Ad Agency

One of the most sought-after pieces of business in the Los Angeles advertising market--the $15-million HomeClub account--has been won by a Los Angeles ad agency, the companies said Tuesday. Davis, Ball & Colombatto, the firm that created the popular "Mac Tonight" ad campaign for McDonald's, emerged the winner after a harrowing review that at one time included more than 50 Los Angeles ad agencies vying for the business.

L.A. Gear is looking for an agency to fit the shoe. The Los Angeles athletic shoe maker has quietly launched a review for an agency to create ads for a new, high-tech line of athletic shoe. Whatever agency is selected could eventually end up with the creative portion of the company's $68-million annual ad business. "L.A. Gear wants its advertising to be the best there is," said Michael Albright, the former creative director of the Shalek Agency, who last week was named creative director of L.A.

The artists and copywriters who work for one of the nation's leading advertising agencies are settling into their new, albeit temporary, corporate headquarters: a cavernous, remodeled warehouse in the heart of Venice. Amid much fanfare from local politicians and business leaders, the Chiat/Day agency has begun its move to Venice, delayed until now by the discovery of toxic waste on a planned construction site. The cleanup of the contaminated site is under way.

It is hard to remember when Los Angeles advertising executives have sounded so utterly frightened about the future. Sure, advertising is the hyperbole business. But these days in the ad industry, it could be an exaggeration to say business is OK. The effects of the recession and the Persian Gulf War are hobbling--and in some cases crippling--some of the most familiar agencies in town.

A federal grand jury in New Haven, Conn., on Friday indicted the Young & Rubicam advertising agency and five individuals in connection with an alleged scheme in which Y&R executives are said to have paid $900,000 in bribes to win a Jamaica Tourist Board account in 1981. Stanley A. Twardy Jr., the U.S.

It began, as things often do in advertising, with a betrayal. Joanna Hughes Brach, who oversees advertising for Polaroid, the Cambridge, Mass.-based photographic company, was almost out the door for a maternity leave last summer when she received a phone call. Her New York advertising agency, BBDO, informed her that it was ditching Polaroid just as the company was planning to start its biggest campaign in decades. To make matters worse, BBDO was pursuing archrival Kodak.

One of L.A.'s premier advertising agencies will move into the Marina del Rey building that now houses the Southern California Institute of Architecture under terms of a newly signed lease that underscores the continuing demand for office space from growing Los Angeles companies. Deutsch Inc.

Oakley Inc., moving to add customers and build sales, said Tuesday that it has selected VitroRobertson as its first outside advertising agency. San Diego-based VitroRobertson will create a print ad campaign for Oakley that will target 18- to 34-year-old males. The campaign will be launched in November. The Foothill Ranch maker of sunglasses wants to broaden its customer base and call attention to its other products, including its shoes, clothing and watches.

The struggling Hardee's hamburger chain has hired Irvine-based Johnson/Ukropina Creative Marketing as its national advertising agency, overseeing a new media campaign to update Hardee's' image. Johnson/Ukropina will handle print and broadcast advertising for Hardee's, which has an annual advertising budget of $100 million. The new ad campaign is scheduled to debut in March. Johnson/Ukropina replaces Leap Partnership in Chicago, which had the Hardee's account for just over a year.

In a move that will shock the advertising industry, Coca-Cola Co. has turned over sizable responsibility for its 1993 marketing campaign to Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency. The new agreement calls for CAA to develop creative concepts and produce advertising for Coke in partnership with McCann-Erickson, Coke's New York ad agency.