New Campaigns

Client: Hitchcock Fine Home Furnishings, New Hartford, Conn. Agency: KGA Advertising, Middletown, Conn. Creative Director: Michael Hammond Copywriter: Steve Culton Art Directors: Robin Sousa, Debra Roberts Producer: Kristen Ehrlich The first campaign for Hitchcock Fine Home Furnishings from KGA Advertising focuses on heirloom quality and a single pair of hands. A 30-second television commercial opens with the sound of a mournful violin and a pair of hands coming into view. A voiceover explains the various things hands are used for: giving, communicating, offering friendship, injuring, appealing. "Above all," the voiceover says, "they can create Hitchcock furniture, made one piece at a time." The spot ends with the Hitchcock logo and a listing of its five Connecticut locations. There is no tagline. "The temptation with furniture advertising is to throw it in a house and bring in a nuclear family," said agency creative director Michael Hammond. "But there is a sense of something special [with Hitchcock furniture]. The pride everyone took was everything they were about." KGA won the six-figure account in June. The agency is handling both creative and media planning and buying chores. The spots are running throughout the Nutmeg State on both major network affiliates and cable programming. Supporting the television effort are direct mail materials as well as a print execution that ran in the Connecticut edition of The New York Times' Home section. One component of the direct mailer is a card with two hands on the front. On the reverse is written, "You're looking at the two most important tools used to make heirloom quality furniture." The company started in 1824 with the design of the Hitchcock chair. More than 100 years later, it expanded its line to include wood furniture and, later, a complete range of wood and upholstered furniture for the home. "I felt like I was in a movie," Hammond said of his first visit to Hitchcock's picturesque headquarters in the Connecticut hills. "We wanted to convey the pride that everyone took in the product and create a made-in-Connecticut feeling--that this isn't just furniture that's slapped together in North Carolina." --Sarah Jones Client: The United Way of Massachusetts Bay, Boston Agency: Arnold Communications, Boston Creative Director: Jay Williams Copywriter: Mark Moll Art Director: Josh Blasingame Producer: Jim Vaughan Production Co.: Red Tree Productions Director: Richard Klug Photography: Margaret Cain Editorial: Panache Editor: Colin Cameron Engraving/Printing: Uni-Graphics and Ad+ Making an emotional appeal to donors who contribute in the workplace is the objective of the 1998-99 United Way of Massachusetts Bay campaign created by Arnold Communications in Boston. "Because donors' contributions are made at work by paycheck deductions, sometimes they don't feel as emotionally connected to the United Way as they might to a local homeless shelter or AIDS prevention program that they also give money to," said Arnold account executive Heather Reed. Each ad in the television, print and outdoor campaign feature a true story of how a group or individual was served by either the United Way or one of the many nonprofit organizations it supports each year. Several executions tell of how three sixth-grade students at the William P. Connery School in Boston started a violence prevention program. In print ads, two girls with a don't-mess-with-me look on their faces are clad in T-shirts that read: "Erase the Hate." The ads' headline: "Prevented More Guns Than a Metal Detector." The campaign is one of the largest locally produced and distributed pro bono efforts. Participants donate time and services and, with the exception of the outdoor ads, all time and space is free. Discounted rates are paid to place the outdoor executions. Arnold has contributed to the United Way's annual fundraising campaign for the past three years, Reed said. --Judy Warner

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