CRICHTON KIM-KIRKLAND LAND LAURA BUSINESS
By Adnews Staff
The Crichton Kim-Kirkland Company of Toronto will launch a campaign in the fall for Montreal-based womenswear chain, LAURA's SHOPPE of Canada. The agency won the business recently without a competition. Agency principals, Dave Crichton and Susan Kim-Kirkland, worked with LAURA's marketing director Mary Pompili when she worked at Harry Rosen. Crichton and Kim-Kirkland worked on the Harry Rosen account when they were at their previous agency, Roche Macaulay & Partners of Toronto. "After several meetings with Susan and Dave, I was confident that based on their experience and track record, they would provide the level of strategic thinking and creative product that we need to break through the clutter out there," LAURA owner Kalman Fisher says in a release. "The fact that Mary has a history with the team is an added bonus and reinforces my belief that I've assembled the best people to take on this challenge." Until now, LAURA promoted itself only through print ads and point-of-purchase materials. The print ads would be created by the publications and the p-o-s materials would be handled by printers. LAURA decided to hire an agency because "they wanted to be less reactive to the market and become more of a marketing focused company," Crichton told Adnews yesterday. The annual budget for the account is $5 million.