Self-Confidence and Homework Help Small Shops Grab Big Accounts

When Bruce Schroffel paid $185 to check into the Biltmore hotel in downtown Los Angeles last year, he didn’t really expect to be checking out with its $500,000 advertising business.

Schroffel, after all, knew that his tiny ad agency, Schroffel & Associates, was going head-to-head for the account with several of the largest ad agencies in Los Angeles. Even the Los Angeles office of Grey Advertising--which posts yearly billings 30 times larger than that of his annual $5-million business--was in the running.

But while the competing ad agencies--big and small--were hard at work in their offices planning campaigns for the Biltmore, Schroffel was over there eating and sleeping. And when he woke up the next morning to meet with the hotel’s public relations director, he surprised her with his knowledge of the hotel.

“He knew all about our recent renovations, our room rates and our menu,” said Victoria King, director of public relations at the Biltmore. “He had even tried the hotel’s personal butler service and had suggestions on how to improve it.”

Schroffel’s agency isn’t the only relatively small ad shop in Los Angeles making off with business usually reserved for the bigger firms. Just last week, Mervyn’s department store chain based in Hayward, Calif., gave its $10-million advertising business to a small Los Angeles agency, Cohen/Johnson. And earlier this year, Suissa & Associates, a Santa Monica ad firm, picked up the $3-million advertising business for Marie Callender’s restaurant chain.

“All of these little guys will do anything to get noticed,” said Larry Postaer, creative director at the Los Angeles ad firm that handle’s Honda’s corporate advertising, Rubin Postaer & Associates. “Every one of them wants a national ad account with a future. After all, when we got Honda it was a $4-million piece of business, and now it’s a $100-million client.”

That is exactly what Cohen/Johnson would like to see happen at Mervyn’s. It beat out more than 100 agencies for a big chunk of the department store chain’s business. “Our vision of what we want to be as an agency is coming to pass,” said Howard Cohen, the agency’s chairman. “We feel that we can deal with the largest accounts, but in more effective ways than the big agencies.”

And why would Mervyn’s pick a 3-year-old ad shop whose annual billings were just $20 million? “You get hands-on attention with a smaller agency,” said Sue Sprunk, vice president of sales promotions at Mervyn’s.

Of course, there are risks in hiring a small agency. Key employees at small ad agencies can sometimes be woefully inexperienced, and big agencies boast of more depth in all departments. Some clients also say they can benefit just from the prestige of hiring a big-name ad agency.

What’s more, small agencies seldom have as much clout in getting good buys for television ad time or magazine ad space.

Consider Fotouhi Alonso Inc., a Los Angeles agency that says it likes to go for $1-million and $2-million prestige accounts, such as Wolfgang Puck’s frozen pizzas and desserts. It won the account over 15 competitors.

But it recently lost out to a much bigger firm after becoming one of two finalists for the $2-million ad business of a Santa Barbara condom maker, Mentor Corp. The business went instead to the Los Angeles office of McCann-Erickson.

“The client told us that because McCann had so many other clients placing ads in publications,” said Farida Fotouhi, president of the smaller agency, “McCann would have better luck trying to place condom ads in magazines than we would.”

As a result, smaller Los Angeles agencies have to think fast to pick up business. Take Suissa & Associates, with $12 million in billings. When Chiat/Day, the area’s biggest agency, moved to new offices just a few blocks away, Suissa placed a full page ad in the trade magazine Adweek that simply said, “The closest thing to Chiat/Day.”

That advertisement alone prompted inquiries from three potential clients, said David Suissa, president of the agency that also handles advertising for the Los Angeles-area Four Season Hotels as well as the Tropicana Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. “We like to think that we’re the way that Chiat/Day was 10 years ago,” said Suissa.

And like Chiat/Day, Suissa loves to use outdoor advertising to get attention. It is for client Marie Callender’s that his firm has plastered freeway billboards across Southern California with puns such as, “Hello, Good Pie,” and “Corn and Bread in the U.S.A.”

Indeed, the smaller agencies insist that they continue to pick up larger Los Angeles-area clients by showering them with attention. The $9-million ad agency Mendelsohn/Zien Advertising handles the $4.5-million account for the Acura Dealers of Southern California as well as the $2-million Penguin’s Frozen Yogurt business.

How did they land such lucrative customers? “Everyone knows that the top guys at the big agencies in town are only personally working on the multimillion-dollar accounts,” said Jordin Mendelsohn, creative director of the ad firm. “But my clients know that if we do so much as design a matchbook cover, it comes across my desk.”

3 Leave Chiat/Day to Start Own Agency

About a year ago, Chiat/Day doubled its size by winning the $150-million Nissan advertising business. At the time, there was much speculation about how this huge client might change an agency almost as well-known for the close relationships among its staff members as for its creativity.

Dozens of new employees have since been brought on board to help assemble the huge auto maker’s advertising. But last week, the agency saw its first major employee defection since then. Greg Helm, 41, senior vice president and general manager of Chiat/Day’s Los Angeles office, left to start a new agency with two of Chiat/Day’s associate creative directors, John Stein and Jean Robaire. The new agency: Stein, Robaire & Helm. Laughs Helm: “I’ve gone from the biggest agency in Los Angeles to the smallest.”

Australian Ad Agency Says L.A. Office Likely

The Australian ad firm that first put the shrimp on the barbie may also soon put an office in Los Angeles.

“Within the next 12 months we expect to open a Los Angeles office,” said Malcolm Spry, chairman and chief executive of Mojo MDA Group, the Sydney, Australia, firm that created the popular Paul Hogan ads for Los Angeles-based Tourism Australia. Spry, whose agency has an office in San Francisco, visited Los Angeles last week. “We’ve always been interested in having a Los Angeles office,” he said in a phone interview. “Obviously, it would help our reputation in this country.”

Toyota Goes to Movies to Promote Cressida

Want to take the Toyota screen test? Don’t call them, they’ll call you.

Toyota has concocted a scheme to try to get upscale car buyers into its car dealerships. Next month, the Japanese auto maker will send 10-minute videocassettes of its redesigned, luxury Cressida model to 160,000 import car owners nationwide. The customers’ names were located with the help of a research firm.

Anyone who brings the video back to a Toyota dealership can select a free videocassette film from among seven titles, including “The Big Chill,” “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Ghostbusters.” “The object, of course, is to get live bodies into dealerships,” said Joseph J. Cronin, vice chairman of Toyota’s Torrance ad firm, Saatchi & Saatchi DFS. The other object: to get more people to buy Toyota’s most expensive car. Cressida’s sticker price starts at about $22,000.