DENTSU PICKS UP HONDA ASSIGNMENT IN U.S.
By Adnews Staff
The Dentsu ad agency, which has three car accounts in its homeland of Japan, now has two in North America. Honda Motor recently hired Dentsu Inc. in Los Angeles to do a national research and marketing project for the Acura NSX luxury sports car. A U.S. Honda official gave assurances last week that the assignment would not affect Ketchum Advertising in Los Angeles, which has been handling Acura for 10 years. In Canada the recently minted Dentsu Cadence Agency took the account for the Toyota truck division from Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising late last year. Dentsu Cadence president Albert Barbusci said Friday that having a sister agency in the U.S. work for a client's competitor posed no problems. When asked if his agency had any discussions with Toyota about the matter he replied, "No, it's two different countries...It's not an issue." In Japan it appears clients apparently don't worry too much about possible conflicts; Dentsu works for Honda, Toyota and Mazda in that country.