Ogilvy Gets Paramount Pictures Ad Account

The scramble for the largest available film studio account in the nation ended on Monday when Paramount Pictures handed the bulk of its estimated $60-million to $70-million advertising business to the Los Angeles office of Ogilvy & Mather.

Ogilvy’s Los Angeles office will split a portion of the business with the giant firm’s New York office.

“Ogilvy & Mather has an exceptional and enthusiastic team with extensive knowledge of the entertainment industry,” said Arthur Cohen, president of worldwide marketing for the Motion Picture Group of Paramount. “Their marketing skills and competitive spirit are unmatched,” he said in a statement.

For Ogilvy, the win represents a spectacular return to the film entertainment business. About two years ago, Ogilvy lost the Columbia Pictures advertising account after handling it for nearly six years.

“This is as big as it gets for an advertising agency,” said Gerald D. McGee, managing director of Ogilvy & Mather Los Angeles. “If you’re an agency in this town and you’re not in show business, you might as well not be in this town.”

Despite the windfall, the agency plans no new hires. “We still have a lot of people on board from when we had Columbia,” said McGee. The agency, which creates ads for American Express and Carnation Co., will not actually create ads for Paramount. The ads will continue to be mostly developed by Paramount and several smaller, speciality agencies it hires to help make movie trailers and print ads.

Ogilvy will primarily be responsible for purchasing TV and radio broadcast time and print ad space for upcoming Paramount films. Ogilvy will also help with strategic planning for the marketing of such upcoming Paramount films as “Days of Thunder,” scheduled for late May release, starring Tom Cruise as a race car driver, and “Another 48 Hours,” starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte, which is scheduled for summer release and features the duo banging heads with an Aryan motorcycle group.

Paramount, which released 14 pictures in 1989, says it expects to release 18 films in 1990.

The agency that formerly purchased Paramount’s advertising time said Ogilvy has plenty of work ahead. “I think they’re a fantastic agency, but they’ll have their hands full,” said James D. Helin, managing director of the Los Angeles office of D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles. “It’s a load of a responsibility.”

Ogilvy employees celebrated in true Hollywood style late Friday when the agency was told the good news. The ad firm’s entire staff was called into the lobby for a meeting. Employees were entertained by several of the agency’s top executives--including McGee--who sang and danced to the Broadway tune “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”