MACLAREN GAINS ONE, LOSES A BIGGER ONE
By Adnews Staff
Lever Bros. decided this week that there is only room for one home cleaning products company at MacLaren McCann in Toronto. The company moved its business from MacLaren to a sister shop in Toronto, Ammirati & Puris/Lintas. MacLaren's loss of the Lever business, billing $6 million to $8 million annually, resulted from British-based Reckitt & Colman PLC moving its global brands advertising to McCann-Erickson Worldwide of New York. Since this is a worldwide account, MacLaren took over the business in Canada. Reckitt & Colman spent just over $3 million on Canadian advertising in 1994, according to A.C. Nielsen estimates. MacLaren had Lever's Sunlight laundry products, Snuggle fabric softener and Vim bathroom cleanser. The consumer goods company chose Ammirati & Puris without a review because the U.S.-based Lintas network of agencies handles most of Lever's account worldwide, Lever marketing vice-president Charles Oliver told Adnews yesterday. It seemed like a logical step, he said. MacLaren Advertising had been a longtime Lever agency when it merged with McCann Erickson last year. Both Ammiarati and MacLaren are part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, which has headquarters in New York. The Toronto offices of Ogilvy & Mather and J. Walter Thompson also do advertising for Lever.
The Reckitt & Colman products MacLaren will handle are: Lysol cleaners and disinfectants, Sani-Flush and Sani-Foam bathroom cleaners and Wizard and Airwick air fresheners. Cossette Communication-Marketing of Toronto was the incumbent on these brands. Another Toronto agency, Stringer, Veroni Ketchum Advertising, will keep Reckitt & Colman's Easy Off oven cleaners, Zero fine fabric wash, Hawes lemon oil, Neet hair removal, French's and Schwartz's mustard, Red Hot sauces and Prosolve carpet cleaner.