Brea-based American Suzuki Motor Corp. has moved what was left of its $100 million advertising account to San Francisco-based digital agency Questus.
The move ends an almost 10-year relationship the automaker had with Dentsu Holdings USA Inc., the New York-based holding company for Ja-pan’s Dentsu Inc.
The automaker, part of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp., shifted its remaining business from Dentsu Holdings USA’s Los Angeles office, where the work ended up in January.
Dentsu lost the majority of the Suzuki account—the automotive advertising du-ties—to Marina del Rey’s Siltanen & Partners last year.
Siltanen had been working with Suzuki on another project early last year and won the account from Dentsu Next Inc. of Brea without a review. Dentsu Next closed in January.
The remainder of the business, the power-sports business that includes motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles work, was moved to Dentsu’s Los Angles office earlier this year.
Questus had been working with Dentsu on the digital side of the business until recently.
Now, Questus is handling all of the automaker’s advertising, including TV, radio and print for North America.
Suzuki had been using Questus as its digital agency of record for power sports since 2003.
The business is estimated at $10 million to $15 million for the remainder of 2009 and was awarded without a review, according to Advertising Age.
The move is part of Suzuki becoming more aggressive in digital marketing.
The automaker has been criticized in the past for its inability to boost sales through marketing.
Suzuki saw sales last month decline 5% from a year earlier to 5,749 vehicles at a time when several automakers had their best month in a while.
The automaker has been hit hard by the auto slump with sales down 55% since the start of the year versus a year earlier.
Many see the smaller automaker turning away from mass media and ratcheting up digital work to connect with auto buyers one-to-one.
O’Leary Lands Work
Newport Beach-based O’Leary & Partners landed two accounts.
The advertising and public relationship shop picked up Pasadena-based Wetzel’s Pretzels LLC and Sage Hill School, a private high school in Newport Coast, after advertising reviews.
Wetzel’s, which runs 250 pretzel and hot dog stands in malls, selected O’Leary after a two-month review of several Orange and Los Angeles county ad shops.
“They put their account up for review a while back and have been searching for a shop aligned with their current offline and online goals,” said Jim Harrington, O’Leary’s president.
The ad shop is handling advertising materials and promotion at Wetzel’s mall stores.
O’Leary also is doing social media marketing with Facebook, Twitter and other efforts.
The shop, which has Irvine-based In-N-Out Burgers Inc. and Kawasaki Motors Corp. USA as clients, has seen its work with social media marketing increase.
“Some clients are further along in the process than others,” Harrison said. “But social media is a tactic that companies can’t really ignore anymore.”
For Sage Hill School, O’Leary will be handling communications, promotional materials, direct response marketing and public relations.
“They are looking more broadly than Orange County for students and to recruit faculty,” Harrington said.
O’Leary won the account after a four-month review that involved several other locals.
PR Uptick?
Huntington Beach-based PR Talent has seen an uptick in small to midsize businesses looking for public relations.
The public relations recruiting firm with offices in OC and New York has seen more companies jumping back in after a frugal three quarters.
“We have seen more activity over the past six weeks than pretty much the entirety of 2009,” said Jim Delulio, president of PR Talent and former executive vice president of Irvine-based PainePR Inc.
A lot of it has to do with an unleashing of unspent marketing budgets that were idle for much of the year. With the end of the year nearing, many companies are opening their purse strings to spend what is left of their modest 2009 marketing budgets.
The sudden increase is leading some in the industry to remain cautiously optimistic for more robust budgets next year.
“Budgeting for next year should probably be at higher levels than it was for this year because generally there is a much more positive outlook for the economy next year,” Delulio said.
PR Talent generally works with companies that have marketing budgets of $15,000 per month or less.
It works with numerous public relation agencies as well as public relations departments of companies such as American Suzuki Motor, Irvine-based Taco Bell Corp., El Segundo-based Mattel Inc., Atlanta-based Home Depot Inc. and Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp.
