Office Depot Lands at Gold Coast

Office Depot has awarded the creative portion of its $35 million broadcast account to Gold Coast Advertising. The Miami agency, in turn, enlisted Western International Media to handle media buying chores, sources said last week.
Gold Coast, which handled the account for nine years until March 1996, has maintained a good relationship with the client. Gold Coast, in fact, has been providing advertising services for Office Depot on an interim basis since the client split with J. Walter Thompson, Chicago, in July.
Two weeks ago, Office Depot winnowed the field for the broadcast creative work to three agencies: Wyse Advertising, Cleveland; McKinney & Silver, Raleigh, N.C.; and Gold Coast.
Office Depot said it had not finalized its decision and would not announce a winner until November, when a new campaign is scheduled to break. Executives at Gold Coast and Western declined comment.
The office superstore had been handling media placement in-house and will continue to do so for print and collateral ads. The client spent nearly $70 million last year on all media, according to Competitive Media Reporting.
JWT’s tagline for Office Depot, “This is where I take care of business,” is a variation on the “Taking care of business” line created earlier by Gold Coast. –with Trevor Jensen