Cathy Saidiner has joined ad giant McCann Erickson Los Angeles with the title of president and something of a challenge.
Saidiner will be responsible for all McCann L.A. business, including Nestle, Northrop Grumman Corp. and Bumble Bee Foods LLC. But the challenge will come from her additional responsibility on the management board for the combined McCann Detroit/L.A. office. Detroit handles advertising for General Motors Corp., Saab, Sirius/XM Satellite Radio and Honeywell Corp.
In the midst of a worldwide auto slump, the Detroit assignment looks daunting. Saidiner will have help from Steve Levit, the chief creative officer for both McCann L.A. and McCann Detroit.
“I look forward to joining a great team, and to the opportunity to work with Steve in making the L.A. office unbeatable,” Saidiner said in a statement.
An L.A. native, she comes to the McCann job from cross-town rival TBWAChiatDay, where she worked the last year as global account director on Pioneer Electronics. She previously headed up the agency’s efforts for Nissan.
With Saidiner’s new assignment, Ian McGregor, who has led McCann L.A. as general manager since 2000, plans to retire but will continue in an advisory capacity. McGregor is a 36-year veteran of McCann and other agencies under the Interpublic Group of Cos. umbrella, having held senior management positions in South Africa, New York and Los Angeles.
Billboard Tally
Amid an ongoing controversy over outdoor advertising, an activist group called on volunteers to count the billboards in Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl’s Westside district. The resulting tally confirms that big companies and big streets control the outdoor industry in Los Angeles.
Rosendahl’s District 11 covers an area from the 405 Freeway to the beach around the City of Santa Monica. The district, per the count, contains 563 billboards, of which Clear Channel owns 143 and CBS Outdoor another 136. No other company owns more than 50 boards.
As for streets, Lincoln Boulevard had the most billboards at 84, followed by Santa Monica Boulevard (61), Pico Boulevard (44) and Wilshire Boulevard (32).
The L.A. City Council originally voted for a citywide inventory of billboards in 2002, but the effort stalled when four advertising companies filed a lawsuit. The suit was settled in 2006 but there’s still no official count of boards, in part because of threatened lawsuits about revealing trade secrets of the billboards’ owners.
The District 11 count was organized by the Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight. Rosendahl will bring the data to the L.A. City’s Department of Building and Safety for follow-up on possible code violations. City officials have estimated the number of illegal billboards in Los Angeles at 4,000.
Agencies & Accounts
Saatchi & Saatchi LA has hired Mike McKay as the ad agency’s new executive creative director. McKay comes from San Francisco-based Goodby Silverstein & Partners. His most recent campaign, titled “The Computer is Personal Again” for Hewlett-Packard Inc., was named U.S. Campaign of the Year by Advertising Age magazine in 2007. Ocean Spray has named Ethnic Marketing Group Inc., an independent Hispanic agency in Valencia, as its Hispanic advertising agency of record. EMG will handle advertising, promotion and retail programs in Spanish for the juice brand. Rogers Group in Century City is the new regional PR agency for Whole Foods Market, a grocery chain with 38 stores in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. Tribune-owned KTLA (Channel 5) in Los Angeles has hired a new ad sales team led by Patricia Tang, general sales manager. She was formerly local sales manager at KCBS (Channel 2). The team includes Troy Arce, local sales manager for KTLA, and Nancy Caldwell. International Trade Education Programs in Glendale has become a new client for Mayo Communications. ITEP is a non-profit organization that helps disadvantaged students by providing classes and activities not available in their neighborhood schools. L.A.-based Mayo will handle media relations with the goal of creating awareness for ITEP’s programs, which train students for careers in the trade, transportation and logistics sector. Aric Ackerman is the new chief operating officer at Interpret LLC, an L.A. company that develops technology to measure advertising effectiveness. Ackerman previously worked for Radical Media and as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Di Moda Public Relations, a luxury PR firm in Beverly Hills, has signed two new clients. Framm & Co. is an antique and art store in Santa Monica and Destiny Entertainment is a partnership between filmmakers Deborah Franco and Kim Bradshaw to produce commercials and video projects.
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
