Going It Alone

Foodmaker Inc. has concluded it doesn’t need an advertising agency after all. Its decision came after TBWA Chiat/Day resigned the $50-million Foodmaker business last week to handle the $200-million Taco Bell account.

San Diego-based Foodmaker said future Jack-in-the-Box ads will be produced in-house with help from former TBWA Chiat/Day Creative Director Dick Sittig, developer of the “Jack’s Back” campaign. Sittig, one of several senior managers to leave the agency in the last year, works with Radical Media, a Hollywood commercial production company.

Sittig continued to write and direct commercials for Foodmaker after leaving TBWA Chiat/Day, Foodmaker said. He did so under contract with his former agency.

Foodmaker President and Chief Executive Robert J. Nugent said that after 2 1/2 years, TBWA Chiat/Day’s function had been “mostly administrative.” Its “resignation is not expected to have an impact,” he said.

TBWA Chiat/Day was assigned the Taco Bell account without a review, a highly unusual step for a sizable account. The agency won the business after assuring the PepsiCo unit that top agency executives in Los Angeles would work on it.

Media buying for Jack-in-the-Box ads will continue to be handled by International Communications Group, Foodmaker said. Foodmaker operates and franchises more than 1,250 restaurants, mostly in the Western United States.

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Denise Gellene can be reached via e-mail at denise.gellene@latimes.com or fax at (213) 237-7837.