Young & Rubicam Nabs Former Ross Roy Executive for Sears Biz By Jim Kir

CHICAGO - Young & Rubicam, looking for experience to head its newly won $40-million Sears, Roebuck & Co. apparel business, plucked Ross Roy A

Hosp, an executive vp/management supervisor with Ross Roy, was second in command on the agency’s Kmart business. He may be based out of Y&R’s Chicago office to be closer to Sears’ headquarters, sources said, but will split his time between the New York and Chicago offices.
Hosp couldn’t be reached on Friday, but callers to the Ross Roy last week were told he no longer was working at the agency.
Whether Y&R’s decision to add Hosp to its team means it may pursue a Kmart-like strategy for its apparel division remains to be seen. However, Sears insiders say that Hosp, who helped open the Chicago office of Ogilvy & Mather with the Sears business, has the advantage of being an outside person who understands the complexity of the way Sears works its advertising and marketing. Hosp left O&M in the early 1980s.
‘There are two camps you have to please,’ said one Sears source. ‘While officially you’re a Sears corporate agency, you have to make sure the vertical business knows you have their full attention. It gets complicated.’
‘He did work on the garment side of the business,’ said another source. ‘He knows 7th Avenue.’
The news apparently means the Chicago office will play a bigger role in the Sears business than first thought. Currently, the office is working on the print portion of the program’s first phase, set for launch sometime in August. Y&R pitched the line, ‘A softer side of Sears,’ which may be used as an underlying theme in the first phase, in an effort to make on overall pitch that Sears sells both hardlines and softlines.
Meanwhile, Sears still is in the midst of hammering out new compensation levels for all of its agencies, sources said. Sears, which has been using agency consultant Morgan, Anderson & Co., is expected to come to terms on compensation by Sept. 1 for its agencies: O&M; Y&R; Mendoza, Dillon & Associates, Newport Beach, Calif.; and media shop Focus Media.
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