Sesame uses food promos to reach kids

In celebration of the Street’s 35th anniversary this year, Sesame Workshop is working the promo scene pretty hard. The company has hooked up with Pizza Hut to entice teachers and caregivers to read aloud to preschoolers with a broad program called BOOK IT! Beginners. Starting in March, more than 35,000 schools and childcare facilities will receive a free pack of reading activities that feature Grover and Zoe. Kids keep track of the books read aloud to them on a poster (teachers are encouraged to clock in 60 minutes a week), and when they’ve completed the program after eight weeks, they can trade it in for a free pizza and a sticker at any one of Pizza Hut’s 6,500-plus locations.

After three years without a regular advertising agency, the Workshop has decided to give its business to a new start-up called mono. Headed up by Michael Hart and Chris Lange (both former group creative directors from Fallon Worldwide) and ex-Carmichael Lynch exec Jim Scott, the small shop is aiming to run under a horizontal staff structure that puts small teams in charge of everything to do with a limited number of accounts.

Rainbow Brite heads to cyberspace on nickjr.com

Toy Play is running a web sweeps on www.nickjr.com for its relaunched ’80s icon Rainbow Brite. Kids can enter on-line until the end of March to take a shot at winning a five-day trip for four to Orlando and a VIP tour of Nick Studios. Second prize is one of 500 Rainbow Brite dolls, and every kid who enters gets a cool screensaver. Toy Play’s choice of venue should help drive up the entry quota. Nick Jr. attracts more than three million unique visitors each year, 1.8 million of them moms with one or more children, according to Nielsen Net Rating April 2003 and @ Plan Spring 2003 Release.