HELP WANTED

If you want to buy a cheap car and come across a classified ad with the headline, “Yugo. Cheap,” you might be out of luck. But if you’re looking to switch ad agencies, you may have come to the right place.

That’s because the ad—if the next line says, “Hey, why are you reading this?”—is part of a self-promotional campaign from Char ron, Schwartz & Partners. The text continues, “If you had the right ad agency, you’d be reading BMW ads.”

The classified directs readers to call Norm (Schwartz), chairman of the New York shop, and provides the agency’s Web site address.

“We’re hoping that by doing these classifieds that it sneaks into people’s consciousness,” said Ted Charron, president and chief creative officer.

CS&P opted for the classified format “because it’s cheap, and we can pepper a newspaper with a lot of ads,” he said, adding that newspapers and their classifieds generally reach an...