public Storage has since cut way back on advertising.
“We’ve come to radically different views about the role of advertising,” said Mel Newhoff, president of the ad firm. “We simply think it’s more important than they do.”
Aaron Bros. to Try New Agency, Arty Ads
Art--even art in advertising--is all in the eyes of the beholder. And last week, one of the West’s largest art supply retailers hired a new Los Angeles ad agency.
Aaron Bros. Art Marts handed its annual $3.5-million advertising business to AC&R;/CCL Advertising. Ads for the 70-store chain were formerly created by Asher Gould. “It was time for some fresh blood,” said Ben Frankel, vice president of advertising at Aaron Bros.
In an ad campaign scheduled to break next month, the City of Commerce-based chain won’t be pushing its biggest seller--picture frames. Instead, it has concocted an artistic club for young kids that it hopes will help lure their parents into the stores. “Parents today are concerned about the educational benefits of toys,” Frankel said. “And what’s more educational than art?”
On the Lookout for Big Brothers
A black youngster--alone and scared--sits by himself in an empty stadium. In the background--heard but not seen--is the voice of a Dodgers broadcast followed by a deafening roar as slugger Kirk Gibson hits his famous World Series home run.
Then, the camera pans away and the young boy looks lost in the empty stadium. “It would take just one Big Brother,” says a voice-over, “to fill all this emptiness.”
The public service TV spot--and a second one featuring actor Ben Vereen--were created for Big Brothers of Los Angeles by the ad agency Davis, Ball & Colombatto. They are specifically designed to attract more black Big Brother volunteers. “These spots are more than advertising,” said Brad Ball, president of the firm. “They are a call to arms.”
