PORTLAND – 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.