Tustin-based advertising shop Brainsaw plans to go after more restaurants now that it’s no longer working on Lake Forest-based Del Taco Inc.
Tim Fuhrman, Brainsaw principal, said the shop will keep its restaurant marketing team “intact” even though Del Taco recently shifted its account to the Newport Beach office of W.B. Doner & Co.
“In fact, we’ve recently expanded our online capabilities in the category,” Fuhrman said. “Since we have a lot of restaurant experience and are in Orange County, where there are a lot of restaurant companies, it creates some opportunities for us.”
The loss “frees us up to talk to restaurant companies we didn’t feel like we could talk to before at the risk of a conflict,” Fuhrman said.
There wasn’t a formal review for the Del Taco work that Doner picked up.
Fuhrman said the company told him that Nick Shepherd, who took over as Del Taco chief executive in March, “has a friend at Doner and felt comfortable working with them based on previous experience.”
“The quality or effectiveness of our work was never at issue,” he said. “People like working with their old friends. We get it.”
|
|
Del Taco Web site: company did $12 million in 2007 advertising |
Tim Blett, who heads Doner’s Newport Beach office, said the shop’s first project for Del Taco is slated to break in July.
“This is an important addition for us,” Blett said of Del Taco.
It’s the OC shop’s only restaurant client, he said.
Doner also handles Irvine-based Mazda North America Operations, the U.S. arm of Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp., among others.
Blett said it’s likely the shop will make some hires to help with the Del Taco account.
White Barn’s Diversity
San Juan Capistrano-based White Barn Group has gone after work in different industries to help it through the slow economy.
The ad shop is “well diversified with accounts” including technology, restaurants, retail, nonprofits, fashion and others, principal Tim Hackbardt said.
“The agencies that seem to be having issues right now were either in the real estate and automotive categories,” Hackbardt said, “or they were reliant on one or two accounts that went away.”
Hackbardt said his outlook for the rest of the year is “very positive.”
“We have continued to grow throughout the downturn that others are experiencing,” he said.
The shop recently brought in work from Yoshinoya America Inc., the U.S. division of the Japanese restaurant chain. I wrote about that win last week.
Hackbardt said the “restaurant industry is really between a rock and a hard place.”
The soft economy has caused budget-conscious people to cut back on eating out. At the same time, restaurant operators are facing increased costs in gas and raw materials, including corn and wheat, Hackbardt said.
“It will be a very tough year for almost everyone,” he said. “You will see a shake out of the weak and non-focused brands.”
White Barn Group will also face more pressure to develop different products and services that will help clients entice customers and steal them from competitors, he said.
Premiere Work
Premiere Movies Interactive Inc. in Aliso Viejo tapped IPW Experience in Costa Mesa to help promote its launch with a shindig at the St. Regis Resort Monarch Beach.
The event, slated for May 29, also is a release party for the movie “Sex and the City” and includes a fashion show from South Coast Plaza stores.
Premiere Movies plans to launch its site, premieremovies.com, at the end of May to promote film premieres and releases.
Premiere Movies has five workers and a handful of contractors working on the site, according to Delphine Channels Berryhill, IPW Experience principal.
The company has “relationships with some of the major movie companies and will work closely with them to help promote movie releases,” Berryhill said.
“Events will be an important part of premieremovies.com so this ‘Sex and the City’ release party will be the first in many release parties they plan to bring to OC and L.A. in the coming year,” she said.
Bits and Pieces:
Irvine-based Morgan Marketing & Public Relations LLC just hired an account supervisor, Keri Follmer, to handle strategic planning, media relations and copywriting, among other things Irvine-based printer MyPrint Corp. recently promoted Craig Hath to executive vice president of sales. Hath, who joined MyPrint last year from FedEx Corp.’s FedEx Kinko’s, has helped bring in business for shop, particularly with the new eTools division, which offers software that’s used by restaurant chains for marketing materials.
