Beauty and the Beast Characters Featured in Latest Literacy Ad

New NAA Ad Celebrates the Beauty of Reading; Beauty and the Beast Characters Featured in Latest Literacy Ad

The title characters from Walt Disney Pictures' "Beauty and the Beast" are the latest stars of the Newspaper Association of America's literacy ad campaign.

Under an image of Beauty and the Beast reading a newspaper together, the ad reads, "Reading a newspaper every day is a thing of beauty." The body copy continues, "Believe it or not, some of the most amazing stories unfold every day in a newspaper. Some have happy endings and others don't. But they all do so much to help us learn about the world we live in." The ad closes with the tagline, "It all starts with newspapers."

The literacy ad is timed to coincide with Disney's 10th anniversary release of "Beauty and the Beast" in IMAX(R) and other Giant Screen Theatres on Jan. 1.

The "Beauty and the Beast" characters are the latest in an ad campaign encouraging young people to read newspapers that includes characters from recent movies "Monsters Inc.," "Cats & Dogs," "Shrek," "Chicken Run" and "Stuart Little." The "It all starts with newspapers" campaign, featuring personalities from sports, entertainment and politics, was launched in September 1997.

"This entire campaign seems to be resonating with our members and their readers," said NAA Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer John E. Kimball. "The ads are timely and fun, and have the added benefit of getting kids and their parents excited about reading newspapers. That kind of response really makes this worthwhile."

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing the $59 billion newspaper industry and more than 2,000 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. Most NAA members are daily newspapers, accounting for 87 percent of the U.S. daily circulation.

--posted December 27, 2001

--Source: NAA.org