• by David Kaplan , October 1, 2004

The White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy has awarded its $130 million advertising account to Interpublic Group's Foote Cone & Belding, New York, with the media buying and planning to be handled by FCB's sister shop Initiative.

FCB beat out competition from WPP Group's J. Walter Thompson, a sister of ONDCP's former creative agency Ogilvy & Mather. Ogilvy's contract with ONDCP ended last month, and the client had decided nearly a year ago not to renew it.

Ogilvy paid $1.8 million to settle civil charges that it overcharged the government on the account through alleged accounting fraud. So far, two former Ogilvy employees who are set to stand trial for charges related to inflated billing of ONDCP next month have been indicted for committing fraud while working on the account. A third pleaded guilty last February.

A spokeswoman for Ogilvy had no comment on today's decision.

To avoid a potential repeat of the billing problems it has experienced with Ogilvy, ONDCP required contenders for the account to be on the U.S. General Services Administration's schedule of qualified vendors, meaning that their accounting system has been certified to handle the stricter billing provisions associated with federal government contracts.

Tom Reilly, a spokesman for ONDCP, declined to comment on why the department chose FCB, saying only: "Teen drug use has gone down 10 percent over the past few years, and we hope today's announcement will lead to continued success in reducing those numbers."