Every week brings a myriad of ad campaign and website launches and it's nearly impossible to keep up with them all. If you missed a few, here are some the major launches of the week that was, and the week that will be. WEBcard Technologies, Inc. will help launch the advertising for the movie and soundtrack for Universal Pictures' "American Pie 2," set for release in theaters on August 10th. The WEBcards, which deliver video, audio, photos, animation, text, seamless web site integration and data tracking, are the cornerstone of an upcoming "American Pie 2" promotion that is being executed by Universal Pictures, Republic/Universal Records and Sunglass Hut. The marketing campaign, scheduled to begin this month, will include the distribution of "American Pie 2" WEBcards to Sunglass Hut, Watch Station and Watch World customers at participating retail locations in the U.S. Other elements of the promotion include in-store point-of-purchase displays, a national direct mail campaign to more than one million households, and magazine ads in publications such as Rolling Stone, People and US Weekly. SILVERTAB, the Levi's brand that blends street-style with technology and cool gear, is taking people on an interactive adventure that poses the question: "What would you do if you found $100,000?" The brand's episodic LostChange campaign answers that question through a unique combination of plot-driven ads and a LostChange.com Internet film. The LostChange film features hip-hop artist Fredro Starr and cameo appearances by the Black Eyed Peas, Drea De Matteo and Vincent Pastore from the Sopranos, and Jacqui Maxwell from The Gilmore Girls. In creating its new national television advertising campaign, Schlotzsky's Inc. turned to the talented members of Austin's wide-ranging music community to write and record new "mini-songs." The campaign consists of eight 15-second "soundbytes" that were composed and recorded by local musicians at Austin's Tequila Mockingbird Studio. The new national television ads features Schlotzsky's Turkey Bacon club sandwich in a flight that began June 25th and will run through July 22nd. Tequila Mockingbird has already created four more ads for the next flight, which will feature the Schlotzsky's Deluxe Original sandwich and pizzas. Tina Wesson, winner of CBS' "Survivor The Australian Outback," is partnering with Mayfield Dairy Farms to promote milk nutrition. Wesson, a Knoxville native, will join Tennessee's leading dairy producer to endorse the "Milk Lover's Milk." She will appear in a series of radio spots, an outdoor advertising campaign and will make several special guest appearances in cities where Mayfield distributes milk. Fruit of the Loom is launching a new campaign aimed at hardworking, down-to-earth, family-oriented consumers. The campaign presents Fruit of the Loom as America's brand of choice for ladies', men's and children's apparel. The three TV spots will air on national network, cable and syndicated programming and present consumers in Fruit of the Loom apparel, rehearsing in front of their mirrors for important life moments. The campaign unveils a new theme line, "Good Days Start with Fruit of the Loom," and seeks to convey the brand's inherent honesty and dependability in combination with newer, more contemporary styles. "Positively Amazing" is the Ladies Professional Golf Association's (LPGA) new national advertising campaign, which provides a fresh look at the association and its players and establishes a closer connection between its fans and players. The new campaign debuts on NBC's telecast of the Sybase Big Apple Classic Presented by GOLF MAGAZINE, July 21-22, and will air during all future LPGA tournament coverage on its network and cable partners, ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN, ESPN2, The Golf Channel, ESPN International and Oxygen Network. The inaugural spot of the campaign is a 60-second version that features six LPGA Tour players: Sophie Gustafson, Lorie Kane, Meg Mallon, Se Ri Pak, Annika Sorenstam and Karrie Webb. On July 30, one of the campaign's new 30-second ads, which highlights LPGA stars Sorenstam and Webb, will first appear during ABC's live, primetime telecast of "The Battle At Bighorn." This event, which features Tiger Woods, David Duval, Sorenstam and Webb in an alternate-shot, team competition, marks the first time LPGA players will tee it up during prime time. In an effort to counteract the General Electric Company's multi-million dollar public relations campaign against dredging the Hudson River, Riverkeeper has launched high-profile advertisements in New York aimed at focusing public attention on the serious human health risks associated with exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. One of the advertisements, now displayed on telephone kiosks around Manhattan, depicts a pregnant woman and her son catching a PCB-contaminated fish from the Hudson River. The other advertisement, a billboard which appears on the West Side Highway at 50th Street, is a challenge to GE CEO Jack Welch to clean up the toxic chemicals his company wantonly dumped in the Hudson River over a thirty-year period ending in 1977. The message, white text over a black background, reads: "What's More Toxic? GE's Lies or GE's PCBs? People Are Dying to Find Out. Clean up the Hudson, Jack. www.riverkeeper.org" In the opening round of a new advertising campaign breaking this week in the U.S. and Asian editions of The Wall Street Journal and in the Financial Times, Deloitte Consulting challenged the IPO strategies of its consulting industry competitors. The campaign signals the start of a multi-tiered global marketing program by which Deloitte Consulting. The "Authentic Consultant" print advertising campaign will feature a different ad each week throughout the year. Home & Garden Television (HGTV) has teamed with SC Johnson, the company behind household brands such as Windex, Shout, and Pledge, for the launch of its newest sweepstakes promotion, "Win a $5000 Home Makeover." The partnership includes free standing insert newspaper ads reaching 47 million readers nationwide; call-to-action notices in the HGTV Ideas e-mail newsletter; an online package with banner ads and a "Win a $5000 Home Makeover" contest page; as well as on-air spots on HGTV. From July 22 to August 31, 2001, visitors to both HGTV.com and SCJBrands.com will be able to log on to an entry form to enter the sweepstakes. Consumers will also be able to enter by using the official entry form on the newspaper insert ads or by sending in a 3x5 card. Six grand prize winners will be chosen at random to receive $5000 towards their own room makeover projects. ASM International N.V., a supplier of semiconductor process equipment, launched its new website making the company's capabilities more easily accessible to Internet users and customers in. Designed to be an online resource, www.asm.com provides easy access to essential product and service information. Consistent with the company's promise to deliver innovation, the site will be continuously enhanced to meet the needs of customers. Plans to add an online procurement feature for spare parts are currently underway. Meredith Integrated Marketing and Hunter Douglas Window Fashions announced the launch of a synchronized consumer marketing communications program. The window fashions program launches in August with the publication of a 144-page book and 24-page magazine. The program launch consists of a three-month Holiday Promotion, targeting homeowners and consumer holiday planners from across the country, and is designed to drive pre-holiday retail window coverings traffic by providing consumers with the latest trends in window fashions, and holiday decorating and entertaining ideas.
Transit advertising venues include bus shelters, subway stations and buses, trains and subways themselves. But Rob Walker has his own ideas. The CEO of SideTrack Technologies, a Winnipeg, Canada firm, owns E-Caps, the firm that launched taxi hubcap advertising a couple of months ago. Yesterday, he announced his latest venture -- motion picture advertising on subway walls. Imagine riding in a subway, looking out the window while passing through a tunnel and seeing a fast paced series of images that look like a live action commercial. That's the idea behind Walker's venture, which he plans on launching in September in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Yes, there are subways there and it's the first place Walker has found to employ his new advertising. There's a client there, too, Canon, which makes digital imaging products. "As a company known for bringing firsts to the marketplace, this was an opportunity we couldn't refuse," says Liew Sip Chon, Canon's senior general manager of system products. Canon was actually lured into the game by Dentsu, its Japanese ad agency, which decided to try the new advertising in the Malaysian market. Walker says he's trying to introduce the advertising in North America. All major cities have subway systems and many have agencies that handle subway advertising. Walker has been in contact with the Los Angeles Metro Transit Authority and similar agencies in other cities, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco. To play the advertising, Sidetrack will install light boxes on the subway walls. Trains pass by sensors as they go through the tunnels that are triggered to play the ads. Twenty-five still images per second are shown, which creates a live action display similar to a TV commercial. The Canon ad will use 375 images and play for 15 seconds, Walker says. Rates for the advertising will vary by city, according to their transit ad rates, but Walker says this kind of advertising will be "one of the most expensive," costing about $35,000 per month.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations has given final approval to a sweeping overhaul of magazine circulation rules, opening the way for publishers to try new marketing efforts as they confront a steady decline in circulation. Separately, the group also passed guidelines defining electronic sales of newspapers, allowing publishers to create and sell electronic editions of their publications and still have them count as paid circulation. The revision to the magazine rules, the most far-reaching for the industry since the audit bureau was formed in 1914, received initial passage in March. Newspaper circulation rules also have been overhauled, and those changes received final approval in March. The magazine rule changes were given final approval Saturday, with only minor revisions, at a meeting of the audit bureau's board in Pebble Beach, Calif. David Leckey, a member of the ABC board and circulation director at Hachette Filipacchi Magazines, said the measures were passed unanimously by the board's 34 members, which include publishers of magazines and newspapers as well as advertisers. "It's certainly the most significant change I've seen since I've been in the business," Leckey said. At the heart of the changes was the abolition of the "50%" rule, which stated that no copy could be counted as paid circulation that was sold at less than half the basic price. Now, copies sold at any price can be counted as paid circulation, but greater disclosure must be made of how much money is being charged for subscriptions. Advertisers want to see that information to gauge reader interest in a magazine. Publishers have been seeking greater flexibility in how they discount and promote magazine subscriptions to combat a steady erosion in circulation as other media such as cable TV and the Internet compete for readers' attention. With the ability to price magazines more cheaply, publishers will be able to try new ways to attract readers, such as giving away subscriptions at little cost with season tickets to sports events or with memberships to health clubs. For newspapers, which are also facing difficulties in keeping readers, the new guidelines governing electronic editions provide an important basis for reaching out to readers in emerging electronic media. "This opens a huge window of opportunity for newspapers," said Mary Jacobus, head of the ABC's newspaper committee and publisher of the Duluth News-Tribune in Minnesota. "I think this will be very actionable stuff." The bureau has discussed electronic editions in the past, but Jacobus said the new guidelines set clear definitions of what constitutes an electronic edition of a newspaper as well as how it can be sold. Though newspapers are just beginning to experiment with electronic sales models, audit bureau President Michael Lavery said, the new guidelines should open the way for increased use of electronic formats as demand for them begins to swell among readers. An electronic edition will have to be clearly identified as a version of the main paper, but the editorial and advertising can vary, just as in regional editions of newspapers, Lavery said. It can be delivered by any electronic means--e-mail, the Web or CD-ROM, for example--and will have to conform to the same rules as print versions to be counted as paid circulation, namely, to be sold for at least 25% of the basic price. Lavery said magazine publishers also were considering ways to define and sell electronic editions. - Associated Press