Kia Motors America Switches PR Firms

Irvine-based Kia Motors America Inc. has dropped the public relations agency that helped usher it into the U.S. market in 1994. Replacing Porter Novelli Public Relations as the South Korean auto importer’s outside voice will be Pacific Communications Group in Torrance.

Pacific also does PR and marketing work for Fullerton-based Yokohama Tire Corp., the U.S. operations of British luxury performance car maker Aston Martin Lagonda and Ford Motor Co.’s regional headquarters in Anaheim.

Porter Novelli is a major New York-based public relations and marketing firm with West Coast headquarters in Los Angeles. The company opened a three-person office in Irvine several years ago to handle the Kia account, but closed it late last month when that relationship ended.

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John O’Dell covers major Orange County corporations and manufacturing for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5831 and at john.odell@latimes.com.