Newport Beach-based Doner’s advertising billings just got $25 million fatter, as the agency has landed an account with weight-loss center operator Jenny Craig Inc. Doner competed in a shootout with incumbent Suissa Miller, Los Angeles, Campbell-Ewald Advertising, Los Angeles, and Siltanen/Keehn, Santa Monica. However, Carat’s Southern California office will continue to handle Jenny Craig’s media planning and buying.
Doner is staffing up as it prepares for a Dec. 26 launch of a new television advertising campaign for Jenny Craig, with a move away from celebrity spokeswomen such as Monica Lewinsky to a new approach, said Billy Fried, who heads up the non-automotive accounts at Doner. In Lewinsky’s case, the former White House intern was offered $1 million to lose 35 pounds in six months, but she couldn’t drop the weight and received a $200,000 payment. The new account will push Doner’s billings to roughly $400 million, with its top client, Mazda North America, accounting for roughly half that.
Founded in 1983, Jenny Craig, which has 661 centers,119 of them franchises,in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico. In the fiscal first quarter ended Sept. 30, the company posted a net loss of $1.7 million on sales of $61.3 million, compared with a net loss of $3.7 million on sales of $65.6 million for the previous first quarter. The company reported a net loss of $7.1 million on sales of $291 million for the fiscal year ended June 30, compared with a $0.7 million loss on sales of $321 million the prior year.
