LIFESTYLES ON BLACK HISTORY
eineken USA here will celebrate Black History Month in June by launching Heineken's Lifestyle Sweepstakes -- a tie-in with the Heineken's Lifestyle segment on "Russell Simmons' OneWorld Music Beat" television show.
To enter, consumers only need to name one city that Heineken Lifestyles correspondent Sky visits on the show during June.
Prizes will include a 1999 Ford Expedition, Philips home electronics equipment or apparel from the Phat Farm record label.
The sweepstakes will be promoted during the show and through point-of-sale materials that depict Sky perched on the hood of the Ford Expedition. The event will run in New York; Washington; Chicago; Atlanta; Baltimore; Cleveland; Detroit; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; New Orleans and Philadelphia.
WHEATIES' CHAMPIONS OF CHAMPIONS
MINNEAPOLIS -- Wheaties here said it plans to issue special-edition boxes in the next few weeks depicting the Top 10 athletes who have appeared on its packages throughout its 75-year history, as selected by the American public.
The heritage boxes will be available nationally throughout the spring and early summer.
The Top 10 vote-getters were the 1980 U.S. Men's Olympic hockey team; John Elway, retired quarterback of the Denver Broncos; Lou Gehrig, baseball's Iron Horse and the first athlete to appear on a Wheaties box; Michael Jordan, retired from the Chicago Bulls basketball team, who appeared on 17 Wheaties boxes, more than any other athlete; Walter Payton, the National Football League's all-time leading rusher and the first football player to appear on the front of the box; Mary Lou Retton, winner of five medals in the 1984 Olympics; Cal Ripken Jr., the Baltimore Orioles star who set the record for consecutive games played; Jackie Robinson, the fist African-American to play in major league baseball; Babe Ruth, whose home-run prowess made him a Wheaties mainstay in the 1930s; and Tiger Woods, golf's youngest Master's champion.
The athletes were selected by consumers during January and February when Wheaties ran its "Vote for Your Favorite Wheaties Champion" promotion. The company said more than 200,000 consumers voted for their Top 10 favorites from a ballot that listed 75 popular Wheaties champions.
SLIM JIM IN THE EXTREME
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Slim Jim here is launching a new 3XTREME video game from 989 Studios in a national consumer sweepstakes that kicks off this month and runs through Sept. 30.
To participate, consumers can call 1-888-4SlimJim for a chance to instantly win one of 1,000 video games.
The sweepstakes will be featured on more than 125,000 Slim Jim displays in grocery and convenience stores nationwide. The displays feature the Slim Jim Guy saying, "I've got a thousand of these games. Want one? You can win instantly!"
3XTREME, full of radical stunts and plenty of opportunities to "beef" (crash or wipeout) features an extreme sports environment full of rails and half pipes that include bright red and yellow Slim Jim banners; it also features the diabolical new Slim Jim Guy, who was introduced in Slim Jim television spots last fall.
The game, designed for PlayStation game consoles, is made by 989 Studios, a Sony Computer Entertainment Group company, a wholly owned division of Sony Computer Entertainment America.
GOTTA DRINK MILK OR ELSE
BERKELEY, Calif. -- The California Milk Processor Board here is building on its "Got Milk?" campaign with two new television spots, "Chad" and "Bones."
According to Jeff Goodby, principal at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, "The spots take 'torture' to new heights, reinforcing [the idea] that running out of milk just isn't worth the risk."
In the "Chad" spot, a pompous cooking-show host attempts to demonstrate how milk puts out the heat of a habanero, supposedly the hottest pepper on earth. After he takes a bite, he discovers that a stagehand has swiped his milk, and Chad slowly incinerates, making him the first casualty of milk deprivation.
In the "Bones" ad, Mr. Miller, a friendly neighborly type, learns the hard way why milk is so important to strong bones when he attempts to pick up a wheelbarrow and his arms fall off, prompting an onlooking mother and her two kids to develop an immediate craving for milk.
ROOT BEER, BASEBALL ARE THICK-HEADED
PLANO, Texas -- A&W here is launching a new television advertising campaign built around the theme that it's OK to be "thick-headed" -- a reference to the thick head on a mug of A&W root beer.
Using the tagline, "It's good to be Thick-Headed," A&W plans heavy media buys on major league baseball broadcasts on network and cable television stations.
In addition, to mark its 80th anniversary, A&W has developed a list of the Top 80 "thick-headed" baseball gaffes.
The list includes the decision by the Chicago Cubs to trade Lou Brock to the St. Louis Cardinals for Ernie Broglio, a player whose arm problems caused him to quit baseball soon after, while Brock went on to become baseball's all-time leading base stealer and a member of the Hall of Fame.
Other "thick-headed" gaffes include the George Brett pine-tar incident, artificial turf stadiums, the 1919 Black Sox scandal and Charlie Finley's yellow baseballs.