Cigarette founder to run agency

mid-October. Its clients include MD Foods, owner of Lurpak, and Fazer

Chocolate, a leading Scandinavian brand.

Cunningham will be managing director and already has one UK client:

Pronofco, a maker of osteoporosis diagnosis equipment.

The agency will initially employ eight people, a team of creatives and

two account managers. A new-business mailing is under way to raise the

agency’s profile.

Cunningham said: ’I used to be a client and know that with most

advertising agencies you get a lot of pretty pictures but no concrete

plans for business.

We are not out to get awards, and I think the agency world in London is

ripe for change. The key words are strategy and authenticity.’

Cunningham admitted that The Enlightened Tobacco Company, manufacturer

of Death Cigarettes, was not a great success. Launched in 1991, it sold

30,000 packets a week, compared with more popular brands that sell

30,000 packets a minute.

Cunningham said that distribution of the cigarettes had ’always been a

problem’, and agreed that the black packaging and the skull displayed on

the front were possible reasons.