Rockwell to Retool Defense Image With Ad Campaign
Rockwell International Corp. plans to launch a $2-million advertising campaign to let the business world know that it isn’t just a defense company anymore.
Richard R. Mau, senior vice president at the corporation’s Seal Beach headquarters, said the company is starting the image campaign to showcase its diversified technology businesses, which include newspaper printing and computer chip manufacturing; its market leadership in various industries; and quality management.
“Many people don’t realize that Rockwell has gone through a radical change in its composition over the last decade,” Mau said. “In the mid-1980s, defense contracts were about 50% of our sales. They are now 27%.”
The campaign will appear in Business Week, Forbes, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal throughout this year. The account is being handled by the Los Angeles office of the advertising agency Bozell Inc.
In another development, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Rockwell’s senior debt rating one notch to Aa3 on Tuesday, reflecting weakness in several Rockwell markets and an expected $225-million acquisition of the avionics unit of Sundstrand Corp.
On Wednesday, Rockwell said that because of the acquisition, it was suspending a stock repurchase program that had been approved in November. The company had spent $117 million of $500 million designated for the program.
