PORTLAND (AP) – A Maine advertising and marketing firm beat 11 competitors to win a contract worth more than $10 million a year with one of the world’s largest lighting companies.

Garrand & Co. Inc. believes the contract with Osram Sylvania is the largest single ad account won by a Maine company.

“It’s a career high, that’s for sure,” said Brenda Garrand, president and founder of the 17-year-old business in Portland. “It’s one of those moments you remember all your life.”

Neither company will specify the value of the contract, but it’ll exceed $10 million annually in gross spending.

By comparison, the Maine Office of Tourism contract won by a New York City firm is worth $9.6 million over three years.

The Sylvania contract is expected to boost employment at Garrand & Co. The company has 17 employees and will hire as many as eight more. It also plans to open an office in Portsmouth, N.H.

Advertising agencies can be barometers of the health of the economy. When business activity shrinks and budgets tighten, companies often reduce their ad spending.

Agencies also are sensitive to structural changes. For example, Maine firms, including Garrand, have been hurt in recent years by corporate consolidation.

Former clients that had big accounts with Garrand & Co., including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine and Bangor Hydro-electric, were purchased by larger companies that took their advertising accounts out of the state.

The fact that Garrand & Co. has landed a large out-of-state contract is a satisfying turn of events.

Osram Sylvania manufactures and markets a wide range of lighting products including automotive, electronic and magnetic ballasts, as well as precision materials and components for industrial and commercial users.

Consumers are most familiar with its Sylvania lighting brand, products such as fluorescent lamps and light bulbs. The company had roughly $2.2 billion in U.S. sales in 2002.

In choosing Garrand & Co., Sylvania was looking for a smaller, creative firm that could strengthen its brand name, according to Jon DiGesu, director of brand strategy at Sylvania.

The company’s North American headquarters is in Danvers, Mass. Among the goals is to increase awareness of how new lighting controls and devices can change the look and mood inside a house.

“We’re trying to get consumers to think of Sylvania as a solution for the home,” he said.

AP-ES-04-22-04 0838EDT