[Just in case the herd begins to spook at the last minute...]

THE NEW YORK TIMES
December 27, 1999

ADVERTISING
Madison Avenue Plays the Millennium for Laughs

By STUART ELLIOTT

The second millennium is ending not with a bang or a whimper but with a sales pitch.

Madison Avenue has embraced millennial marketing with the fervor of a zealot -- albeit one who has banished apocalyptic intimations in favor of the world view articulated by Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"

Worries about what the Year 2000 might bring, particularly in terms of potential problems with computers, are being played down, or played for laughs, in almost every advertising campaign centered on the millennium. It is as if marketers and agencies have determined that while fear may help peddle mouthwash, life insurance and antiperspirant, it is not as effective in affiliating a product with the next thousand years of human history.

"Everything is being put in a positive light," said Marian Salzman, worldwide director of the Brand Futures Group, a unit of Young & Rubicam Inc. in New York that specializes in forecasting trends in consumer behavior.

"Nobody wants to be perceived as Dr. Doom if everything goes O.K.," she added, "so the story has to have a happy ending."

Those preparing for the worst on New Year's Day are deemed, well, a couple zeroes shy of a millennial milestone. A commercial for McDonald's, for instance, shows a man eagerly stockpiling supplies in his storm cellar -- not water and canned goods, but french fries and ketchup.

"We thought it would be fun to poke fun at a guy who's a little too into the whole thing," said Bob Scarpelli, vice chairman and chief creative officer at the Chicago office of DDB Worldwide, the Omnicom Group unit that produced the commercial.

Why make light of Year 2000 concerns? "Most people believe it's overblown," Mr. Scarpelli asserted. "They think: 'If something bad does happen, it happens. We'll deal with it and we'll be fine.' "

Indeed, most surveys of consumers indicate little, if any, anxiety about the arrival of 2000. A DDB Chicago study last month found only 11 percent of respondents describing themselves as worried about the potential aftermath.

Tellingly, those worriers tended to stew as a way of life, according to the study, expressing concern about everything from the effects of pollution to becoming a crime victim. They also tended to be less well educated and less affluent than those who were not worried about the millennium's arrival.

In other words, the pessimists are a generally less desirable consumer market than the optimists. And because Madison Avenue tends to be populated with perennial optimists, the accentuation of the positive seems to make sense.

So a commercial for Nike by Wieden & Kennedy in Portland, Ore., depicts a runner doggedly following his daily routine early on Jan. 1 despite extraordinary disruptions: missiles wobbling across the sky, tanks rumbling down the street, even a giraffe strolling by, munching leaves off a tree.

"Life as we know it, including your morning run, hopefully will not come to an end," said Mike Wilskey, vice president for Nike United States marketing, based in Beaverton, Ore.

The spot "represents who we are," he added, "a company that does not take itself so damn seriously."

"The more we can make that point, with fun and a sense of humor, the more people trust us," he said.

That upbeat spirit pervades many campaigns. Time Warner's Warner Brothers Consumer Products unit is sponsoring a daffy promotional blitz dubbed the "Mil-Looney-Um," after its frenetic Looney Tunes cartoons, with partners that include the Subway Restaurants chain.

"This feels like exactly the right move for us," said Chris Carroll, marketing director for the Subway Advertising Fund Trust in Milford, Conn., which oversees the chain's ad spending, because "it says if you're going to have a party, we've got the perfect products for you."

"The feedback on the creative has been really strong," he added, referring to animated commercials by the Chicago office of Publicis & Hal Riney, part of Publicis S.A., "and it's the first positive feedback we've had in a while."

Similarly, an ad for Evite.com, a World Wide Web site offering invitations via e-mail, declares, "This New Year's Eve, make sure you invite some friends over to clutch in terror when the world ends."

A humorous commercial suggests that blackouts and other disturbances will not faze owners of Toyota Corollas. And SmithKline Beecham Consumer Health Care is sponsoring a promotion for Contac cold capsules called the Millennium Bug Contest; prizes include a New Beetle (a k a the Volkswagen Bug) and a computer.

"I don't believe Armageddon is at hand," said Paul Sklar, brand manager for Contac at SmithKline in Pittsburgh. "This is a way to have fun."

"What's our alternative?" he asked rhetorically. "Are we going to say, 'Don't buy any cold medicine because the world's going to end and you won't need it?' "

The intensive preparations to prevent computers from misinterpreting "2000" as "1900" are spoofed everywhere. The most common targets are bankers fearful of equipment malfunctions; several commercials feature automated teller machines that spit out currency like slot machines paying off jackpots.

Myriad ads mock the phrase "Y2K compliant." Meant originally as a sort of Good Housekeeping seal of reassurance, it is now dismissed as words for worrywarts who wear belts with suspenders.

For instance, Krug Champagne runs ads carrying the headline "Y2Krug," which proclaim the brand is "fully compliant with the highest entertaining standards." Cows are deemed "Y2K ready" in a silly spot for milk. The new blue credit card from American Express proclaims itself to be "Y3K compliant."

And Zabar's, the retailer on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, advertises knives, coffee makers and water filters with the theme "Z2K," symbolizing "kitchen preparedness."

Even the most prosaic of products, duct tape, is declared "Y2K compliant," according to billboards by DDB Chicago for Duck brand products.

"We wanted to stay away from being alarmist, from saying, 'When all the lights go out, make sure you have Duck tape on hand,' " said Gary Medalis, vice president for advertising and communications at Manco Inc. in Avon, Ohio, the unit of the Henkel Group that markets Duck.

"This says the same thing," he added, "but in a humorous way that gives it more legs."

That tongue-in-cheek tone goes back to the first large-scale campaign using the Year 2000 as a theme, which began running in early 1998. The ads, for the M&M's brand sold by a unit of Mars Inc., parodied whatever millennial fever was to come by pretending to designate M&M's as the "official candy of the new millennium" because M and M, in Roman numerals, equal 2,000 and setting up a "Center for Millennial Hype."

"Taking it seriously would have been incongruous with the light-hearted personality of M&M's," said Bill Katz, president of the brand's agency, BBDO New York, part of the BBDO Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group.

"So our idea was to make fun of it," he added, and do so "before everyone else gets out there, before the Y2K worriers and serious millennial marketers come out. And it turned out to be a very successful promotion."

Not everyone is playing around with the Big Two-Oh-Oh-Oh.

For example, Anheuser-Busch is selling Budweiser beer in special packages that include a 46-ounce "magnum" bottle sealed with a cork and labels reading "Budweiser Millennium."

"We looked at some humorous approaches to Y2K," said Dan Hoffmann, director for Budweiser marketing at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis. "But we wanted to take a different approach."

"Given our heritage, our tradition, we wanted to celebrate the millennium," he added. "And Budweiser is a part of any celebration. We think we made the right choice."

De Beers, the diamond marketer, is urging consumers to celebrate too. But its campaign, by the New York office of J. Walter Thompson USA, part of the WPP Group, is less reverential than Budweiser's.

Print ads and posters peddle diamond purchases with wry slogans like "Every thousand years or so, it's nice to get her something really special," "Live each millennium as if it's your last," "Make this New Year's Eve live up to all the hype" and "What are you waiting for, the Year 3000?"

Though "a lot of people consider it a special year and will want to give a special gift," said Chris D'Rozario, group creative director at Thompson New York, "it just makes them receive the message better if you do it with a smile instead of force-feeding it."

"We think people are optimistic about Y2K," he added. "But we were kind of hoping those who aren't would want to stockpile diamonds instead of water."

[ENDS]

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 27, 1999

Answers

In his latest spiel, Infomagic talks about how there ought to be trials held to judge people who were reponsible for deliberately misinforming people about Y2K, and dissuading them from preparing. I think he has a good idea, there.

I hope that a lot of people are saving stuff like this, either onto hardcopy or to disk based media. It may just come in handy in the future.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 27, 1999.

I hope that the New York Times is ultimately held accountable for such gross missinformation. They think they can get away with anything. I hope someday their lying is judged as having been a crime against humanity.

-- Earl (eshuholm@tstar.net), December 27, 1999.

Another Elite rag.

KOS - good idea.

They should be charged with TREASON.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 27, 1999.

J'accuse!

-- (robespierre@offwiththeir.heads), December 28, 1999.

Have no fear folks, all the crap that the news media spews forth will come down around their ears. When the public awakens to the fact that they have been so badlys decieved, and they see their loved ones at their feet dying from starvation or other side effects from the falling tower of Babble, whom do do you think they will wreck revenge on, it will be the messengers themselves. So when TSHTF, all the news media had better hunt for a real good place to hide. I have notice a great leap in the sales of weapons this month. When a man's loved ones are dying, he cares not about himself, only to deal out justice where justice is due, and there will be no court of appeals, just cold hard justice. Watch out news media staff, and polititions. Someday you must come from your bunkers.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 28, 1999.

Oh, let the smarmy bastards have their fun. When TSHTF the whole concept of an "educated populace" will be turned on it's ear. God help them. Really.

-- Gia (laureltree7@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.