A national poster and online advertising campaign for Fish4, the family of online consumer services, broke on 8 May.

The £1.3 million campaign, phase two of the £20 million marketing spend for 2000, will run until 18 June. "The Fish", the friendly character who was first seen on posters all over the country in February, has returned and is joined by new characters who demonstrate the functions of the cars, homes and jobs web sites.

The new creative treatments feature a frog who gets himself a new pad through Fish4homes, a turtle who finds a new set of wheels on Fish4cars and a swordfish who uses Fish4jobs to find his perfect job as a carpenter.

Fish4shopping will also be advertised separately for the first time, following the re-design of the channel. A fourth character will join "The Fish" in the advertising - a squid, with tentacles full of shopping bags. Since its launch in January, the shopping site has gone from strength to strength, and will now have dedicated areas for each shopping category, along with special offers which change daily.

The campaign began with 6-sheet posters at 1,357 sites targeting commuters at major railway stations. The following week a massive online campaign supporting the creative started across many web sites including Excite, Yahoo and Lycos. The national poster campaign has also begun, using 48-sheet posters in 2,500 sites in major conurbations and areas of high Internet users across the country.

The new adverts are also running in the regional press, in run of paper as well as tactical advertising in the relevant classified sections. "Using the fish character elicited a huge response and recall rate when he appeared in January," commented Jonathan Lines, sales and marketing director for Fish4. The new characters will add to the user-friendly appeal of the web site, and demonstrate what each channel can do. The Fish4 brand is extending beyond cars, homes and jobs, as the success achieved by the Fish4shopping channel shows."

Bentley Advertising and Design is the creative agency and CIA Media Solutions in Manchester is handling the media planning and buying. Maiden Outdoor is one of the contractors for the national posters, and AdRail for the transport posters.

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