Al Punto Goes After Jack Daniels; OC Firm Publishes Tattoo ‘Bible’
Jackie Reed, president and CEO of the recently formed Costa Mesa-based FCB HealthCare West, left last week to spend more time with family, she said. “I’m going to remain in a consulting role,” Reed said. FCB Chairman and CEO John Loden is filling in until a replacement is found.
Reed had been head of the local Bozell Wellness Worldwide office since 1994. Bozell Wellness was dismantled when parent True North Communications Inc. formed FCB HealthCare in June to focus on healthcare clients.
As chief of FCB HealthCare West, Reed had been working in FCB Southern California’s Costa Mesa offices, where she was overseeing 90 employees there and in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, another local shop, Fair Riley Call/Bozell, also became part of FCB HealthCare West. Fair Riley Call Communications was a small Laguna Beach agency when it was acquired by Bozell in 1997. Bozell subsequently was acquired by True North and most of its operations were merged with FCB. Rich Fair remains creative director at the new FCB HeathCare West and Tim Riley is managing partner for the firm’s Xygote Interactive unit formed two years ago in Costa Mesa.
FCB HealthCare West will have about $15 million in annual billings and is the smallest of three divisions of FCB HealthCare, whose components had overall 1999 billings of roughly $53 million. FCB HealthCare East and FCB HealthCare International (in eight countries) are both headquartered in New York.
Top OC clients for the new FCB HealthCare West include Genentech, San Francisco, a biotech company that developed the breast-cancer drug Herceptin; Chiron Corp., a biotechnology company in Emeryville; Toshiba America Medical Systems Inc., Tustin; and San Diego-based Pyxis Corp., a supplier of medical dispensing systems.
Amgen Inc., a biotech firm in Thousand Oaks, last week awarded the agency a $39 million consumer advertising account for Neupogen, a chemotherapy treatment. The bulk of that account will be handled in San Francisco.
Al Punto Has a Shot
Al Punto Advertising, Tustin, is in a shootout with a Texas-based agency for the estimated $3 million to $5 million national Hispanic advertising account for the Jack Daniels brand.
San Antonio-based Big Chihuahua, which is the incumbent agency for the state of Texas, is competing in the review for the liquor client.
Jack Daniels, a division of Brown-Forman Beverages Worldwide in Louisville, Ky., recently parted ways with Latin Works, Dallas, which held the account for about a year.
“With our Miller Genuine Draft and Miller Light background we feel we have relevant experience,” said al Punto principal Peggy Goff. Al Punto held those accounts for two years until Miller canceled regional Hispanic efforts in 1998, she said.
Also, last week, my column mentioned the agency’s new account with Pillsbury Co., but I have since learned the account is worth about $5 million and includes marketing for the company’s Grands! biscuits and cookie dough products.
The win boosts the 6-year-old ad agency’s billings to about $20 million this year and would rank it at about No. 20 on the Business Journal’s list of top agencies.
Press Club Prez Exits
Reporter Greg Hernandez, outgoing president of the OC Press Club, is leaving the Times Orange County this week for a new gig at the Hollywood Reporter in Los Angeles. Hernandez, 36, will cover a couple of film studios and the film industry from the marketing perspective. During his 11-year stint at the Times OC, Hernandez moved up the ranks from a community correspondent to covering police and criminal courts and he was bureau chief in Anaheim, covering Disneyland among other things. He moved over to the business side last year to cover restaurants and, more recently, workplace issues.
The Press Club is expected to vote for a new president this week and OC Weekly copy editor Patrice Wirth Marsters has been nominated to replace Hernandez.
Also, OC Press Club Vice President Greg Hardesty, who covers retail and apparel for the Orange County Register, will be switching beats to become a criminal courts reporter. The position became available following Stuart Pfeifer’s recent move to the Times.
The Skinny on Tattoos
Need information about the tattoo industry?
For seven years, Action Publishing in Costa Mesa has published the industry’s bible with an annual directory that lists tattoo artists, conventions, studios, schools, vendors and permanent cosmetics from companies worldwide.
The 2000 ASC Tattoo Directory lists just about every business associated with the tattoo industry from the glitzy Inkslingers Ball in Hollywood, to the Christian Tattoo Association in Willmar, Minn., and reaches across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbarella Bodypiercing in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Margo E. Bennett and David Lumbert, co-publishers of the 490-page book, won’t say how many issues they sell at $18.95. But the book has sold internationally for the past seven years.
Bits and Pieces:
Esprit Communications, Newport Beach, has changed its name to Pure Octane. To announce the new name, Pure Octane sent its clients a red gas can with a towel in its nozzle bearing instructions to “Pour, light match, brand like hell” Stoyan Design, an OC-based graphic-design firm that specializes in annual report design and production, recently won four top honors at the National Investor Relations Institute’s 1999 Orange County Annual Report competition. The firm’s reports for Quiksilver Inc., Wet Seal Inc., Skechers and Southwest Gas Corp. were among the winners.
