Bull's-eye! Target has had its run-of-the-mill signage forever, but only in the past year, with an omnipresent series of street and magazine ads, has it elevated its logo to iconic status -- a retail symbol as recognizable as Tiffany's robin's-egg-blue box. So successful were Target's efforts to rack up street cred that by year's end the logo could stand entirely on its own: New York City construction sites are, at the moment, plastered with street posters that are nothing more than a giant red bull's-eye.

Meanwhile, Evian used street posters and a series of print ads to update its brand from a symbol of eighties excess to . . . a symbol of nineties excess. In one ad, a woman luxuriates in a bathtub, surrounded by Evian empties; in another, a woman pampers her goldfish with "L'original." (In an era of IPO-fueled conspicuous consumption, the campaign rings almost too true.)

A more sober -- but equally effective -- use of a street campaign to bolster a brand is TheStreet.com's use of posters featuring little more than a green Swiss Army knife and some cleverly obvious tag lines ("Why take on Wall Street with your bare hands?"). How refreshing: a dot-com ad that actually has a point.

If Calvin Klein had a point this year, it was that he had a stranglehold on hip and emerging musicians and artists -- from Foxy Brown to Julia Stiles -- all of whom signed up to appear in his jeans campaign. (Everybody in lucrative endorsement deals!) As that campaign carries on, though, Calvin has returned his attention to his first love: dewy adolescents, who stare out at you from his cK one fragrance ads like puppies and kittens in North Shore Animal League ads. (Won't you take me home?) The ads are getting a big year-end push in all the fashion glossies: heavy-stock inserts that serve as locker-ready pinups, complete with cK one scent strips and e-mail addresses for the models. Get it? It's an "interactive" campaign.

A deeply weird interactive campaign, at that -- but one that makes most of the year's real e-campaigns seem all the more tone-deaf. Write to Ian at ian@cKone.com, and "he" writes back about himself. (You're supposed to get caught up in his life, soap-opera-style.) Just last week, for example, Ian sent out an inscrutable missive that had something to do with scraping by and working in a restaurant. "I am so broke," he laments. "LOVE and seduction are expensive."

Tell us about it, Ian.

Related:

• Archive: “The City Politic”
• Articles by Simon Dumenco
• Table of Contents: Dec 20, 1999 issue of New York | Subscribe!