American Business Media launches a $3 million campaign. Yahoo! strikes a deal with the New Yorker. Motor Trend revs up for Q4. Welcome to highlights of ad campaigns launched this week.

Yahoo! unveiled a unique branding campaign in the October 6 issue of the New Yorker. Targeting readers of the "Goings On About Town" section, the ads feature various Yahoo! properties with copy consistent with the look and feel of the "Goings On About Town" section. For example, in the Theatre section, readers will find the ads "Get Your Own Tony... Yahoo! Personals," and "Break a Leg? Yahoo! Health." Another Yahoo! Personals ad catering to the literate New Yorker audience in the Books section reads "Harvard Symbologist seeks Mona Lisa," a reference to the uber popular book The Da Vinci Code. Ads will also run for Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Real Estate and Yahoo! Web Hosting in Antiques, Books, Tables for Two and Dance. Yahoo designed the ads in-house at and the campaign is long-term.

Motor Trend has launched a fourth quarter print advertising campaign targeted mainly at the advertising community. The campaign will feature a series of three to five different ads running in trade publications such as Advertising Age, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek and Automotive News. The campaign, created in-house, focuses on the overall involvement, commitment and quality of the Motor Trend readership and highlights the magazine's value to non-endemic advertisers. Motor Trend is also touting that its brand reaches across more media platforms than any other automotive brand.

UNCLE has completed a long-form marketing film for TiVo. The 20-minute program is a hybrid film that blurs the lines between advertising, marketing and entertainment. It features a scripted narrative and illustrative product description with a series of unscripted testimonials from TiVo subscribers and Hollywood celebrities who love the service. UNCLE recruited a variety of celebrities, including Shari Belafonte, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael McKean, Josh Malina and Ahmet Zappa to provide video testimonials and anecdotes of how they use the service. The film follows four groups of people, typical of TiVo subscribers: a family with small children, a single woman, single man, and an older couple. The storyline, narrated by Emilio Estevez, follows these people as they become TiVo subscribers, showing how it changes their lives. The story is interspersed with edited testimonials from a variety of TiVo subscribers, as well as graphic design elements demonstrating TiVo's ease of use, from installation to recording programs.

Casanova Pendrill has launched a multi-media Hispanic campaign for General Mills' Honey Nut Cheerios cereal. The campaign includes four TV spots and two radio spots that began airing this month. The campaign features skeptics with quirky personalities who in their own way are hesitant to try Honey Nut Cheerios, but who eventually succumb to its surprisingly great taste. The TV spots, entitled "Ramón y Román," "Vecina Metiche," "Perfeccionista" and "Enamorada," consist of simple single shots of these skeptical personalities. "Ramón y Román," for instance, are twins who play a name game to avoid trying the cereal, but both are eventually won over. The radio spots follow the same format. The TV spots will air on Univision, Telemundo, Telefutura, TV Azteca and Galavisión.

The message of American Business Media's latest campaign is simple. Advertising in B-to-B media is the secret to many a company's success. The campaign debuted in September in business publications such as Advertising Age, Adweek, Brandweek, BtoB, Chief Executive, Mediaweek and The Wall Street Journal. The print and online campaign was developed by Mad Dogs & Englishmen, New York. Each of the ads features an anonymous executive - with their face obscured - and a quote about B-to-B media's role in his or her company's success. The body copy highlights findings from a Yankelovich/Harris study that shows B-to-B media influences executives' purchase decisions more than any other media.

The Marine Corps launched a multi-million dollar "Class of Tomorrow" integrated marketing campaign by distributing their first multi-media recruitment CD-Rom. Since July 1995, Marine recruiters have successfully met their assigned recruiting goals, and have the highest success rate of all branches of the military. The Marine Corps along with its agency J. Walter Thompson, developed the recruit-prospecting CD-Rom to help provide information about opportunities for service in this branch of the U.S. military. The "Class of Tomorrow" CD-Rom invites viewers to navigate through an interactive memory board containing videos of training exercises and interviews with Marines; personal mementos and other Marine Corps elements. The CD-Rom contains 13 video clips and 138 photographs including a screensaver, MP3 and five custom wall papers. The CD-Rom will be distributed at community events and recruiting offices nationwide this month.

Diageo is relaunching of one of its most recognizable brands - Smirnoff. This fall, the brand will surface with a bold new look, and a new ad campaign. The national advertising campaign, entitled "Neat," launched this month. The centerpiece of the campaign is the new Smifnoff bottle accompanied by an olive, a twist or a shot glass, conveying the message to consumers that this spirit can be enjoyed by itself -- neat. The television and print campaign will be seen in all markets across the United States. In addition to the "Neat" campaign, the first stage of the global initiative will be heavily promoted nationwide via a string of integrated marketing efforts. Such tactics will include on- and off- premise promotions and various non-traditional marketing tactics. J. Walter Thompson created the campaign.

In website launches this week:

Media Revolution has designed a website for The Slider, a new wireless phone from Kyocera Wireless. Interested users can register on the website for updates on the phone, and download wallpapers and AIM icons. The site will include a Slider Media Viewer, a media player that simulates the interface and controls of the Slider phone, designed to encourage users to become more familiar with the phone's features and functionality.

ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen has launched another sports website. CertifiedSportsJunkie.com features "The Making of ESPN," a week-by-week recounting of his quest to get ESPN up and running. It also offers visitors a way to become "certified sports junkies" and to obtain memorabilia and merchandise that brandish a logo inspired by Rasmussen 's belief that sports nuts want to be recognized as such.