Minolta Has 12 Agencies In Focus For Its $20 Mil. Image Account

Minolta is talking to 12 shops about its entire $20 million brand image account.
Dan Gallagher, Minolta’s director of communications, said the Ramsey, N.J., client would narrow the contender’s list from that dozen to six, and then to three finalists before hiring an agency by May 4. He would not identify any agencies on the list.
Lois/EJL, New York, which has handled the account since 1994, is not participating. Ray Hilton, the shop’s managing director, said there was a “mutual agreement to part ways.”
Gallagher joined Minolta after six years at Volvo, where he was involved in marketing services and worked closely with the car maker’s agency, Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York.