4 Midwest Agencies Vie for HoMedics Assignment

Health products marketer HoMedics is hearing pitches from four Midwest agencies for its $10-15 million account, sources said.

The company, based in Commerce Township, Mich., is expected to make a decision by the beginning of May. Vying for the account are Minneapolis agencies Periscope and Gabriel de Grood Bendt; Copper in Kalamazoo, Mich.; and one other shop, believed to be Jordan Tamraz Caruso in Chicago, sources said. It is possible that more than one agency could be chosen to handle various portions of the business, sources said.

Agency officials either declined comment or referred calls to the client.

The account had been with Campbell Mithun in Minneapolis. The shop, which was HoMedics’ first advertising agency, devised the tagline, “The beauty of living well.”

Campbell Mithun and the client parted ways late last year. Details of the split were unknown, but sources said personnel changes at the agency may have contributed.

Separately, one of the company’s top marketers is moving to Chicago, but will remain employed with the company, sources said. That move may have also contributed to the review, sources said.

HoMedics was founded in 1987 and initially manufactured products for The Sharper Image. The com pany now creates its own line of personal healthcare and wellness products, from electronic massagers and paraffin foot baths to bubble light fountains and stone arrangements. It also produces a line of magnet-therapy items marketed under the Thera-P brand name.

Campbell Mithun’s most recent work featured the BubbleSpa Bath Mat Massager, an electronic, temperature-controlled bubbling bathmat. One spot showed three people—an overworked office drone, a female school bus driver and a mover pushing a piano up a flight of stairs—dreaming of the spa awaiting them at home. The soundtrack featured an adaptation of the song “Tiny Bubbles.”