U.S. ANTIDRUG OFFICE HIRES FOOTE CONE

Seeking to end a contentious chapter in the history of its antidrug
advertising campaign aimed at youth, the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy has named Foote Cone & Belding in New York, part of the
Interpublic Group of Companies, as its new agency of record.

The campaign, with spending estimated at $150 million, had been handled
since December 1998 by Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, part of the WPP Group,
whose tenure was marred by a scandal centered on accusations that the
agency overbilled the government.

Ogilvy agreed in February 2002 to pay $1.8 million to settle civil
accusations brought by the government. Five months later, the antidrug
office ended a review of the assignment by deciding to keep Ogilvy as its
agency, which outraged some Congressional Republicans, who declared that
Ogilvy had acted fraudulently and accused the agency of cheating. The
antidrug office decided in July to begin another review, which was narrowed
to Foote Cone and another WPP agency, J. Walter Thompson in New York.

Two former Ogilvy executives who worked on the account there, Thomas Early
and Shona Seifert, were charged in January with defrauding the government;
a trial is scheduled for February. A third former Ogilvy executive, Peter
Chrisanthopoulos, pleaded guilty.