KeyCorp is closing the curtain on a three-year advertising campaign that featured Anthony Edwards, star of the top-rated television show “ER.”

The Cleveland-based bank has hired Rojek Marketing Group Inc., a consulting firm in Cleveland, to oversee the search for one or more advertising agencies to replace the Lord Group, a unit of New York ad agency Young & Rubicam that developed the campaign featuring Mr. Edwards. KeyCorp expects to choose a new agency by year’s end, says Karen Haefling, chief marketing officer.

Young & Rubicam has handled KeyCorp’s advertising for five years. Both Mr. Edwards’ three-year contract and the campaign end Dec. 31.

“We looked at Anthony to provide some splash and some attitude, which we think he did,” Ms. Haefling says. “But our priorities have changed and our goal is to focus more on the customer, to really deepen that bond.”

Many in advertising had seen the change coming since January 1998, when Stephen Cone left as KeyCorp’s top marketing officer to become president of customer marketing and development at Fidelity Investments in Boston. He was instrumental in attracting Mr. Edwards (he even visited the set of “ER” to meet with the actor) and creating the TV spots in which he appeared.

“Usually when the (marketing) director goes, it’s just a matter of time before the agency of record goes, too,” says Pat Morin, president and founder of P.J. Morin Inc. and former chief executive of Griswold Eshleman Inc., both Cleveland advertising agencies. “The new person usually wants to make it look like something’s happening.”

Mr. Cone says he wasn’t surprised by the change. From his office at Fidelity, the advertising guru said he had heard from industry sources that KeyCorp’s marketing officials were disgruntled with the way Lord was handling the account.

“From my understanding, they kept switching who was on that account, and apparently that didn’t sit too well with the folks at Key,” says Mr. Cone, who also brought celebrities to Fidelity’s advertising with a short-lived campaign that featured comedians Lily Tomlin and Don Rickles.

Though Key wouldn’t reveal the size of its ad budget, Mr. Cone says it was “around $100 million” a year when he left the company in 1998.

Lord Group referred all questions regarding the Key account to its CEO, James Hood, who did not return calls.

Ms. Haefling says the decision to undertake the agency review — and to dump Mr. Edwards as spokesman — was not related to Lord’s performance but on KeyCorp’s decision to promote itself as a “broad-based financial institution.”

KeyCorp is seeking to create new ads that will feature everyday people using its services to solve particular problems, she says.

“Our focus, going forward, is on how we can help the customers. We don’t want to muddle that message by using celebrities,” Ms. Haefling says. “If we did, then we would still have Anthony.”

The review of KeyCorp’s ad account comes just before unveiling ads from Lord Group. On Oct. 19, Lord debuts a print campaign for KeyCorp’s refurbished World Wide Website, www.key.com. The bank will advertise on the radio too.

The shift in focus appeals to Gerard Cassidy, a banking analyst with Tucker Anthony Inc., a Boston investment bank. The previous ads featuring Mr. Edwards, though effective, focused too much on the company’s logo and tag line, “Help at Every Turn,” Mr. Cassidy says. Now that KeyCorp’s logo is established, the bank should “move on and do something more innovative,” he says.

Mr. Morin agrees. “Key already has a powerful logo,” he says. “To the extent that Key continues to emphasize that logo, it could distract from the message… There are only so many seconds in a ad.”

Even Mr. Cone, who defended his choice of Mr. Edwards as the bank’s spokesman, agrees that “maybe it’s time for Key to move on.”

“I don’t care how good your spokesman is, every campaign can get stale,” he says.

Crain News Service