Chiat Day Company

When baseball players have hitting slumps they take batting practice. When car makers suffer sales slumps they lower prices. But what happens when an advertising agency has a creative slump? Well, at the Venice ad agency Chiat/Day/Mojo, they went back to the drawing boards. There, they came up with a funny bunny that won't sit still--and a car that makes sonic booms. That might not sound like much.

Howard J. Rubenstein, one of New York's top public relations executives, had scheduled a private dinner for some of his key clients on the night war broke out in the Persian Gulf. It was too late to cancel when Rubenstein got word of the U.S.-led bombing raid, but his guests were not much interested in food or talking business. They spent the evening huddled around a TV set that Rubenstein had lugged into the dining room. "Nobody spent two seconds talking about business," he said.

Steve Beaumont figures that his vacation lasted five hours. And he was lucky to get that much. It was early last August, the day after Chiat/Day, the Los Angeles ad agency, landed one of the biggest advertising accounts on the West Coast, the $150-million Nissan business. Beaumont, then senior art director, had planned to take a week off and move into a new house. But on his first day in the new home--even before lunchtime--the phone rang.

Anne Klein II has hired a new tailor for its ads--Chiat/Day. On Friday, the New York maker of designer sportswear handed its $3-million advertising business to the New York office of the Venice-based ad firm Chiat/Day. The ad firm's New York office on Friday also won the $3-million Soho Natural sparkling waters business, a regional New York beverage firm.

A truck made in Tokyo is on the road to Rio. And a husband and wife team from Topanga Canyon is driving it. The four-wheel-drive utility wagon--which departed last month from Chicago--belongs to Nissan. And behind this estimated 6,500-mile journey--interrupted by an airlift over Nicaragua--is an extravagant advertising campaign named after the film "Road to Rio." The 1947 movie starred Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

Jay Chiat, the ad man who co-founded the largest and most successful agency in Los Angeles, began to relinquish the reins of his fast-growing advertising empire on Friday. Chiat stepped down as chairman and chief executive of North American operations at Chiat/Day/Mojo and handed that title to Bob Wolf, 47, who has been president of the firm's Venice-based operations for about two years.

Just one day after its motorcycle client, Yamaha, roared out the door, the ad firm Chiat/Day on Thursday lost the California Cooler advertising business. For more than five years, the San Francisco office of the Venice ad agency created numerous award-winning ads for California Cooler. The ads featured laid-back surfers making the wine cooler at the beach to the tune of the song "Louie, Louie." But the company that makes the wine cooler, Brown-Forman Beverage Co.

The fiercely independent London office of Chiat/Day won't be part of the agency's merger with Omnicom's TBWA advertising agency. Andrew Law, managing director of Chiat/Day's London operation, said Wednesday that his business will become a "floating agency" within the Omnicom network and will answer directly to Omnicom's board. Chiat/Day, Los Angeles' best-known advertising agency, agreed in February to merge with New York-based TBWA.

An upstart Chicago advertising agency has lured seven senior employees from TBWA Chiat/Day to staff its new Los Angeles office. Four of the people going to Leap Partnership had worked on the award-winning Energizer bunny campaign. But TBWA Chiat/Day said that Energizer, a unit of Ralston Purina Co., assured them the $60-million account wasn't in danger.