• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, June 23, 2004

Hawaiian Punch partners with Bow Wow. TiVo teams up with Phil Mickelson. Visa debuts another Olympic-themed ad. Welcome to highlights of ad campaigns launched recently.

TiVo and Charles Schwab & Co. announced that Schwab will be the first financial services company to advertise on the TiVo platform. Schwab will treat golf fans to lessons, commentary and more from 2004 Masters Champion/Schwab client Phil Mickelson in a TiVo Showcase that debuted June 16 in conjunction with the U.S. Open. The 30-second spot, "Where Phil Plays," which features a montage of his 2004 highlights, will become interactive, providing TiVo subscribers with the opportunity to select three different extended segments hosted by Mickelson. With the click of their remote, TiVo subscribers will be able to move from the 30-second spot into the four-minute video and to choose from various segments. GSD&M created the ad.

Visa USA launched a 30-second national TV spot last week featuring Olympic swimmer and Visa Gold Medal Athlete, Michael Phelps. "Lap" is the second of three Visa television spots to break promoting Visa's sponsorship of the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games. The commercial features Phelps swimming away from Poseidon's Temple in Greece, past a town in Italy, a cruise liner, a whale, and even a small island, where a castaway tries to get the swimmer's attention. Phelps makes his way into New York Harbor touching the base of the Statue of Liberty, marking the end of his first lap. He then turns and starts the return journey, showing how everyone prepares for the Olympic Games in their own way. The spot was created by BBDO New York.

Commuters traveling through the Port Authority Bus Terminal during the next two months will feel as if they are in a racetrack due to a station-dominating ad campaign launched last week by the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority (NJSEA) to promote the summer championship harness racing meet at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey. One hundred and seventy-six creative message units promoting racing are posted inside the Port Authority through July 31. The Sloan Group created the ads. In July, additional message units will be added to promote the thoroughbred racing action at the NJSEA-owned Monmouth Park in Oceanport, New Jersey and the upcoming New Jersey Championship Racing Weekend in August. The campaign includes: seven large floor graphics; five two-sided banners; seven lighted dioramas; 102 two-sheet and 58 three-sheet units.

Hawaiian Punch has partnered with music star Bow Wow to launch the "Unleash the Punch" promotion. Beginning in May and concluding at the end of the summer, Hawaiian Punch fans will have the opportunity to win $10,000 and meet Bow Wow by writing and singing their own rap song. Ten finalists will be picked by an independent judging agency, and Bow Wow will then choose the winner from the group of finalists. Additionally, consumers can receive a free Hawaiian Punch Bow Wow T-shirt by mailing in proof of purchase of two 1-gallon bottles of Hawaiian Punch and $3.00 for shipping and handling. The partnership with Bow Wow also includes sponsorship of the rapper's summer concert series, giving consumers the chance to win free tickets, and CDs, and Bow Wow will wear limited Hawaiian Punch-branded clothing featuring "Punchy" - the brand's identifying character.

Hyping up its upcoming BET AWARDS '04,BET launched a campaign anchored by the theme "Bigger is Better... And We're Huge!" The campaign consists of radio, TV, print, outdoor, and transit ads supporting the June 29th broadcast. Print elements were produced in-house; TV spots were produced by Brown Bag Productions. The ads feature BET AWARDS host Mo'Nique as the primary spokesperson and Reggie, a recurring character from the BET AWARDS on-air campaign for the past two years, as her comedic foil. The spots convey the message that this year's show will be 'bigger' than ever in every conceivable way -- from special effects, to celebrity star power and high-wattage performances, BET is pulling out all the stops to top last year's runaway success. Print ads are running in JET, Entertainment Weekly, Essence, Ebony, TV Guide, The Source and Vibe magazines, with outdoor and transit advertising running in 16 markets, including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, DC, Dallas, Miami, and San Francisco.

The Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund (FVPF) launched PSAs designed to engage men in domestic violence prevention by encouraging them to talk to boys in their lives about how women should be treated. According to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund study, nearly one-third of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives. Statistics reveal that abuse starts early. The PSAs target men, who are fathers, coaches, teachers, uncles, brothers and mentors, and spend time with pre-teen and teenage boys. In one TV spot, entitled, "The Wrong Way Around," boys approach men to ask their advice on how to treat women. The ad concludes with the tagline, "Boys are never going to approach you. You need to teach them that violence against women is wrong."

itraffic has created another online campaign for British Airways, this time including a Wimbledon tie-in. The ads are running from May 26th through the first week of July on the NYTimes.com, ESPN.com, Yahoo! and other sites having a high composition of international leisure travelers and tennis enthusiasts.

Environmental organizations Oceana launched a campaign against Royal Caribbean to install advanced wastewater treatment systems fleet-wide. It appears the campaign was a success. @dvocacy produced a flash ad of a toilet-shaped cruise ship dirtying the seas with its discharges. A winning mix of humor and advocacy functionality, the ad prompted more than 50,000 citizens to send letters to Royal Caribbean pledging not to cruise with the company until it cleaned up its act.

In website launches this week:

An online forum focused on experiential marketing - an emerging marketing discipline that uses experiences to connect brands and their customers - has launched. The Experiential Forum is open to everyone interested in learning about and discussing developments in the field of experiential marketing. The site is free of charge. Current estimates put annual experiential marketing expenditures in the billions. Those costs are often paid out of a variety of corporate budgets including sales, marketing, training, HR and others, making it an area more traditional marketing and PR agencies are looking to for possible expansion. Experiential marketing is an alternative discipline to traditional advertising and public relations. Case studies, research and white papers are available online to help traditional marketers understand the nuances of experiential programs.

Advantage Credit has redesigned its website. Developed by Meandaur Internet of Chicago, an interactive marketing and technology services firm, the site was designed to provide an easy-to-use online experience that extends Advantage Credit's commitment of exceptional service to its customers.