Cellular Firm Set to Market New Product
Universal Cellular Inc., a start-up cellular equipment manufacturer, plans to introduce a new product designed to compete with pocket-sized portable phone technology offered by several U.S. and Japanese companies.
Universal Cellular said Thursday that it has awarded a $5-million advertising account to a Minneapolis ad agency, McElligott Wright Morrison White, which was founded recently by several former top executives at the Chiat/Day/Mojo agency in New York.
Peter McCoy, vice president of marketing for Universal Cellular, said the company has also signed a joint-venture agreement with a “major” Japanese company to distribute the unidentified product outside North America. Motorola Inc., NEC Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. are the major manufacturers of pocket-size mobile phones.
“We’re ecstatic that MWMW has agreed to handle this account,” McCoy said. “The amount shows that we’re serious about the market.”
McCoy said the cellular product is a pocket-sized device “that is more than a phone.” He said the company has been developing the proprietary cellular product for 18 months, but he declined to reveal more details about the product.
Universal Cellular’s chief executive is James Wohl, a cable television industry veteran and former president of West Hawaii Cable Vision Inc.
“This is a tremendously exciting project for us,” said Tony Wright, president of MWMW and an ad veteran who worked on the Energizer’s popular Bunny advertising campaign.
Wright said the Universal portable phones would compete with products in the emerging personal communications network market, a cellular technology that would enable cordless office phones to be taken outside the office.
Such pocket phones could allow workers to travel large distances, such as to and from home, and be in constant contact with a telephone.
The Anaheim firm said the product will be sold internationally and displayed at an industry trade show in January in Las Vegas. The product’s introduction date has not been set.
