Crown Imports, which owns U.S. rights to Modelo Especial, has big ad plans for the Mexican beer, ready to push it beyond the Hispanic market to a general audience. With ads in male-oriented magazines such as Esquire, Golf, Wired and Rolling Stone, Crown is trying to attract drinkers who sample many beers--and to also position Modelo as a high-class quaff. Executions feature drawings of Mayan foot soldiers hoisting it, with the tagline: "Let it be served."

But while Crown faces tough competition from "craft" and other brands old and new, executives are encouraged by recent sales growth that could be the result of Modelo's new packaging. "We consider this beer to be the industry's best-kept secret," says Bill Hackett, president of Chicago-based Crown, a unit of alcohol giant Constellation Brands. "We think it's appropriate that we really pull it out from under the radar." Read the whole story...

Online dating site Chemistry.com is taking shots at eHarmony.com, with new ads showing its larger competitor as being out of touch with mainstream America. The ads, which roll out this week, will first appear in weekly newspapers and magazines. And they pointedly note eHarmony's refusal to match people of the same gender and the evangelical Christian beliefs of its founder, Neil Clark Warren.

Chemistry.com has hit this theme before, with a set of ads earlier this year called "Rejected by eHarmony" that featured lovelorn people turned away from eHarmony for either being gay, not happy enough or unmatchable. Chemistry.com spent $20 million on that campaign--and its newest effort is going to be even bigger.

The "Rejected by eHarmony" campaign may be working, as Chemistry.com has experienced an 80 percent growth rate since rolling it out, according to Mandy Ginsburg, general manager. Sign-ups by gays and lesbians have jumped 200 percent since "Rejected" started, she notes--and 10 percent of Chemistry.com's members are now seeking a same-sex match. The ads are meant to show that "eHarmony is out of sync with what is happening in America," Ginsburg says, adding that the company plans to expand the campaign to include television and more print ads next month. Read the whole story...

The biggest ad spender in the race for the Republican presidential nomination isn't getting much of a bang for his buck, according to a study by one industry tracker. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and self-vaunted venture capitalist had laid out $16 million on TV as of Dec. 16--more than the two leading Democratic candidates combined, as per data from TNS Media Intelligence Campaign Media Analysis Group.

And still, he struggles in national polls against Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani, who have spent $600,000 and $2.3 million, respectively. Romney has aired nearly 17,000 TV commercials--more than 7,400 of them in Iowa alone, according to Nielsen. The poll results would seem to give the lie to the prevailing wisdom that a heavy TV ad effort is among a campaign's best weapons. Read the whole story...