Commentary

Out to Launch

Every week new ad campaigns and websites are launched, and it’s hard to keep up with them all. This week Wherehouse Music debuted its latest campaign from Colby & Partners, Michael Jordan & Hanes encourage men to “go tagless,” and Pinocchio tells kids about the importance of reading. Find out about these launches and others you may have missed in this week’s edition of “Out to Launch.”

Wherehouse Music debuted its latest commercial campaign, "Elves Gone Wild Sale," by Colby & Partners on Monday. In one television spot, "Little Stalkers - CDs," a young man is sleeping as shadows move across his room. When he opens his eyes he is alarmed to find a ceramic elf on his chest and hundreds more filling his room. The elf says, "Free CD." The voiceover announces, "The Elves Gone Wild Sale at Wherehouse Music. Buy any 3 CDs, get the 4th free, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday in December." Geared primarily toward the retailer's entertainment-savvy, 18-34 year-old male, the "Elves Gone Wild Sale" spots are appearing on network and cable television channels nationwide.

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RealNetworks this week launched a promotion offering free access to its subscription-based media service on the Web. The promotion, backed by print and online advertising, offers consumers a free two-day trial of RealOne SuperPass service without having to use a credit card number to access the service. The premium service offers streaming audio and video content from CNN, Fox Sports, ABC News, the National Basketball Association, 50 ad-free radio stations and other content. A full-page ad in The New York Times this week carried the headline "Free samples to the first 300 million who sign up." Online ads appear on CBS Sportsline, USAToday.com, RollingStone.com, Lycos and other consumer online properties. In 2003 the company will fire off a brand campaign, as well as smaller tactical direct marketing and ad efforts to lure subscribers.

Hanes, part of the Sara Lee Corporation, is promoting tagless T-shirts for men in a comprehensive multimillion-dollar campaign from the Martin Agency in Richmond, VA.. The campaign, which began in October, includes television commercials, a website, billboards, coupons, publicity efforts through a Martin sibling, Weber Shandwick Worldwide in New York, and unusual promotions like "retirement parties" for the tags. The commercial shows the Michael Jordan watching bemusedly as men wriggle, squirm and contort themselves to alleviate the irritation caused by the tags in their T-shirts. "It's gotta be the tag," Jordan concludes, echoing the catch phrase "It's gotta be the shoes" from the well-known series of Air Jordan commercials created by Wieden & Kennedy for Nike in which he and Spike Lee appeared. At the end of the spot, Jordan declares, "Go tagless." The complementary Web address (www.gotagless.com) also appears on screen.

Salesforce.com, a market leader in online customer relationship management, this week unveiled its latest advertising campaign with the tag "Success. Not Software." The ads build on the recent momentum salesforce.com has gained against enterprise software providers such as Siebel and SalesLogix, a subsidiary of The Sage Group plc, with examples from salesforce.com's own customer base that have made the switch from traditional software to the hosted, Web Services-based CRM service provided by salesforce.com. The new message will carry on throughout 2003, with salesforce.com dedicating over $5 million to opposing traditional software. The first ad of the campaign ran this week in the Wall Street Journal (Northern California and New York City regional editions) and in USA Today. It will also run in Selling Power's December sourcebook and January issues of CRM Magazine, CIO Magazine and Selling Power.

HotJobs, a Yahoo! service, announced that it will run a 30 second television advertisement during Super Bowl XXXVII, marking its fifth consecutive year at the major sporting event. Reinforcing the company's strong position in the online recruitment space, the commercial is designed to inspire job seekers to find the right jobs and employers to locate qualified candidates. The new ad is being developed by Brand Architecture International, an independent business unit of Omnicom's TBWA/Worldwide. Following HotJobs' recent technology integration with Yahoo!, visitors can enjoy a newly enhanced site, featuring improved tools, technology and resources. In January users will also be able to take advantage of enhanced search capabilities. The new HotJobs ad will premiere on ABC during the Super Bowl on January 26, 2003.

Pinocchio is the latest movie character to tout the benefits of reading in a literacy ad from the Newspaper Association of America. The ad features the title character from Miramax Films' new movie, "Pinocchio," and is timed to coincide with the movie's release on Christmas day. The ad pictures Pinocchio reading The Playland Press, whose front-page headline screams, "Hollywood Here I Come; Local Wooden Puppet Proves Fairy Tales Do Come True." The ad's headline reads, "Have a nose for adventure?" The copy continues, "Even wooden boys know that reading the newspaper is the best way to stay on top of what's happening. Life is an adventure! So read the newspaper and you'll discover the world. And that's no lie." The ad is part of NAA's ongoing literacy ad campaign encouraging young people to read. The ad is available in color or black-and-white, in two-column, quarter, half, and full-page sizes, in standard and 50-inch web formats. It can be downloaded at www.naa.org/display/Pinocchio.

Informing businesses across diverse categories that "We see what you see," a national television and print advertising campaign from CIT launched this week that positions the commercial lender as a seasoned partner, helping companies of all sizes realize their business potential. The multimillion-dollar campaign visually plays off the CIT name by encouraging companies to "C it with CIT" when it comes to seeking, lending or leasing solutions for their businesses. The TV spots (initially one 30-second and a series of 15-second commercials) will run nationally on CNN, CNBC, NBC, ABC, and in New York on PBS. The print ads, which use the headlines "c it grow", "c it heal" and "c it educate" to demonstrate specific cases or situations in which CIT helped a variety of companies and consumers finance their goals, will appear in such business publications as Business Week, Forbes, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. The new ad campaign was created by Wolf Group New York.

IconNicholson has been tapped to re-design iClasics.com, dedicated to classical music content, services, community and e-Commerce. The site features content and music from such diverse global labels as Universal, EMI, Sony, BMG, Harmonia-Mundi and Telarc. The e-Business professional services firm and New York office of IconMedialab was chosen to actualize the goals for iClassics.com, including: developing a new brand identity for global online and offline use, increasing revenue by expanding the Web e-Commerce channel to international markets, improving the e-Commerce channel within the U.S., and reducing operating costs through content management system functionality and the ability to create Web presences efficiently in new markets. IconNicholson is building the e-Commerce system, content management system, management tools for both systems, and global application to meet these objectives. The first countries planned for site launch in 2003 are the U.S., the U.K., France and The Netherlands.

-- This newsletter is compiled weekly by MediaPost staff writer Lindsey Fadner. Past issues are archived at the MediaPost website. Your comments, questions and submissions are always welcome and appreciated.

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