• by March 2, 2001

By Adam Bernard

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. Pull up a chair, launch is being served.

Candie's, Inc. is in the news again, but this time they aren't having ads banned from a network. Instead, they're announcing an exclusive one-year agreement with Grammy Award winning trio, Destiny's Child, to launch the Candie's "Vintage" collection. The group will appear in a print campaign for the higher-end collection of footwear, due to break in April issues of fashion, and entertainment, magazines. Destiny's Child will also appear the in the company's Fall 2001 print campaign. The campaign was created by Long Island based agency, InMarketing in conjunction with Candie's in-house advertising group. The new campaign features the Destiny's Child as a human billboard wearing only a metallic gold hand painted Candie's logo and a trio of Candie's Vintage slides. Among their many contract obligations, Destiny's Child will perform a live concert for Candie's customers and make two in-store personal appearances. Candies.com will hold a LIVE chat with Destiny's Child, where registered users can ask the group anything they want. Candie's will also give-away hundreds of tickets during the group's spring 2001 tour and have an enter-to-win contest where one lucky winner and a friend can win a free trip to see the filming of Destiny's Child next music video.

AFLAC's duck is back to spread the word about AFLAC and the importance of supplemental insurance. In the new spot called "Airport," AFLAC's duck is persistent in quacking the name of the company to a pair of flight attendants who are discussing insurance. The determined duck then continues to follow the plane after take off to tell one more passenger about AFLAC. The commercial is scheduled to debut March 1, during ABC's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and will run on network news programs, selected primetime and cable programming, and the CNN Airport Channel in 34 of the nation's busiest airports. To further integrate the campaign, the "Airport" ad will also appear on dioramas in five major airports (Hartsfield in Atlanta, O'Hare in Chicago, DFW in Dallas, Denver and Newark), in-flight television programming on major domestic airlines, airport shuttle bus ``wraps'' in Atlanta, Newark, Chicago and Los Angeles. The duck campaign, a creation of the Kaplan Thaler Group of New York, a division of Bcom3, has been huge for AFLAC, who saw sales increase more than 28% in 2000, and recruiting up a record 22% for the year.

Twistee Treat Corp. a seller of frozen confections, announced the launch of a television marketing campaign to promote its franchise program. The campaign will include a 30-minute TV show, featuring the Twistee Treat franchise initiative, that will air on national cable television during which television news