REEBOK MAKES PLANET THEME KINDER, GENTLER
By Adnews Staff
U.S.-based Reebok International has changed the theme of its advertising. The sportswear company launched a worldwide campaign this week that uses the theme "This is my planet", intended to add an emotional appeal to its sales pitch. For the past three years. Reebok has used "Planet Reebok", which originated with Chiat/Day of New York. The new campaign uses TV, print, the World Wide Web and point-of-purchase materials created by Reebok's current agency, Leo Burnett Company of Chicago. In Canada Burnett's Toronto office did the media buy. Its Montreal affiliate, RTA, localized the ads for the French market. Leo Burnett's Toronto office is launching a Canadian-made billboard campaign here in the spring using the new theme. The ads feature athletes such as basketball star Nick Van Exel and Emmit Smith of the Dallas Cowboys, as well as downhill mountain bicycle racer Missy Giove. According to preliminary figures from U.S. industry newsletter Sporting Goods Intelligence, Reebok's market share fell last year to 20.5% of total industry wholesale sales of $6.8 billion(US), down from 21.4% of $6.6 billion in 1994.