Bugle Boy Taps L.A. Agency for Creative Work

Bugle Boy played reveille for one ad agency Thursday--and taps for another.

The Simi Valley maker of men’s casual clothing said it handed the creative portion of its estimated $12-million broadcast account to the Los Angeles office of DDB Needham. The business was formerly handled by Rubin Postaer & Associates.

At the same time, Bugle Boy officials said TV commercial time for the ads will be purchased by International Communications Group (ICG). The San Francisco agency Mandelbaum Mooney Ashley will continue to handle print advertising.

“Excellent strategic thinking and creative concepts made DDB Needham the clear winner,” said Genevieve Squires, Bugle Boy’s director of advertising. In a statement, she added, “ICG’s media strategies complement our philosophy.”

That advertising philosophy has certainly been among the men’s clothing industry’s more unusual in recent years. The company may be best known for a commercial created by Rubin Postaer that features a woman who stops her Ferrari to ask a lone man if he is wearing Bugle Boy jeans--then drives off when he responds affirmatively.

In fact, Bugle Boy will generally stick with the tone of that award-winning campaign. “Our first assignment was to create an ad in that same family,” said Alan Pando, president of DDB Needham West. But Pando declined to reveal the story line of that ad, which hasn’t been filmed.

The win was a big one for DDB Needham, whose Los Angeles office--which creates ads for GTE California and Cigna Healthplan--has picked up very little new business during the past year. On Thursday, DDB also said it had won the estimated $500,000 ad business for Big O Tires in the Southern California region.

The agency that some credit with establishing a name for Bugle Boy had few complaints on Thursday. “If it ain’t us, I’m glad it’s DDB Needham,” said Larry Postaer, executive vice president of Rubin Postaer. “Remember, I used to work there.”