Text 100 has edged Stanton Crenshaw Comms. for Fuji Photo Film's $1 million-plus U.S. PR account. The competition for its PR work was the company's first in its 22 years in the U.S. Edelman PR Worldwide, which handled the account for two decades, was dropped earlier in the review. Grey Global's GCI Group and WPP's Cohn & Wolfe were also early contenders, before the field was narrowed to Text and SCC.

Camilla Jenkins, VP of corporate comms., told this website several factors were involved in the decision, but singled out Text's pitch team -- which included both top execs and the "people who do all the hard work on the account to get the job done" -- as the "number one selling factor for us." She pointed out the firm's low turnover rate and programs that are geared toward developing and keeping staffers. Jenkins also noted Text's work for IBM and Xerox as pluses.

"Edelman was the right agency for another time," she said of the parting incumbent. "After 20 years I don't know what firm wouldn't have difficulty challenging what was always done and speaking about things differently."

Jenkins said Text was the number one choice of every person on the search committee.

One aspect that she said Text would focus on is the general consumer's perception of Fuji as just a film maker. "We are a technology company and a technology leader," she said. "But we don't think that we are at all perceived that way to the degree we should be."

Text CEO Aehdmar Hynes said the account will be based out of Text's New York City office and a core team will be assembled in the coming days.

Fuji is the number two photo film maker worldwide, behind Eastman Kodak.

The Japan-based company, which is headquartered in Valhalla, N.Y., in the U.S., reported today a six percent profit dip for the first quarter, citing a drop in film sales from inroads by digital photography and the SARS outbreak.

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