N W Ayer to Cut Irvine Operations

Only eight months after entering Orange County, the national advertising agency of N W Ayer said Monday that it will shut down most of its operations in Irvine, leaving in doubt the jobs of 50 employees and $25 million in annual billings.

The Irvine unit, which will shut down creative operations and become a service facility with about 10 employees, wasn’t doing enough business to justify keeping its 25,000-square-foot office, according to John Littlewood, chief executive of Ayer Pacific, the agency’s Western division.

He said a few members of the Orange County staff might be offered jobs in Ayer Pacific’s Los Angeles office.

The Irvine office suffered because it was forced to resign the $7-million-a-year account for Pizza Hut’s Western region after the parent company won a much-larger national account for Burger King.

Littlewood said he is hopeful that clients serviced at least partly through the Irvine office, including Toshiba America Inc.’s Copier Products & Information Systems division worth $15 million in annual billings, will move their work to Los Angeles.