DATE: Tuesday, July 1, 1997                 TAG: 9707010292

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   55 lines

EYE-POPPING DEAL BEACH AGENCY LANDS POPEYES AD ACCOUNT WORTH $2.2 MILLION

From this month on, whenever a Popeyes restaurant in Chicago sells a chicken dinner, a Virginia Beach advertising agency will be smacking its lips.

Pembroke-area ad agency Hambright, Calcagno & Downing recently snagged the $2.2 million advertising account for 75 Chicago-area Popeyes stores. HCD will open an office July 15 in Chicago to service the account.

The addition of the Chicago account means HCD now is the ad agency in two of Popeyes' top three markets - Hambright has had the chain's Washington, D.C., account for 11 years.

HCD now handles the advertising for 210 of Popeyes' 856 U.S. stores. Atlanta-based Popeyes is owned by AFC Enterprises.

``That's a pretty good chunk of money for a little ol' agency in Virginia Beach,'' says Jim Hambright, the company's president.

HCD, which has $34 million in annual billings, took the account from Bozell Worldwide, the 11th-largest U.S. agency. Bozell's annual billings top $2.3 billion.

The Chicago-area Popeyes franchisees felt as though Bozell was treating them as a second-tier customer, said Joe Haberkorn Jr., president of Popeyes' Chicago cooperative. Haberkorn said Bozell had bought out the smaller advertising agency that handled Popeyes' accounts, and said service went downhill from there.

``They couldn't handle our business, frankly,'' Haberkorn said.

When the Chicago co-op began looking for another agency, Haberkorn said, he had known of HCD's success in the Washington market.

When HCD got the Washington account in 1986, Popeyes had 50 area stores with an advertising budget of $970,000, Hambright said. Now, there are 65 stores with a $2 million-plus budget.

Hambright didn't bid on the Chicago account in the traditional manner. They tried that route a couple of years ago and weren't happy with the outcome, Hambright said. HCD in 1995 bid for the Popeyes account in the Southeast. They stayed in the hunt as the field was winnowed from 75 agencies to two, then lost out.

Not only were they disappointed to have narrowly missed out, but also, the pitch took most of the summer, Hambright said.

When the Chicago account came available, Hambright said HCD was interested but asked if the company could pitch the co-op directly. They turned a proposal around in 24 hours, flew to Chicago and made the pitch.

``They asked us to step out in the hallway and 15 minutes later they said, `You got it,' '' Hambright said. ``That's a fantasy pitch, because you never, ever get an account like that.''

Well, until now anyway. . . ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Nhat Meyer/The Virginian-Pilot

[Jim Hambright, center, president of Hambright, Calcagno & Downing

said of the Popeyes contract. Dan Downing, left, and Chris Calcagno

are executive vice presidents.]

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