• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, March 29, 2006

Pork. Visa brings viewers back to the '80s. "Footballers Wive$" nails its campaign. Let's launch!

I love Visa's "Life Takes Visa" ads. The company's latest spot, "Life Takes Recycling," goes off the beaten path to promote the Visa check card. The animated spot features a boom box rockin' some break dancing beats when a worm emerges from a hole to dance the worm until he is almost eaten by a bird. The cool aspect of the ad is that this series of events are doodles in flipbook format playing out on a series of checks from a person's checkbook. The ad concludes with "Life takes recycling." What does this mean? Use your Visa check card to pay bills online and use your old checks as scrap paper. The ad is running nationally on network and cable TV until June. TBWA/Chiat/Day created the campaign and OMD handled the media buying.

I had Bill Clinton campaign flashbacks after viewing this ad. Discovery Communications has launched a TV campaign promoting COSMEO, its online homework help tool, featuring a group of kids singing the Fleetwood Mac hit "Don't Stop." "Bright Day" launched March 13 ands shows a stressed-out teen worried about his upcoming geometry final. He releases his frustrations through a song and dance number on his way back to his home computer where COSMEO will help him study. The spot is running on Animal Planet, Discovery, Discovery Health, E!, HGTV, Nick@Nite, Oxygen, TLC, USA and VH-1 through May 7. Stein Rogan + Partners created the campaign and PHD handled media buying.

The other white meat can really get down. The National Pork Board has launched an online campaign complete with singing and instrument-playing pieces of pork. Using the same theme as last year, "Don't Be Blah," the campaign conveys through song that adding pork to the dinner menu is all it takes to spice up a meal. Online ads are mini music videos that show pork chops singing country, rock and jazz tunes. Song lyrics describe flavorful pork recipes (hot pork and pear salad, beer-grilled chops) that can be obtained via the ads. A second round of ads launch April 1. Ads are running on TVGuide.com, MSN, Food Network, All Recipes, and WeatherBug through May. The media plan includes sponsorships within content sections for chicken and beef dishes on Allrecipes.com and FoodTV. Click Here handled all aspects of the campaign.

BBC America's TV series Footballers Wive$ promoted its new season by embodying Tanya Turner, a well-manicured series character. Posters promoting the show and branded emery boards, more than 250,000, were placed in salons nationwide, through a partnership between the salons and Ambient Planet, the agency behind the campaign. The posters feature Turner holding a net full of soccer players, a close-up of her pedicured foot resting on a soccer ball and the copy "Everybody plays dirty." The campaign ran through March and customers were given the branded emery boards upon leaving the salon.

Triumph Boats has launched a print campaign illustrating the durability of its 12- to 21- foot sport fishing and family boats. One ad shows a tiny boat with a monstrous great white shark swimming below it. Copy reads, "With five times the impact resistance of fiberglass, a Triumph is something an intelligent Great White will attempt to bite only once." Another ad shows a boat being dragged by a tanker in the desert with adjoining copy: "Notice the boat's not camouflaged." The ads are running in boating magazines such as The Fisherman, The Salty Dog, On the Water, Wave, The Fish Sniffer, Pacific Coast Sportfishing, N.C. Boating Lifestyle, Great Lakes Angler, Florida Sportsman, and NC Sportsman. The Republik created the campaign and Triumph handled the media buying in-house.

Wolf Appliance Co., a high-end brand of cooking appliances, launched "No Doubt" on March 26 on network cable channels and CBS. The spot shows a woman planning a dinner party with a man symbolizing various emotions (her self-esteem, a voice of doubt) following her out and about in an attempt to discourage her from planning things her way. She doubts herself at the store, in her car, but once she starts cooking with Wolf appliances, there's no room for doubt. "Make your meals--even the ambitious ones--come out just right," says the voiceover. The Richards Group handled all aspects of the campaign. Watch the ad here.

Clorox launched a 30-second spot earlier this year that takes us back in time. Well, at least as far back as 1913. "Machines" shows quick snippets of women throughout the years doing laundry. We see a series of washing machines starting with an aged hand-press machine, a retro blue washer, and a present day washer/dryer combo model. A voiceover concludes by saying, "although a lot has changed--the machines, the detergents, the clothes themselves--one thing has not." The spot ends with another evolution through time: that of the Clorox bottle's design. DDB San Francisco created the campaign and OMD San Franciscohandled the media buying.

This week's Web site launches focus on shopping and the revenge of the IT workers.

This site is payback for all the undervalued, under-appreciated IT workers of the world. Dice, where IT workers can find jobs, has launched a site that shows what it's really like to BeIT. Visitors can walk around a typical office environment as an IT person, watching their stress level rise with each person they meet. Meeting up with the company's CIO, visitors are given three options on how to silence him: a jelly donut bazooka, bubonic plague dart, or jumbo boxing glove. I chose the jelly donut bazooka and was not disappointed. Visitors can then share the pain with friends, return to the office map or pummel the CIO again. Modem Media created the site.

Coco Myles, a New York City-based startup retailer, has launched a Web site. The site lets consumers channel their inner Santino (for all you "Project Runway" fans) and design their own dresses. Or you can customize a dress worn by your favorite celeb without breaking the bank, since the average dress costs between $130 and $150. Dresses can be shipped in approximately six weeks. Flying Point Media created the site.