Nike, Coke ring in the New Year with call to fitness ads

NEW YORK -- Getting in shape is the perennial New Year's resolution that brings a surge in ads for Weight Watchers, gym memberships and fad diets. Joining them in ringing in the new year with a call to fitness will be Nike and Coke.

Friday, Coca-Cola ko will announce a two-year deal beginning Tuesday with cable on-demand fitness network ExerciseTV. A deal for undisclosed terms will place Coke's Enviga green tea and brand images on some of the channel's 200 workout shows and create original Enviga programming. Enviga claims to help burn calories by speeding up metabolism with green tea extracts and caffeine. Three daily servings can increase calories burned by 60 to 100, the company says.

"We're kicking it off big around New Year's because that is when the sponsorship starts, and we're concentrating on the fact that it's a great time for resolutions," says Greg Downey, group director of entertainment marketing for Coke North America.

Nike nke returns as a title sponsor for MTV's viab New Year's celebration and will kick off a TV ad and billboard fitness campaign around its "No Excuses" theme.

Throughout MTV's Tila Tequila's New Year's Eve Masquerade 2008, Nike will air a 60-second ad with U.S. Paralympics basketball player Matt Scott. He sits in an empty gym bouncing two basketballs powerfully while rattling off excuses people use to duck workouts, such as "I can't right now," and "I'm tired."

"If you don't find this inspirational then you better check for a pulse," says Nike spokesman Dean Stoyer.

"There's no better way to deliver an inspiring message of health and fitness for the new year to the youth of America than through MTV," Stoyer says. "These are the days when commitments toward a healthier lifestyle are most often made and subsequently broken. Nike is hoping to change that tradition."

Also trying to do that — at least through January — will be a giant Nike billboard going up Monday in Manhattan. Its motivational messages will change throughout the month. The first: "Yesterday you said tomorrow."

Trend-watcher Marian Salzman at ad agency JWT says that Coke and Nike are seizing a good opportunity to offer people a positive, action-oriented message as they try to move on from 2007's credit crunch, housing slump, declining dollar and other woes.

"The news is so severe and negative," Salzman says. "The brands that can have fun with being functional are the ones that are going to stand out."