• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 8, 2007

Plagued by declining sales at both Sears and Kmart, Sears Holdings has launched new marketing campaigns aimed at sparking new interest in its brands.

Two introductory spots, "Sears: Where it begins," broke this weekend, introducing an ongoing book motif. The company says the campaign is based on the idea that shopping at Sears "is like opening a book which tells a never-ending story about possibilities for life at home."

And new creative will continue to break on such season finales as Fox's "American Idol," "Desperate Housewives," "7th Heaven" and "King of Queens." The agency is Young & Rubicam, Chicago.

New Kmart ads feature "Mr. Blue Light," an animated talking light bulb, and will break Monday. Although Kmart recently signed up Draftfcb as its agency, these ads were created by former agency Grey Advertising.

At its shareholder meeting last week, Sears executives conceded that new campaigns won't solve all their problems, but added that they will go a long way toward telling the public what they stand for. Both campaigns, the spokeswoman adds, "are, we think, making much clearer statements about who we are."

Sears, one of the few retailers that does not release monthly sales data, says that for the first quarter, comparable-store sales at Kmart fell 4.7%, "primarily due to lower transaction volumes across most businesses." And at Sears, comparable-store sales slipped 2.4%, "reflecting a reduction in home appliances sales," which Sears attributed to both increased competition and the slower U.S. housing market.