Ad Agency

A cable television commercial for the Redondo Beach restaurant Eat at Joe's features high-definition video, a cast of 40 and a catchy jingle that will leave you humming. Particularly enthusiastic about the slick new ad was Alex Jordan, the restaurateur who decided to take the plunge into television advertising after meeting an Altadena couple who were starting their own ad agency. They wrote and produced the 30-second spot for $5,000, and they helped him broker a deal to deliver it to 300,000 homes for $1 every time it ran. In a still tough economy in Southern California, hard times in advertising and media have led to a surprising bonanza for small businesses seeking to market themselves.

Clint Eastwood has never been known as a man who had trouble making his meaning clear. So for many of those who were watching Sunday, the crusty, no-guff actor's Super Bowl ad delivered a plain message: America is staging a comeback, just like one of its big carmakers, Chrysler. It's anyone's guess whether the ad's soaring rhetoric and American-grit imagery will sell more Chrysler 300s or Town & Country minivans. But the two-minute spot immediately accomplished another, unintended goal — again forcing into high relief the nation's sharp political divide.

Turner Broadcasting Systems and an advertising agency agreed to pay $2 million in compensation for planting blinking electronic devices around the Boston area in a publicity stunt that set off a terrorism scare. The agreement between Turner, Interference Inc., and several state and local agencies resolves any potential civil or criminal claims against the two companies, Atty. Gen. Martha Coakley said.

When Paul Telegdy moved to Los Angeles, he was struck by the contrast between U.S. celebrities and those from his native Britain. "People here took themselves extremely seriously once they were in the public eye," Telegdy, NBC Entertainment president of alternative and late night programming, said in a recent interview. Telegdy, who then was an executive with the BBC, arrived in L.A. in 2004 to start a production firm to make "Dancing With the Stars" for ABC. Initially, celebrities they approached wouldn't even return their calls.

Even the advertising world has now been hit by the yen's continued surge against the dollar. The Japanese ad agency Dentsu Inc. has replaced New York-based Young & Rubicam as the world's largest advertising agency, reports Advertising Age, a trade publication. In 1986--after a two-year reign as the largest ad firm--Young & Rubicam slipped to the No. 2 spot, the magazine said in its survey released Thursday of 970 ad agencies in 72 countries.

Emerson Foote, who helped found the nation's largest advertising agency and went on to become chairman of one of its rivals but quit the business in a dispute over cigarette ads, is dead. Foote was 85 when he died in a convalescent home in Carmel, N.Y., on Sunday of complications after an appendectomy. He was the last surviving founder of Foote, Cone & Belding Communications Inc.

The Burbank investment concern owned by the Roy E. Disney family said it increased its stake in Foote, Cone & Belding Communications to 9.9% from 7.4% in early March. Shamrock Holdings also said it has received federal approval to proceed with its previously announced plan to acquire up to 25% of the Chicago-based agency. Shamrock added that it may seek to influence FC&B policies and request seats on its board.

Advertising agency Noble & Associates is headed to Texas, where a merger with a San Antonio firm has created the biggest U.S. ad agency making its pitches predominantly in Spanish. The new company, called Sosa, Bromley, Aguilar, Noble & Associates, is expected to have annual billings of $100 million. It will be based in San Antonio. Some of Noble's 50 employees in Orange County have already moved, and others are deciding whether to go, said Dan Nance, Noble general manager.

Hal Riney & Partners, the San Francisco ad agency that created wine cooler pitchmen Frank Bartles and Ed Jaymes, on Tuesday drove away with the highly coveted job of creating more than $100 million in advertising for a new line of General Motors cars. It was a sweet and crucial victory for agency Chairman Hal Riney, who was counting on the GM campaign to make up for the $78-million E & J Gallo Winery account that the agency gave up last December following a number of disputes.

Stanley H. Katz, 70, a pioneering advertising executive who retired in 1991 as vice chairman of Foote Cone & Belding Communications. Katz was one in a trio of legendary ad agency founders that included David Ogilvy and Bill Bernbach. In 1954, Katz and Lester Leber started the Leber Katz Partners ad agency, whose annual billings rose from less than $1 million to more than $550 million. In June, 1986, the agency merged with Foote Cone & Belding Communications Inc. and became FCB-LKP.

Over the last several months, Los Angeles-based advertising agencies have put a Saint Bernard in a fat suit, a French bulldog in red sneakers, a Holstein in pigtails, and Matthew Broderick, a la "Ferris Bueller," in an SUV. During Sunday's Super Bowl broadcast, with big-budget ads for clients like Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and Pepsi, the agencies are going head to head with competitors from Madison Avenue to Marina del Rey. "We look at...

The gig: Michael Sheldon is chief executive of Deutsch LA. The Marina del Rey advertising agency's clients include cellphone maker HTC, grocery chain Fresh & Easy, Sony PlayStation, Diamond Foods and Volkswagen. The firm created this year's fan-favorite Super Bowl commercial: a boy dressed as Darth Vader who has the power of "the force" when it comes to his father's VW Passat. Agency of record: Fifteen years ago, Sheldon opened the West Coast office for maverick ad man Donny Deutsch.

A boy, dressed up as a cowboy, sits under a dining room table, clutching the rods of a chair like bars on a prison cell. "Let me outta here! Let me outta here!" he screams. It's a scene from fictional adman Don Draper's most acclaimed commercial, and though it may just be a spot for a floor wax, viewers of "Mad Men" know that it symbolizes much more. The show, which ends its fourth season Sunday, has repeatedly used enclosed spaces ? elevators, closets, back seats ? to reinforce the themes of secrecy, repression and isolation that are central to the show.

A cable television commercial for the Redondo Beach restaurant Eat at Joe's features high-definition video, a cast of 40 and a catchy jingle that will leave you humming. Particularly enthusiastic about the slick new ad was Alex Jordan, the restaurateur who decided to take the plunge into television advertising after meeting an Altadena couple who were starting their own ad agency. They wrote and produced the 30-second spot for $5,000, and they helped him broker a deal to deliver it to 300,000 homes for $1 every time it ran. In a still tough economy in Southern California, hard times in advertising and media have led to a surprising bonanza for small businesses seeking to market themselves.

Guy Day, who teamed with fellow advertising executive Jay Chiat in 1968 to co-found the acclaimed Chiat/Day advertising agency in Los Angeles, has died. He was 79. Day died in his sleep of natural causes Saturday at his home in Pflugerville, Texas, said his wife, Annette. An Army veteran who launched his career in the mail room of an ad agency in New York City in the 1950s, Day was partners with Tom Faust in the Faust/Day ad agency in Los Angeles for six years before Faust left in 1968.

Plagued by recalls of toxic toys, poison pet food and other products, and facing rising trade barriers for its exports, China is taking a page from the American corporate playbook. It has hired a Madison Avenue ad agency to help burnish its image. In what is believed to be Beijing's first global ad campaign, a television commercial now airing on CNN in the U.S., Asia and Europe portrays satisfied consumers enjoying Chinese-made goods. It also touts the notion that China's manufacturing prowess benefits nations around the globe.

The advertising agency handling the Helmsley Hotel account quit today, saying an "arrogant" and "imperious" Leona Helmsley had refused to pay two-thirds of the bill. "We were being told, 'Take it or leave it,' " said Elaine Taylor-Gordon, president of Taylor-Gordon, Aarons & Co. "We have decided to leave it." Taylor-Gordon said the agency bills the Helmsley organization for about $5 million a year in fees, and when the May-June bill was submitted, Helmsley paid only a third of it.

Lowe & Partners/SMS in New York withdrew from the contentious review for Bank of America's advertising business over compensation issues. The $80-million to $100-million account went into review following the merger of North Carolina-based NationsBank and BofA. The new entity is called Bank of America. New York based-Bozell Worldwide, in partnership with Texas-based Temerlin McClain, is believed to be the only contender still in the running. Temerlin McClain handled NationsBank's account.

Publicis Groupe, owner of ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi, said it is buying Microsoft Corp.'s Razorfish advertising agency for $530 million in cash and stock to expand in Internet advertising. Razorfish will continue to operate under its own name and Microsoft will continue using the agency for online advertising and marketing, the companies said in a joint statement. In buying Razorfish, Publicis expands its digital-ad business as demand slows for traditional print and television campaigns.

Newt Heisley, a commercial artist who designed the Vietnam-era POW/MIA flag that came to symbolize the nation's concern for military personnel missing or held prisoner in modern conflicts, has died. He was 88. Heisley, who was a World War II pilot, died Thursday at his home in Colorado Springs, Colo., after years of failing health, said Jim Heisley, one of his two sons.