Zimmerman gets George Foreman business

Applica Consumer Products named Zimmerman Advertising its agency of record for the George Foreman line of appliances on January 7.

Zimmerman, owned by Omnicom Group, was selected after a review of 10 agencies, including Ogilvy, Mullen, JWT, Young & Rubicam and DDB, for the heavily direct response-oriented work.

"We're a using a mixture of both branding and direct response to be able to meet [Applica's] demand to drive sales off shelves and through e-commerce," Mike Goldberg, EVP and CMO at Zimmerman, told DMNews. "The anchor of it is still direct response television."

Goldberg, who said it was too early to provide more detail about much of the direct work, explained that direct response efforts will be supplemented by initiatives in a variety of media to drive retail sales.

The total business value could be as high as $30 million, according to an Adweek report.

Goldberg added that advertising for George Foreman was previously "mostly done in-house," and that Zimmerman is the first AOR for the business.

Representatives from Applica could not be immediately reached for comment.