• by Adam Bernard , February 13, 2002

This week Out To Launch brings you Olympians, airline employees, and adult toys. Ready, Set, Launch!

KeyCorp has found a unique way to share its brand personality with viewers in the context of the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah. Five different 15-second spots, each highlighting a Key business, will be broadcast in six major Key franchise markets: Buffalo, N.Y., Cleveland, Denver, Indianapolis, Portland, Ore. and Seattle. Through computer animation, words like “preparation”, “determination” and “concentration” move like a ski jump competitor to underscore Key’s small business services capabilities, while “precision,” “strength” and “talent” move like figure skaters to testify to Key’s personal financial services solutions. Key will highlight five of its businesses in this way: Small Business, Personal Financial Services, and Commercial Financial Services, offered through KeyBank; Investment Management Services offered through Victory Capital Management; and McDonald Investments. This will be the first time that Victory Capital Management has been featured in television advertising.

Keeping things Olympic, The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) has teamed with Olympic figure-skater Sasha Cohen to help encourage beef consumption among girls between the ages of 8 and 12. In addition to appearances and her spokesperson role, Sasha has been given her own section (Sasha’s Corner) of the NCBA’s kids-oriented website at burgertown.com where the skater offers fashion, lifestyle and even cooking tips. The full-page ads for beef will appear this spring in major lifestyle and sport magazines.

Going from flying skaters to flying aircrafts, as American Airlines has launched their newest advertising campaign featuring American employees capturing the spirit, professionalism and pride of the world's largest airline. The two 60-second commercials – “Engine” and “Way of Life” – were produced by Temerlin McClain, and break in seven markets today, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and St. Louis. Programming will include the 2002 Winter Olympics and the NCAA Championship series. Spots on national cable will begin airing on Feb. 18th on CNN, CNBC, A&E and The History Channel.

Speaking of airlines, they've stopped serving food to passengers, but drinks are still acceptable. This brings us to Diet Pepsi, which has unveiled a new look, and a new ad campaign. Diet Pepsi's new package design starts hitting stores across the United States this week, and features an upright logo on a “bubbly blue” background. The light blue color scheme and a new use of the three-dimensional Globe icon give Diet Pepsi its own identity, while keeping it grounded within the Pepsi family. Introducing the new graphics is Cindy Crawford, who will star in a new Diet Pepsi commercial -- its first since 1998 -- set to debut during the 74th Annual Academy Awards, Sunday, March 24th, on ABC. The new Diet Pepsi spot updates an award-winning ad produced for brand Pepsi in 1991, wherein a pair of awestruck boys watched the supermodel approach a Pepsi vending machine (“Is that a great new Pepsi can or what?”). Created by BBDO New York, that spot was reprised last year on the Super Bowl, after consumers chose it as their favorite Pepsi ad in “Your Vote Counts,” an online promotion powered by Yahoo!

Sticking with BBDO, The Gillette Company debuted a new North American television advertising campaign for Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush. The spot will air during a variety of prime time network and cable programs and will run through September. Special effects and a popular musical refrain, introduce viewers to CrossAction's unique criss-cross bristles. A voice-over states, “Here they come, plaque's worst nightmare: the crissing and crossing bristles of the CrossAction brush!” As the music swells, the voice-over explains that CrossAction “...lifts and sweeps away more plaque than the leading toothbrush and battery brush.”

From clean teeth to, well, adult toys - Adam & Eve launched the first ever nationwide television campaign for an adult retailer. The 30-second commercial, set in an upscale apartment of a young couple, made its debut on cable TV networks, E!, USA and Comedy Central this week, and is airing between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. The spot promotes both the Adam & Eve catalog and adameve.com. Creative credits go to SilverLight Productions and New Century Digital Media, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Models from Marilyn's, Inc., Greensboro, North Carolina.

Myrient, an outsourced IT solutions provider that delivers managed services, has launched a national advertising campaign promoting its ZIPBackup online backup and remote disaster recovery suite of solutions. Myrient will initially air local radio spots in eight cities where Myrient offers its storage services; Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Dallas. The spots will air primarily during morning and evening drive time on business news stations. The campaign highlights Myrient's service advantage while creating brand personality through humorous scenarios. To complement its radio endeavors, Myrient has also targeted vertical print publications and business journals to saturate its target market of small and medium sized business decision makers.

In website launches, Dell announced the official online fan site for “Steven,” the “dude” who appears in Dell's consumer television advertisements in the United States. The site, available now at dell4me.com/dude, coincides with the airing this past weekend of the newest television advertisement in the “Steven” campaign called “Plain English.” Customers visiting the site can watch the latest spot, view photos and read more about the actor Benjamin Curtis, who plays “Steven.” They also can learn about the Dell system that Curtis uses, an Inspiron 4100 notebook.

Wrapping things up this week, TMP Worldwide Inc. and global professional services organization Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have launched Deloitte's global recruitment website at deloitte.com/careers. The new site allows candidates to conveniently visit a single online destination to search for job opportunities in more than 350 Deloitte offices in over 30 countries. Previously, Deloitte managed more than 25 individual employment sites and focused its recruiting efforts on a country-by-country basis. The new website consolidates these efforts by establishing a single repository for Deloitte's global job listings and enabling candidates to easily research different job openings around the globe. Visitors to the site can now learn about the organizational structure, business processes, technology and culture of each of the firm's offices.

This newsletter is compiled weekly by MediaPost staff writer Adam Bernard. Past issues are archived at the MediaPost website. Your comments, questions and submissions are always welcome and appreciated.