Lilo & Stitch Featured in Latest NAA Literacy Ad

Characters from "Lilo & Stitch," a new animated feature from Disney, are the latest family-movie stars to tout the benefits of reading the newspaper in literacy ads from the Newspaper Association of America.

The first of two ads features the title characters. Lilo, a lonely Hawaiian girl, is pictured reading a newspaper, while Stitch, the small odd- looking alien she adopts initially thinking he is a dog, watches her. The headline of the ad reads "Don't let your little ones feel alien-ated. Teach them to read a newspaper every day." The copy continues "Stitch says before you tuck your little ones in, share a newspaper with them. It's a great way to bring the entire family together. Besides, if they're going to live on this planet, they might as well learn about it!"

The ad is currently available in black-and-white and color versions for two-column, half, quarter and full-page, in standard and 50-inch web formats. A second ad will be available on June 21, the day of the movie's release.

The "Lilo & Stitch" ads are part of NAA's ongoing ad campaign encouraging young people to read. Previous ads have featured characters from the movies "Ice Age," "Beauty and the Beast," "Monsters Inc.," "Shrek," "Cats & Dogs," "Final Fantasy," "Chicken Run," and "Stuart Little."

"As kids connect with the characters from these movies, we have an outstanding opportunity to reach out to children and their parents to convey the wonderful shared experience of reading a newspaper together," said John Kimball, NAA senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

NAA is a nonprofit organization representing the $55 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. Headquartered in Tysons Corner (Vienna, Va.), the Association focuses on six key strategic priorities that affect the newspaper industry collectively: marketing, public policy, diversity, industry development, newspaper operations and readership. Information about NAA and the industry may also be found at the Association's World Wide Web site on the Internet (http://www.naa.org).

--Posted June 11, 2002
Source: Newspaper Association of America