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Out to Launch!

Out To Launch is in your mailbox once again, and this week we bring you cheese, Garfield, and a place to put your resume. Enjoy!

Household International, the $105 billion (managed assets) consumer lender, this week will unveil a national advertising campaign designed to position and promote its corporate brand. Aimed at business and opinion leaders, the campaign underscores Household's nearly 125-year commitment to helping customers get the credit they need to get a new start on life, make a major purchase, send a child to college or meet unexpected expenses. The $12 million national advertising campaign launched on January 6th. Developed by Gotham Inc., an advertising agency headquartered in New York City, the campaign will be seen on network and cable television programs, as well as in leading business publications.

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Moving to food, Baseball Hall of Famers Sparky Anderson and Johnny Bench are playing together again in the latest commercial from Dairy Management Inc.'s "Ahh, the power of Cheese" campaign. A new television commercial entitled "Say When" debuted on Monday, January 7 and stars these two major league baseball legends. The spot revolves around a young waiter who's been grating a mound of mouthwatering Parmesan over a plate of pasta for a cheese-loving diner. Sparky notices that the waiter is beginning to grow weary and exclaims, "He can't even get it over the plate anymore." Sparky then signals, like a coach making a pitching change, for a relief grater from his serving station. A veteran waiter trots out to the table. Sparky holds out his hand to the tired young waiter who gives him the wedge of delicious Parmesan cheese. As the young waiter begins the long walk back to the kitchen, Sparky sends him off with a reassuring pat on the fanny. The veteran waiter rolls his shoulder, stretches, takes a deep breath and begins vigorously grating more Parmesan cheese for the diner. The spot ends with Sparky's old pal Johnny Bench walking by him and saying wryly, in reference to the young waiter, "I would've yanked him earlier."

Mixing a fat cat, food, and literacy, Garfield and Krystal kids meals will deliver messages such as "Reading With Friends is Fun" and "Geography can take you to Great Places" via packaging, premiums, and point-of-purchase materials from January 14th through February 17th. The Krystal/Garfield Kids Meal promotion hopes to emphasize to kids that learning is fun by offering a series of Make-a-Scene fun play-boards and sticker sets featuring Garfield and his friends in school settings themed around reading, geography, and sports education. Garfield has a long history as an advocate for education with successful campaigns with the American Library Association, Literacy Volunteers of America, The Children's Literacy Initiative, and the SHOPA Kids-In-Need teachers' resource centers.

After all that food you may want some gum, and CanWest Interactive announced the launch of a new advertising campaign with Wrigley's Excel Cherry Chill Gum for users of the canada.com network. Visitors to canada.com local sites in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax on Monday witnessed their computer screens "crystalize before their eyes" using an online ad product called interstitials that provide an opportunity to present full computer screen advertisements to internet users as they access web content. The Excel Cherry Chill campaign will continue in January and February in which Excel will run a contest with prizes of up to $20,000 in cash. Excel Cherry Chill Gum will also sponsor weather information for Canadians, each day reporting on the "Cherry Chill Coldest City in Canada."

Chrysler Group announced the second phase of a pilot advertising campaign in California designed to increase the company's presence among Asian American automotive consumers. New TV spots and print ads for the 2002 Dodge Caravan minivan will debut February 4th in San Francisco and surrounding areas. The ads are the follow-up to a Chinese language TV and print campaign for the Jeep Liberty running through March in and around Los Angeles. The Dodge Caravan ad campaign includes events and promotions similar to those held last year as part of the launch of the Asian American ad campaign for the Jeep Liberty.

On to website launches, as ResumeRabbit.com, the Internet tool that instantly delivers job seekers' resumes to over 75 major career sites, officially launched giving consumers an edge in their increasingly competitive New Year job searches. ResumeRabbit.com is a one-of-a-kind product that takes 15 minutes to use and saves 60 hours of work for job candidates. Resumes are instantly posted to top career sites including Monster, Headhunter, Salary.com, HotJobs, Job.com, Dice and others. The result is exposure to over 1.5 million recruiters and employers that search these sites daily.

MarketFirst Software, Inc., a provider of enterprise marketing automation software, launched its enhanced myMarketFirst website. The community site, dedicated to marketing professionals and their needs, serves as a resource which helps marketing professionals respond to the growing pressure for increased ROI, through the integration of online marketing into their traditional offline marketing efforts. The myMarketFirst community site includes tools and resources, which are focused on bringing the power and reach of the Internet to conventional marketing.

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.

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