Three companies have emerged as frontrunners for Irvine-based Mazda North American Operations’ $150 million yearly advertising account.
The Newport Beach office of Southfield, Mich.-based Doner Co. has held the account since 1997 and is competing against Dearborn, Mich.-based Team Detroit and New York-based BBDO Worldwide, according to industry sources familiar with the ad review.
Both Team Detroit and BBDO have done automotive work and have Southern California offices.
Mazda put its account up for grabs in March.
The automaker, part of Japan’s Mazda Motor Corp., hired Boston-based firm Pile and Co. to oversee the account review. Mazda also put the head of its Canadian arm, Don Romano, in charge of North American marketing.
Doner has said it will defend the account aggressively.
Team Detroit, part of Britain’s WPP PLC, is a consortium of agencies including JWT, Young & Rubicam Brands Inc., Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide and Grey Group, which is working on Ford Motor Co.’s marketing.
BBDO, part of New York-based Omnicom Group Inc., also is chasing the Mazda account after its 45-year marriage with Michigan’s Chrysler Group LLC ended in January. The agency has an office in Los Angeles that originally handled advertising for Cypress-based Mitsubishi Motors North America Inc.
Doner came up with Mazda’s “Zoom, Zoom” campaign, which the automaker plans to keep using even if it changes agencies.
No timetable has been announced on the review. Many suspect a six- to eight-month review.
Mazda is not the only one looking for a new agency.
Cypress’ Mitsubishi, part of Japan’s Mitsu-bishi Motors Corp., launched a review of its es-timated $120 million yearly account in January.
The automaker is parting ways with Hollywood-based Traffic, which it hired in 2008.
Traffic chose not to defend the automaker’s account.
Mitsubishi hired consultant Select Resource International of Santa Monica to handle a review. Select recently found a new agency for Newport Beach-based Pacific Life Insurance Co.
Plans originally called for an announcement of a new agency in mid-March. But the automaker has been quiet on its decision.
A source familiar with the review said the announcement could come as early as June. Six to eight shops are believed to be pitching the account, which has seen four agencies of record in the past five years.
T3 in Iron Man 2’
In real life, T3 Motion Inc.’s three-wheel cruisers transport security guards and police officers through patrol areas.
In “Iron Man 2,” the cruisers allowed security to get panicked passersby to safety during an evil robot attack.
The Irvine-based company was contacted in 2009 by producers for the comic book-inspired movie starring Robert Downey Jr. It’s the first time the T3 Motion has been featured in a movie, albeit briefly.
The T3 would have had more screen time, according to the company, if it weren’t so stable.
“Originally there were plans for a scene where panicking attendees overwhelmed the T3 and knocked it to the ground,” said Jeff Simpson, spokesman for the company. “The scene was abandoned after the stunt team realized it was going to be more work than they thought” to knock it over.
The transporter also was up for a role in “Up in the Air” with George Clooney. But T3 opted out due to contract obligations with Iron Man 2.
The company flatly refused to be part of Kevin James comedy “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” saying T3 doesn’t “have a sense of humor about its product.”
The company’s transporter is used by more than 500 agencies including police departments for Los Angeles, New York and Dallas as well as by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
All of T3 Motion’s transporters are designed in Irvine and assembled in Costa Mesa.
South Coast Magazine
Costa Mesa-based South Coast Plaza weighed down several newspapers this month with its quarterly spring catalog.
The upscale shopping center shipped its spring catalog with the Sunday editions of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Wall Street Journal.
Last year, the mall decided not to advertise with the Register, the county’s largest local newspaper, due to the paper’s declining circulation. This year, the mall had a larger budget, which allowed it to advertise in the Register again.
Bits & Pieces:
In other Doner news, the agency picked up some project work with Irvine-based ProtectMyID.com, part of Britain’s Experian Group Ltd. The ad shop is doing the first in a series of print ads for ProtectMyID.com appearing in Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal … Costa Mesa-based Remarx Media Inc., formerly Tustin-based Wundermarx Inc., has added two companies to its client roster for social media campaigns: Irvine inkjet printer company Roland DGA Corp., the U.S. arm of Japan’s Roland DG Corp., and DateAHuman.com, a media Web site run by Ireland’s Babel Networks Ltd.
