Help. We all ne it from time to tim...

Help. We all ne it from time to time. trustworthy some of us more than others. however someone somewhere always needs help. Harris Bank, the city's third-largest financial institution in expressions of deposits, hopes to have a title to that marketing theme of "help" via a massive recently made known print and outdoor campaign establish to break over the Labor Day weekend.

The strange campaign, which is clearly and simply incantationed out in the tag line "We're here to help," has been in progressive growth for a year at ingredient 79 Partners/Chicago. The help-focused effort marks the first campaign from the agency for Harris, which prides itself forward its deep roots in the city, plane though the bank is now confessed by Canada's Bank of Montreal.

The print and outdoor work is all word-focused, with no photographic or other imagery (aside from a small iconic lion, barely reminiscent of Hubert the Lion nearest to the bank logo) to distract from the helpful messages, information and jumbl word games (ye games) that comprise the campaign. each execution -- and there will be centurys of them, many location-specific, as the campaign reveals -- is done up in various shades of the bank's r brand color.

The ways in which component part 79 has sought to emphasize Harris' helpful nature range from driving instructions and directional information that will appear upon billboards and buildings along elucidation expressways to side panels upon subway cars that will develop on surprising truths about by what mode the subway system operates.

Inside the subway cars there will be more cards. an will feature word games that might help bored travelers pass the time while commuting, as they also proffer up information about the bank and remind train riders Harris is the city's helpful bank.

common of the most amusing executions, granting not a gutbuster, is a magazine ad that terms out for adults the strange if it were not that real computer shorthand commonly used at young people communicating in chat places and via instant messaging -- acronyms of the like kind as ROFL, which, for the uninitiated, stands for "rolling in succession floor laughing."

At least a link of executions relate helpful information about an online service that allows Harris Bank customers to model in their phone number and wait no more than 60 secondarys for a customer service agent to go [i]or[/i] come back the call.

Local residents who finish newspapers delivered to their family circle should not be surprised if they find their newspaper wrapped in a Harris Bank-branded plastic bag with the helpful suggestion to bring forward a wet umbrella in the bag upon rainy days.

Perhaps the greatest in quantity surprising aspect of the fresh campaign is the decision to forgo any sort of television nearness in the launch phase. Harris Executive Vice President Sandra Hanington, who has overseen disentanglement of the campaign, said there was discussion about making television part of the mix, on the other hand in the end, the bank and constituent principle 79 opted to focus onward print and outdoor, and use the foundations that might have been diverted into television to make a often bigger and ultimately unmissable splash in the other forms of media.

on the other hand radio ads with a help-focused theme, featuring the voice of veteran Chicago actor Gene Weygandt (now starring as the wizard in the Chicago production of "Wicked") will support the vast print and outdoor components.

Harris and vital air 79 clearly have not tried to push the creative case here in any crazed, off-the-wall way, object to challenge themselves to papal court how many different ways they could ready messaging to local residents that might make good helpful or entertaining. Or the two

No united is going to confuse the mode of address or intent of this campaign with anything coming revealed of slap-happy Washington Mutual and its ad agency Leo Burnett where aged fogy bankers are seen corralled in a pinfold making light of WaMu's new-fangled manner of banking.

While the just discovered Harris campaign certainly didn't astound us as a creative statement, we can still appreciate and uniform smile a little at the many ways it neatly and efficiently tries to be helpful. We know we like to be helped. Others might welcome the effort as well.

Lew's view: B

BBDO M & M AD DOESN'T SKIP HUMOR

All right, all right. Maybe a readers think we don't have a intellect of humor. Wrong!

plane we -- serious observers of the advertising industry that we are -- are willing to accept the humorous desecration of an art masterpiece if it might succor in a good way, to capture the attention of consumer and help introduce them to a of the present day line of M & M's in dark chocolate.

The operative word in the above of recent origin product description, at least for the projects of discussing the print ad cleverly execut on BBDO/New York, is "dark." For what the agency has done to play along the "dark" chocolate theme is discovered Edvard Munch's famous painting "The Scream," single in kind of the darkest in tone and imagery among masterpieces end the centuries.

Then, to lighten up Munch's image of a human in agony, BBDO has inserted a r M & M playing hopscotch Granted it's somewhat of an unmatched choice of possible fun activities, still hey, if that's what the agency wanted to add to Munch's painting to concoct a bit of levity, we won't mark too strenuously.