Keye/Donna to Do Anti-Smoking Ads for State

It’s a good thing that Leonard Pearlstein quit smoking 17 years ago.

On Friday, his advertising agency, Keye/Donna/Pearlstein, won the $28.6-million state account to create the first anti-smoking campaign to be financed by new cigarette taxes mandated under Proposition 99.

The Los Angeles agency--which earlier created a well-regarded “fried egg” anti-drug television commercial--beat out one other finalist, Davis, Ball & Colombatto, to win the coveted assignment to promote nonsmoking among minorities, young people, pregnant women and others.

“This campaign will mark the greatest effort ever undertaken by any state in the nation to eliminate tobacco use,” said State Health Director Kenneth W. Kizer in a statement. About Keye/Donna, he added: “We believe this firm is well-suited to manage the statewide drive to convince non-smokers not to start, and to persuade those who use tobacco to quit.”

The multimedia campaign is to be created under a state law passed last October that detailed how to spend an estimated $600 million a year from a 25-cent-per-pack cigarette tax hike approved by voters in 1988. The campaign’s goal is ambitious: to contribute to a 75% reduction in tobacco consumption in California by 1999.

Keye/Donna is no stranger to public service advertising. For the non-profit Media Advertising Partnership for a Drug Free America, it created the ad in which a hot pan represented drugs and an egg symbolized the human brain. After dropping the egg into the sizzling pan, an actor turns to the camera and asks, “Any questions?”

“We’re very excited about doing some great advertising on behalf of something that’s real important,” said Pearlstein, the agency’s president and chief executive.

Pearlstein declined to discuss a possible theme for the anti-smoking ads. He added that no timetable had been set for the launch of the campaign, which is slated to run for 18 months.

But it’s likely that while the agency is devising a campaign uniquely tailored to California, it will rush some ads onto the air by adapting anti-smoking campaigns of other states, said Norman Hartman, a spokesman for the State Department of Health Services, which is administering the campaign.

A nine-person panel of the Department of Health Services considered proposals from seven California agencies before making its final decision Friday.

Neither Hartman nor Pearlstein would say why Keye/Donna was selected over Davis, Ball in three-hour oral presentations in Sacramento on Wednesday.

But Brad A. Ball, president of Davis, Ball, suggested that cost was a key factor. “In virtually every category, we were tied until it came to cost,” he said.

He added that Keye/Donna may have had a leg up since it already handles a state advertising account, the $3.5-million campaign for the State Office of Tourism. Keye/Donna, which has total annual billings of about $80 million in New York and Los Angeles, managed to hang onto that account in a review last May.

Davis, Ball--perhaps best known for creating the “Mac Tonight” ad campaign for McDonald’s restaurants--has now failed in three attempts to win a state advertising account.

The win was more good news for Keye/Donna, which resigned its Suzuki automotive account last year but picked up the account for Presidente Brandy this month.

Paul Keye, the agency’s chairman, led the proposal team and will serve as project director on the anti-smoking campaign, Pearlstein said.