MIAMI — World Rental Sales, the South Florida Volvo Rents franchisee, has contracted NatCom Marketing, a Miami-based communications agency to develop marketing and media materials as well as an advertising and promotional campaign for five planned branches. WRS was scheduled to open its first Volvo Rents location November 1 in Fort Lauderdale and add four additional branches in Broward and Miami-Dade counties in 2004.

The initial phase of the marketing campaign will include print, radio, and outdoor advertising with direct mail and a sales promotion campaign to follow.

WRS plans to develop a Latin America distribution model for Volvo equipment in addition to the development of its Volvo Rents stores.

NatCom provides full-service marketing communications programs to Chevron/Texaco, Lucent Technologies, Avaya, Allegro Resorts and the United States government.

Asheville, N.C.-based Volvo Construction Equipment Rents, also announced last week the opening of its third franchised equipment rental center in Louisiana. The new franchise is owned by K. Paul and Margaret Bullock, principals of JPS, LLC in West Monroe, La.

The company also opened two rental centers in the Philadelphia area. Wenner Equipment, West Chester, Pa., owned by John Wenner, and Ballantine Truck Service, owned by Robert Mannherz, have become fully operational Volvo Rents franchise branches.

Deans Three Inc. owned by Thomas and Curtis Dean, has opened a Volvo Construction Equipment Rents branch in Cape Coral, Fla. Volvo now has Florida locations in Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Melbourne, Orlando, Palatka, Pensacola and St. Augustine, and has equipment rental centers in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Ohio, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.