Local Shops Tout Film Festival; Heil-Brice Expands
The top executive at Young & Rubicam Advertising, Irvine, has a new tool for encouraging cohesiveness among the shop’s five independent marketing divisions: a higher position.
David Murphy, who has served as president of Y & R; Advertising since October 1999, recently was promoted to chief executive of the Y & R; Companies.
The move is a big stride for OC’s largest advertising agency, effectively giving the divisions a single point of leadership, according to Murphy, who now will oversee five Y & R-owned; groups, including Y & R; Advertising, Burson-Marsteller, The Media Edge and Landor. Collectively, the divisions bill $650 million a year, the agency said.
The Irvine set-up is a testing ground for other Young & Rubicam offices, which have yet to follow the OC shop’s lead and house five Y & R-owned; units under one roof.
Murphy said his challenge is to continue breaking down barriers among the units so the shop works as a single company. Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln Mercury, Irvine, is one client that uses resources from each division.
Murphy will continue to serve as the agency’s managing partner in charge of the Lincoln Mercury business. And he’ll continue overseeing Y & R; Advertising until a replacement is found.
Getting Festive
Amateur filmmakers with tight budgets and one-man production crews will do just about anything to get the right shot,like strapping themselves to the roof of a moving car with a camera.
An exaggeration? Well, maybe. But that scenario was captured in one of four print ads Laguna Niguel-based Quartararo & Associates public relations and advertising created for the Newport Beach Film Festival pro bono. The promotional ads are appearing in OC publications,Orange Coast magazine, the Daily Pilot, OC Weekly and OC Metro,to highlight the event, which is set for March 29 to April 5 at Edwards Island Cinema Theaters in the Fashion Island.
Quartararo also handled the creative end of two festival television spots, which are airing on local cable channels and in movie theaters. Irvine-based Wild West Media, a full-service production center and a sponsor of the event, produced the commercials.
Wild West has its own plans to “bring the festival into the digital age.” The center plans to digitize and transfer more than 90 selected films onto digital video discs and develop a disc of event highlights that can be used for future promotions. It also designed and hosted the festival’s Web site.
As a festival partner, Wild West also plans to produce a new 30-minute news show called “Detour: Arts Off The Beaten Path,” describing event highlights, celebrity interviews and more, which will be shopped to various cable and public television stations throughout the U.S. Wild West hopes to make the show ongoing.
Bits and pieces:
Newport Beach-based Heil-Brice Advertising is on a growth curve. The OC ad shop in the past month added three new employees, taking its staff to 33. The company also continues to increase work with current clients, including San Diego-based Factory 2-U Stores Inc., which has increased its focus on Hispanic broadcast marketing FCB Worldwide, a unit of True North Communications Inc., recently acquired the Italian direct-marketing agency Compagnia del Marketing Diretto, which will join its interactive unit, FCBi. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The acquisition has no direct impact on Irvine-based FCB Southern California, but a spokesman said the shop will partner with its global agencies on projects requiring international/specialty work for clients or new business The Media Edge, New York and Irvine, a division of Young & Rubicam Inc., is one of three shops entering the final round for Sony Pictures Entertainment’s $250 million media review. Incumbent Universal McCann, Los Angeles, and Starcom in Chicago are also in the running. A decision is expected within two weeks, after one more round of presentations Speaking of Young & Rubicam, the Irvine shop’s largest client, Lincoln Mercury, recently teamed up with Vanity Fair magazine to promote events that ran through the Academy Awards last Sunday. Lincoln provided a fleet of vehicles, including Navigators and LS sport sedans, to transport the magazine’s staff and Hollywood VIPs to and from a variety of high-profile parties. Vanity Fair hotel guests also stationed Lincoln cars in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel for use. To kick off Campaign Hollywood, Lincoln developed a 20-page insert in Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue, which hit newsstands on March 13 Irvine-based EMC, a public relations agency specializing in multimedia products including video news releases and electronic press kits, was busy last year. The agency reported that it distributed and produced more than 6.4 million video news releases and B-roll productions for its clients in 2000. The products reached more than 334 million
