• Nike Lifts LeBron IV With Multimedia Campaign
    The Nike Air Zoom LeBron IV--the latest generation of athletic shoe endorsed by Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James--is getting a hefty sendoff this week in both traditional and nontraditional media. James appears as different sides of his own personality in the campaign. The launch includes the first episode of ESPN's "Sports-Center" to be sponsored by a single advertiser (at 6 p.m. tomorrow); the distribution of 400,000 copies of DVDs about the making of the shoe and the ad campaign; saturation advertising on espn.com and mtv.com; a so-called pop-up retail store in Manhattan; video clips appearing as short programs on …
  • Chipwich Inventor Using Students To Push Snacks
    For his latest venture, entrepreneur Richard LaMotta intends to employ the same secret ingredient responsible for the success of his Chipwich ice cream sandwich 25 years ago: students. The Chipwich become a sensation after LaMotta used an army of college students to hawk it from pushcarts. He now intends to recruit high school and college students from around the country to distribute novelty snacks in neighborhood businesses such as laundromats, dry cleaners, car washes and bridal shops. LaMotta's new venture is called myStudentBiz. Students will make $5 for every box of ChipPOPpitty--which are little round cookies covered in …
  • Harley Remains In The Fast Lane With Baby Boomers
    The Harley-Davidson motorcycle is now a middle-aged nostalgia brand--the median age of its buyers has leaped from 35 in 1987 to nearly 47 today. But it's riding higher than ever thanks to its fanatical customer base. While half the company's sales are to new customers, the other half go to committed Harley riders whose loyalty won't fade. It is also popular with foreign fans, who see its image as all-American in the best possible sense--meaning powerful and free. Over the last two years, customers have warmed to 10 new models--out of 38 Harley models in all--and to regular tweaks …
  • Type 2 Diabetes Rises, So Do Drug Maker's Ad Budgets
    Marketers of drugs treating Type 2 diabetes say that the disease is reaching epidemic proportions as the American population gets older and fatter, and some are doubling and tripling their ad spend as they introduce new technologies into the increasingly competitive market. The market for pharmaceutical products alone is currently about $10 billion to $12 billion, according to Brian Cooley, senior marketing director at Eli Lilly & Co. for a diabetes drug called Byetta. "By 2020 ... it could grow to $50 billion-plus," he says. Because the disease requires constant monitoring, marketers are also plowing money into blood-glucose …
  • Marketers Smell Opportunity With New Scent Technologies
    Inserts for Diet Pepsi Jazz in People recently carried the aroma of the black-cherry vanilla soda. Mars has used scent technology to spread the aroma of chocolate around its M&M's. A scent-delivery system called Smellavision, meanwhile, is being installed in 8,000 Kroger stores and other top retailers, including Wal-Mart. "Our olfactory sense is the most primal of all the senses and is extremely powerful--much more invasive than reading or hearing something," says Jack Sullivan, senior vice president and out-of-home media director for Starcom. It still isn't cost-effective to use scent technology for low-cost products, such as …
  • Dove's YouTube Spot: More Traffic Than Super Bowl Ad
    "Evolution"--Dove's fast-motion look at the myriad cosmetic and photo-retouching efforts that transform a woman into a billboard beauty--has reaped more than 1.7 million views on YouTube and brought three times more traffic to CampaignForRealBeauty.com than the brand's Super Bowl ad did last year. The 75-second viral film carries the tagline: "No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted." Created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto and hyped by Edelman, New York, the spot has gotten significant play on TV shows such as "Ellen," "The View," "Geraldo" and "Entertainment Tonight." Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty" has helped the company gain …
  • Adidas Tries Video Mashups To Attract Soccer Fans
    Using mashups--the combining of two elements to create a new execution--Adidas is making a pitch to young soccer fans by linking local alternative bands to teams playing in the Major League Soccer playoff series. Popularized by creations like Danger Mouse's Grey Album, which combined the Beatle's "White" album and Jay-Z's a cappella "Black Album," mash-ups have extended to online video. The videos are posted on a brand Web site, www.mlsmashups.com--but EVB, Adidas' agency, hopes they will be uploaded to YouTube, blogs or fan's MySpace pages. Adidas will also make the videos available at its own Adidas Soccer profile on …
  • Saturn Promotes Hybrid SUV With D.C. Greenhouses
    Saturn last week erected three greenhouses in Washington, D.C. to call attention to its Vue Green Line, a hybrid SUV that's environmentally friendly. Visitors participated in cooking demonstrations using organic foods, as well as knitting and crocheting demonstrations that used organic yarn. Attendees were given free organic smoothies and green apples branded with the Saturn logo. Some also received a free tree seedling. "There is so much [advertising] for consumers to consume every day, and what we're really trying to do is to be innovative, to make a lasting impression on people," says Tony Parrottino, national sales promotion manager …
  • Marketers Demand Accountability From Online Publishers
    Major marketers including Kimberly-Clark, Colgate-Palmolive, Ford Motor, Hewlett-Packard, Visa and PepsiCo are insisting that online publishers hire auditors to check their ad and viewer counts by the middle of next year. Other companies are concerned that so-called click fraud may be driving up their ad bills, so they are sharing their proprietary ad data with click-trackers, which try to figure out how prevalent such devious clicks are. Ad agency executives said the issues must be resolved before large advertisers pour much more money online. "The Internet has matured to a place where traditional marketers--companies that have been spending …
  • Red Lobster Revamps Look, Menu
    Red Lobster will serve more fresh fish, redesign its menu and offer dishes with new flavors, such as creamy honey BBQ sauce. It's all part of a multi-year repositioning to battle a perception that Red Lobster only serves fried seafood. "In essence, we're looking to give customers fine-dining quality food at about half the price they would pay at a fine-dining quality restaurant," says Kim Lopdrup, president of Red Lobster. The seafood chain is also testing "toned-down" plateware that moves away from the current tropical design and heavier, upscale flatware, to a possible switch from cloth to linen …
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