L.A. Ad Agency Winner as Dole Shifts Account

One of the largest ad accounts to switch coasts in several years left New York on Friday and landed in Los Angeles. Dole Food Co. handed its estimated $30-million ad business to Lord, Dentsu & Partners/LA.

Much of Dole’s ad business was formerly handled by the New York office of Backer Spielvogel Bates. In search of a stronger brand image, Dole has shifted the ad business for its fresh and packaged fruits, juices and vegetables to Lord, Dentsu. Dole immediately becomes the agency’s biggest client.

“They were the best,” said Carol J. Klein, vice president of corporate affairs at Castle & Cooke, Dole’s Los Angeles-based parent.

The big win could result in substantial hiring at Lord, Dentsu, which only recently changed its name from HDM. “We’ll definitely be hiring some people,” said Charles W. Reynolds Jr., president of the Los Angeles office, which employs 100.

As an agency that is hiring--instead of laying off--Lord, Dentsu suddenly finds itself among a minority of Los Angeles ad shops. Most agencies, hit hard by lost ad revenues, have been firing workers during the recession.

Reynolds declined to say how many new workers might be hired. Industry executives estimated between 10 and 20.

But the task for Lord, Dentsu will not be easy, said J. Craig Mathiesen, president of Ketchum Advertising/Los Angeles, one of the finalist agencies. “Dole is looking for two very different things to work in tandem,” he said. Besides repositioning the overall Dole name, the agency must create images for each of its individual brands.

“Dole has meant a lot of different things to different people,” Mathiesen said. “They have an incredible opportunity to cement what the Dole brand stands for.”