Denzel Who? DGWB Takes OC Ad Club Award Honors
Marketing & Media
by Jennifer Bellantonio
The who’s-who of Orange County’s advertising circle hobnobbed at the Santa Ana Performing Arts and Event Center on Saturday for the 2002 OC Ad Club Awards.
Diana Marshall, the chairwoman of the event, said there were 500 entries, “only down about 15% from last year, which is great considering the whole industry has been hit hard with spending cuts in the advertising and marketing areas since Sept. 11.”
This year, 91 awards were given out, with 17 agencies getting kudos.
Santa Ana-based DGWB Advertising stole the show, winning 28 awards, including the top honor, Best of Show, for a national television spot it created for Toshiba Copiers, titled “Box.”
Foote, Cone & Belding Southern California, Irvine, took home 18 awards, including four golds in the consumer magazine, non-English category for Hilton Hotels. They edged out Hispanic-focused shops in the area.
Other top winners: McElroy FCB, which took home 15 awards, and Marshall Advertising & Design, Costa Mesa, which won 11 awards, mostly for its work for Yamaha Motor Corp.
Ad veteran Richard Reiser won the Lifetime Achievement Award. The family therapist in Laguna Beach ran Reiser Williams deYong, an 87-person, $45 million advertising agency for more than 20 years before selling it in 1987. The agency, which had offices in Irvine and San Francisco, was a training ground for many of OC’s top ad executives.
Now Reiser is involved in the community, routinely volunteering at the Laguna Beach-based Friendship Shelter Inc., which serves the homeless.
NewMark Pitching Two Centers
The marketing arm of Tarzana-based NewMark Merrill Cos. is in high gear promoting the renovation and enhancement of two shopping centers in Orange County: Anaheim Town Square and Bristol Warner Village.
The Anaheim center is in the final stages of a $4 million renovation. The last chunk of work involves the center’s southeast corner, which is getting a face lift and new tenants, including Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Voicestream and Togo’s. The work is expected to be done in May.
Around the same time, Bristol Warner Village in Santa Ana, which is getting $1 million in improvements, will debut its new look, which includes new stores, landscaping and lighting.
At Bristol Warner, NewMark plans to have a grand reopening ceremony. Last year, the company held a big party promoting Anaheim Town Square’s changes.
In addition, NewMark is conducting a direct-mail campaign, which circulates to 10,000 homes in the area, and is sending out a tabloid piece explaining the renovations and offering discounts to the center, marketing coordinator Adrienne Shaffer said.
Gherkin Ruckus Aids Nissan
Six-month-old Gherkin Ruckus, a Newport Beach-based media network that places ads in the action sports industry and handles event planning, is bolstering its client base.
The boutique shop, founded by industry veteran and former ad sales director for Surfline.com, John Cecil, helped TBWA/Chiat Day link client Nissan Xterra up with the XXL Big Surf Awards, which is a Web-based contest where surfers attempt to ride the biggest wave this winter. Nissan Xterra is a title sponsor of the event.
Gherkin Ruckus is also doing event work for The Grand Prix of Skateboarding 2002, where the top 130 skateboarders in the world compete.
Bits and Pieces:
Laguna Hills-based Big Man Creative Inc. recently completed logos,the first of several projects,for new clients Mustard Seed Ranch, Cal Pac Sheet Metal and Renaissance Church Cypress-based Creative Media Recording has been tapped by the Special Olympics of Orange County to create six radio public service announcements for the annual Vince Ferragamo Celebrity Golf Tournament benefit. This is the 14th consecutive year that CMR has handled this work OK, so we’re nosy. Recently, Business Journal editors peered out their windows at the Citicorp tower in Irvine to see a camera crew in the parking lot. Turns out Creative Image Works, a 10-year-old Irvine-based marketing communications firm specializing in corporate marketing training, was shooting footage for a video that will be presented during a business meeting at Toyota Financial Services, their client. This video is a comic look at the day in the life of a field rep and how technology has made the job easier Laguna Hills-based Cobalt Business Communications, an ad shop, recently launched a campaign for Susan’s Healthy Gourmet, which sells calorie-controlled meals. The work involves radio, television and Internet advertising and plugs the health benefits of Susan’s meals. Radio spots can be heard on 97.1 FM and KFI The Pediatric Adolescent Diabetes Research and Education Foundation has retained Irvine-based Morgan Marketing and Public Relations to promote its 13th annual fundraiser.
