Commentary

Out to Launch

Stop the presses--an airline claims its flights are comfortable. PSAs rally us round the troops in Iraq. McDonald's goes mobile. Let's launch!

McDonald's is using cell phone technology to promote its Tulsa, Okla.-area restaurants, whose up-to-the-minute bells and whistles include wireless Internet, cashless technology, and plasma-screen TVs. As part of the "Mobile Whoa" campaign, through the end of April, customers in northeastern Oklahoma can participate in a mobile scavenger hunt, get a mobile coupon and post photos in a camera phone and Web site picture gallery. The scavenger hunt starts when customers text-message a specific code or register online at a microsite for the promotion. Customers then receive a series of clues via text messages. Besides the coupons for free fries with the purchase of a Big Mac, there's another plus: all customers who submit a photo to the picture gallery will receive a code on their phone to download a free ringtone or wallpaper. The technology for the campaign was designed by Gamut Industries, a mobile marketing company, with media strategy and promotion designed by Moroch Partners.

How does your garden grow? Mine could be better, so I'm actually considering this next product--Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. LiquaFeed--which the company says is the "first feeder and ready-to-use liquid plant food system." The launch features a 30-second ad that broke March 27, running in broadcast, cable and syndication. The spot, touting the benefits of "no measuring, mixing or guessing," begins with the product seeming to float in outer space; then we watch various gardeners water up a storm; finally we see a comparison of large, beautiful LiquaFed flowers versus sadder, smaller, non-LiquaFed flowers. Tagline for the print campaign is "Now feeding is as easy as watering." Print ads are running in the May and June issues of Better Homes & Gardens, USA Today (Weekend), Martha Stewart Living, Real Simple, Country Living, Garden Design, and Sunset. ML Rogers handled the creative, and Mediaedge: CIA the media buying.

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Anybody who's ever traveled on a plane will be able to relate to this great United Airlines print campaign, which humorously promotes a surefire product benefit for its Economy Plus class: more legroom--five glorious extra inches!!!--than other airlines offer in their economy sections. There are five illustrations in the series, which began running in the Wall Street Journal April 10. "More Room To Think," for example, whimsically shows a man in business casual dress sitting in the lotus posture on a flying carpet. OMD did the media buying. Fallon handled the creative and media planning.

"Your support may be the most important thing our troops can carry with them," is the tagline for four poignant radio PSAs that highlight the voices of real servicemen and women in Iraq. The radio spots are running in the "America Supports You" campaign launched by the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ad Council. Created by ad agency DeVito/Verdi in New York, the new campaign, which also includes magazine and newspaper ads, has two goals: to encourage and inspire more Americans to join in the effort to support the troops and, in turn, communicate that support to the troops. The PSA campaign directs Americans and the military to visit http://www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil, where they will not only find ideas and examples of how to support the troops, but can also post information about activities in their community that support the troops. In addition, service members can log on to read about ways that the American public supports them. The PSAs are being distributed to media outlets nationwide. Per the Ad Council's model, all the ads will air and run in advertising time and space that will be donated by the media.

If a mirror broke in your home, who would decide what kind of glass to buy to replace it? Definitely the woman, says glass repair and replacement company Glass Doctor, whose research showed that women are the decision-makers in this category of home repair. That's why the company is targeting women for the first time; it just broke a print campaign in the April issues of Better Homes & Gardens, Family Circle, and Ladies' Home Journal. Developed by Albuquerque-based McKee Wallwork Cleveland, the creative for the ad has little text, but is coupled with an advertorial in a "book end" format educating the reader on such topics as choosing the right glass for the home and the three leading causes of seal failure. Horizon handled the media buying for this campaign.

This month Verizon launches a new B2B effort with a TV campaign called "Here's How it Works," made up of two 30-second TV spots. The commercials target two slightly different business audiences. The first to roll out, "Checklist," is for businesses that still use dial-up; the second, "Extras," targets those businesses already using another brand of cable/DSL. In "Checklist," the comparison between dial-up and Verizon's Business DSL is made clear by showing two men working side-by-side, one with dial-up, and the other, the Verizon service. The DSL user quickly finishes his work and gets ready to leave for lunch while the dial-up user is left chained to his desk, comically shouting after the DSL user. Draft New York was the creative agency. ID Media, New York, handled media planning and buying.

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