Hasta La Creative!

According to Ad Age, an aptly named but relatively unknown Los Angeles agency just landed an important car account.

Mitsubishi Motors America handed its $155 million U.S. creative account to a relative newcomer, Hollywood-based independent agency Traffic.

Less than a year old and largely unknown, Traffic is part-owned by The Cimarron Group, but still has car credentials: The shop is led by co-chairmen Robert Farina and Tom Cordner. The latter is a longtime auto advertising executive, serving on both the Lexus account at Team One, El Segundo, Calif., and the Ford account at JWT Detroit, where he was co-president of the agency.

In the first five months of 2008, Mitsubishi Motors America’s U.S. new-vehicle sales are off by 19% to 46,389 units.

Jeep moved its creative account to upstart Cutwater in San Francisco last year. So it’s not an unprecedented move.