Baxter Stone Gets New Shot At Horizons By Kathy Tyre

CYPRESS, CALIF. - Executives at Secure Horizons who gave Baxter Stone the boot on the $3.6-million California portion of their account in May have invited the S

The development would seem to fit with the news that Secure Horizons has pulled a just-released campaign created by Stein Robaire and replaced it with an old Baxter ad. SRH picked up the account on a project basis after Baxter lost it. Dorward & Associates’ Don Dorward, the Oakland, Calif.-based consultant handling the review, confirmed that the SRH ads had been pulled, but he said there was no connection between the two developments. Dorward offered no further explanation and Stein Robaire executives did not return calls.
It is possible that management at Secure Horizons parent Pacificare, for whom Baxter continues to work, may have clout in the Secure Horizons contest and may have influenced Baxter’s return to the review.
Sources familiar with Secure Horizons and the market for senior healthcare plans said they were not surprised that SRH’s campaign had been pulled and replaced with older work. Secure Horizons, attempting to keep abreast of an increasingly competitive market, also pulled new work that Baxter had created, which prompted the switch to SRH.
‘The problem is that the market is saturated and all these HMOs are beginning to panic,’ said one healthcare advertising source. ‘They all want different advertising.’
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