Toysrus.com Selects D'Arcy/Los Angeles as Ad Agency

Toysrus.com, the online arm of the popular toy retailer , on Monday tapped D’Arcy/Los Angeles to be its agency of record, crafting its advertising message for the all-important fourth-quarter holiday shopping season.

Toysrus.com made the selection after a competitive review. D’Arcy is charged with the dealing with the strategic and creative aspects of Toysrus.com’s campaign. Its sister unit, MediaVest, will handle media planning for the advertising effort while Starcom will continue to coordinate the media buying. The company’s budget and overall media strategy has not yet been finalized.

“Our ability to leverage the power of the Toys ‘R’ Us brands will be a primary focus of our online marketing efforts,” said Greg Ahearn, vice president, marketing, Toysrus.com.

“We were very impressed with D’Arcy’s understanding of how we can integrate the bricks and mortar assets into our program. They have the right mix of branding experience and creativity that we were looking for.”

Toysrus.com was, at one point, the poster child for how offline brands were stumbling out of the Internet starting block. It had troubles with financing and partnerships as it prepared to go online, but in recent months it has begun to win more respect in the industry. In terms of unique visitor traffic, Toysrus.com was the number one online toy e-commerce site in April and May 2000, according to Media Metrix.

This marks the second major new business win for D’Arcy/Los Angeles in the last six months. The agency won the Activision business in February.