Execs and Accounts for May 3, 2002

Hershey Foods has chosen OMD Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group , as its agency of record for all media buying. OMD’s role as sole media buyer is a departure from Hershey’s historical media buying relationships, which involved separate agency assignments by dayparts. The new single point of contact for all media buying will make it easier for Hershey Foods to take advantage of cross-platform and bundled media deals from network ownership groups.

“Hershey’s decision to reinvent itself from a media buying perspective is not only timely,” OMD President and CEO Joe Uva said. “It’s necessary in the face of continued consolidation by media owners and continued fragmentation of audiences.”

Interactive advertising firm Sposto Productions has been tapped by Yahoo to develop an online promotional campaign for the upcoming film “Signs,” a Touchstone Pictures release starring Mel Gibson and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Taking the form of an online sweepstakes, the Signs: Destination Unknown promotion offers Web surfers the opportunity to investigate a crop circle site, including digital video and still recording equipment, an SUV rental and a helicopter ride to see the circle from above. The Flash ad units draw users to a microsite where they can enter the sweepstakes, view the movie trailer or jump to the official “Signs” Web site.

“When the user lands on the page they see the Earth image from the Signs poster give way to a series of digital maps where the crop sign gets diagrammed and becomes the navigation for the site,” said James Sposto, creative director and managing partner of SP.

SP also created interactive rich-media ad campaigns and promotions for “Unbreakable,” “The Majestic,” and “Pearl Harbor.”

High Road Communications, a public relations firm serving North American tech companies, will provide all PR services for Tropic Networks, an Ottawa-based developer of networking equipment. Effective immediately, High Road will manage Tropic’s relationships with media and industry analysts and will promote the company in the optical networking space.

For more breaking news on account action and executive moves, visit ChannelSeven.com.