• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, May 12, 2004

Soymilk hits primetime airwaves. Courvoisier gets a new spokesman. Comcast and Starz! On Demand argue about "what to watch." Welcome to highlights of ad campaigns launched recently.

The Phoenix Companies' latest campaign, "Add Value to Wealth," focuses on the company's wealth strategies and targets advisors of the affluent and high net worth. One ad shows a high-powered businessman who runs his own company, but recognizes that he needs the advice of experts, particularly on taxes. To help this client, advisors are urged to "clear the way with expert advice." Another ad portrays a baby boomer couple that has been able to "rock with the good times, roll with the bad" but requires a long-term retirement income strategy that can "keep the party going" beyond their working years. The ads will run in The Wall Street Journal, New York Times Magazine, BusinessWeek, The New Yorker, Fortune, Money and Time.Cossette Post created the campaign.

White Wave, maker of Silk Soymilk, has launched a $22 million TV campaign that will run through September. Other elements of the campaign include underwriting NPR programming, product sampling, shelf talkers, floor graphics and coupons at retailers, event sponsorships and couponing in Sunday newspapers. The campaign shows characters optimistically engaging in the world after eating Silk-fueled breakfasts. The campaign consists of four 30-second spots, each featuring the tagline "Rise and Shine." The ads, created by Berlin Cameron/Red Cell, will run from April through early fall during prime time network and cable broadcasts, including "Friends," "CSI" and "ER."

Delphi Corporation's current TV campaign shows how the company is taking automotive technology where it's never gone before. "Transformations" depicts how Delphi technologies can be used to benefit other industries outside the automotive arena, including medical, homeland security, and computers. The campaign consists of four 30-second TV spots. "Cool" features a sports car on an open road in the hot sun, but the car and its driver are cool, thanks to Delphi technology. When a blast of cool air comes through the vehicle's internal cooling system, the camera follows the airflow into the car's air chambers, emerging in a computer server farm. The viewer sees that the same Delphi cooling technology is keeping the large computer systems cool. Ads will run on Bloomberg News, CNN, and MSNBC, to name a few. McCann Erickson Detroit created the campaign.

DiMassimo Brand Advertising launched an integrated marketing campaign for Comcast Digital Cable and Starz! On Demand that finally puts an end to age old argument of, "Who controls the TV remote?" Viewers are introduced to "The Ralstons," a fictional family of 28. The ads show that this family of squintruplets (22 children born at the same time, 4 born individually), with the addition of Starz! On Demand to Comcast's existing comprehensive ON DEMAND library, can find something to watch. The campaign launched in April and includes TV and radio spots, print ads, outdoor advertising and transit posters. Creative will appear in markets including: Boston and Springfield, Mass; Atlanta, Ga.; Nashville, Tenn.; Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pa.; Hartford and New Haven, Conn.; Knoxville, Ky.; Portland, Ore.; Baltimore, Md.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Richmond, Va.; Jacksonville, Fla.

Women and Company, Citigroup's financial service for women, launched a guerilla marketing campaign at the end of April in Manhattan with help from Interference Inc. Featuring women in green trenchcoats emblazoned with the Women and Company logo, teams of street marketers went to highly-trafficked locations and near workplaces with a high preponderance of professional women (some ladies were seen around Union Square and Grand Central Terminal). Each team distributed Women and Company branded premiums, consisting of a red change purse with a nickel inside and the phrase: "Yes, we're giving money away, which is what you're doing each day you don't plan for your financial future. Women & Co. is a financial membership from Citigroup. It just makes good cents." Women and Company includes financial education to help women meet their personal financial objectives, access to consultative services with professionals, and special benefits and discounts on financial products and services.

The Advertising Council, along with the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, launched a PSA campaign to educate parents of young children who have outgrown their toddler seat that a booster seat is a lifesaving transition to an adult seat belt. Created pro bono by Leo Burnett USA in Chicago, the PSAs are a part of the Ad Council's Safety Belt Education campaign. While most parents have heard of booster seats, surveys have found that they don't know how booster seats work, how their children can benefit or who should use them. The TV spots feature parents participating in everyday activities with child-sized Crash Test Dummies, instead of their children. A voiceover tells the viewers, "You wouldn't treat a Crash Test Dummy like a child, so why treat a child like a Crash Test Dummy?"

Allied Domecq Spirits has found a new spokesman for its cognac, Courvoisier. If you are thinking along the lines of a Hip-hop artist, you're close. Courvoisier is extending its association with Russell Simmons and his Phat Farm brand, and using Fonzworth Bentley, aka the former umbrella-toting member of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs' entourage, to promote the brand. Bentley will first be seen in Courvoisier marketing programs in late spring. Activities began in March as Courvoisier and Phat Farm rolled out an expanded series of events in the top markets across the country through the end of August.

In website launches this week:

Abebooks, an online marketplace for used, rare, and out-of-print books, launched Libros en Español, a new area on Abebooks.com dedicated to Spanish language books and authors. The new area makes it easy to find and buy, or list and sell books of interest to Hispanic and Latino readers and collectors, in Spanish and in English. This includes new, used, rare, and out of print books, as well as maps, prints, magazines and comics in English and in Spanish. "Libros en Español" currently lists 200,000 books from the Abebooks database of 50 million books.

Access Middle East has launched. The site focuses on journalists and provides them with context to the complex events in Israel and the Middle East. The portal is a one-stop source of real-time, attributable information. It features a high-powered data and research transmission engine and an Artificial Intelligence Technology that monitors more than 300 newspapers and think tanks from around the world. The Lift Network designed the site.