This month, Hewson Bridge and Smith of Ottawa launched its first North American campaign for Kao Infosystems, using computer and general business magazines.

Up until two years ago, Hewson Bridge had the Canadian assignment for the maker of computer diskettes for seven years.

At that time North American marketing responsibilities for the company were moved to the Plymouth, Mass. office and the advertising to a Boston agency.

Kao was dissatisfied with the results, and earlier this year, Hewson Bridge was given a shot at the North American business.

It won the review and beat out three agencies from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and California.

Kao has its headquarters in Arnprior, Ont., near Ottawa, and also handles Canadian manufacturing there.

u.s. manufacturing takes place in Plymouth.

The print campaign will run for a year, and has been customized for each country by building on the ‘Made in Canada’ and ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ labels the product wears and using the symbol in each ad.

The series of four, one-third-page vertical ads has been designed to run singly or on consecutive pages.

The theme is ‘Kao. Extreme Quality.’

The quality of the Kao product is illustrated by highlighting four high-profile users of Kao diskettes: Microsoft uses Kao for Windows; Lotus for Lotus 1-2-3; Novell for its Netware product; and Apple for its system software.

One of the ads shows visuals of diskettes from all four of the software companies along with the copy: ‘Demand Kao quality. You’re in good company.’

The ad featuring Lotus reads: ‘How did Kao diskettes become so dependable? It’s as easy as 1-2-3.’

Another says: ‘For a good view of Kao quality, simply install Windows.’

Creative credits go to Gord Smith, creative director; Yannis Souris, art director; and Eric Smith, copywriter.

$6M campaign for Levi’s

levi Strauss & Co. (Canada) is targetting males aged 15-24 with a $6-million advertising campaign for Levi’s Loose Fitting Jeans through to the end of the Christmas holiday season.

tv spots run nationally for 11 weeks, with the out-of-home portion scheduled for 20 weeks.

Six tv commercials have been created by Levi’s u.s. agency Foote Cone Belding, San Francisco, consisting of four 30-second spots; a 60-second to air exclusively on MuchMusic and MusiquePlus; and a 90-second to run during high profile specials.

Levi’s Canadian agency, Harrod & Mirlin of Toronto, adapted five out-of-home executions and the point-of-sale material for the Canadian market.

Visuals of acrobatic young men wearing the loose jeans dominate the ads.

A red stylized stick-man symbol that says ‘loose’ along the arms is teamed up with the red-and-white Levi’s logo to one side of each execution.

Advertising appears on Murads, Urbanlights and omni and Mediacom Superboards in key downtown areas of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

A dramatic display has also been placed in the SkyWalk at Toronto’s SkyDome throughout the baseball season.

At Harrod & Mirlin, credits go to Brian Harrod, creative director; Bob Goulart, art director; Margaret Freitas, creative services manager; and Anne Wood, media group head.

Hostess on a steamroll

next week, Hostess Frito-Lay launches ‘Steamroller’ starring comedic actor Chevy Chase.

The 30-second tv spot will be aired in English Canada only for a three-week rotation to replace ‘Crunch Concerto,’ the 30-second spot that introduced new Doritos Tortilla Thins tortilla chips last month.

‘Crunch Concerto’ runs until mid-September in Quebec, but ends next week elsewhere.

‘Steamroller’ was directed by Joe Pytka.

Both commercials were created by BBDO New York, with Canadian placement by McKim Media.