When Esme Carroll was appointed president and ceo of Ambrose Carr Linton Kelly last September, it was with the mandate to reposition the agency for the future.

Carroll has done some minor restructuring since joining the agency and expects the final piece to be in place by early next month with the hiring of a new creative director to chart out a fresh new creative approach.

The months she spent assessing and refocusing the agency have already paid off with the recent win of two new pieces of business.

Effective April 1, aclk will take over the Honda automobile business from the agency that has handled it for more than 10 years, Doner Schur Peppler.

Honda Canada’s Acura division assignment has been with aclk since 1980. The total yearly Honda account is estimated at more than $20 million.

A few weeks earlier, Cara Operations switched its $10 million Harvey’s business from SMW Advertising to aclk which has had Cara’s Swiss Chalet account since 1980 and also handled Harvey’s until 1992.

That the new business comes from existing clients of aclk is viewed as a vote of confidence by Carroll.

‘It really is proof that the most important business you’ve got is existing business. If you do a good job on it first and foremost, good things can come from it.’

Carroll did not have a history with aclk when she took on her new post and needed the remainder of 1995 to familiarize herself with the agency before making any recommendations of change.

She had been with the MacLaren organization since 1978 and came from MacLaren McCann where she most recently was executive vice-president, general manager.

‘I was very much trying to understand the strengths of the agency, to get a feeling of what was really key to the agency’s success,’ says Carroll.

She found the strengths of the agency to be its culture, its lack of barriers and straightforward way of doing business.

Carroll says, ‘I felt that while the agency had a very strong creative reputation in the past, it had lagged a bit in recent years.

Carroll says she has resisted hiring for the creative department and is leaving it to the new creative director as an opportunity for the new person to feel some ownership in the department by putting his or her imprint on the agency.