Costa Mesa Rival Lands Sofa Account : Advertising: Basso & Associates loses Krause’s, a five-year client, to competitor Salvati Montgomery Sakoda.

Ad agency Basso & Associates, which will lose Thrifty Drug Store as a client in November, is now seeing another account slip away.

Krause’s Sofa Factory, a five-year Basso client, is taking the creative portion of its budget--$750,000, according to industry estimates--to rival Costa Mesa agency Salvati Montgomery Sakoda.

Joseph Basso, president of the agency that bears his name, said the loss of the Krause’s account is not a major blow to his firm, which has annual billings of $15 million and employs about 15 people. And he has been working steadily to replace the creative portion of the Thrifty business, which he said is being bid on by three other agencies.

The entire Thrifty account--creative costs, television and newspaper ads--is estimated at $9.9 million by the Leading National Advertisers directory. Thrifty announced earlier this year that it would change agencies.

“We can’t, obviously, lose a client of that proportion without it hurting us, but we’re optimistic” about bringing in new clients, Basso said. “I see the marketplace starting to turn now.”

Basso & Associates’ clients include a number of Hilton hotels, Long Beach Transit Authority, Verteq in Anaheim, and a division of electronics maker Sanyo.

For Salvati Montgomery Sakoda, winning the Krause’s account is the latest in a string of successes. The agency, based in Costa Mesa, picked up the $5.2-million Taylor Made Golf Co. account in mid-August from Chiat/Day and the $2.5-million Yamaha keyboards account earlier this year.

Krause’s, which has more than 70 showrooms in the West, is starting fresh with a new ad agency after its purchase of New York-based Castro Convertible Corp. in May, said William Gamble, Krause’s vice president of advertising.

Salvati Montgomery Sakoda, Gamble said, has “a lot of creative horses.”