IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOUR animal companion is a cat, dog, fish, hamster or iguana. All pet owners have something in common: They need stuff. Lots of stuff. Kibble, brushes, beds, habitrails, heartworm medicine, squeaky toys

Nestlé USA, Glendale, CA, this month delivers via e-mail the final clue in a 10-week Great Friskies Internet Treasure Hunt.

Players combine the 10 weekly clues to determine the Web site which holds the treasure; the first player to log onto the site wins a session with pet photographer Jim Dratfield after a New York City spa makeover (one for the winner, another for his pet). Ten first-place winners get a year’s supply of Friskies food; all contestants who reach the site are “immortalized” in the Friskies Treasure Hunters Hall of Fame.

The game is a first for Friskies, which cut media advertising markedly in 2001. The brand recruited players through its Web site, mydailycartoon.com, which sends pet-related e-mail cartoons to subscribers. The sites of seven partners including Amazon.com, Shering-Plough, the American Humane Association, and Google.com were added to the treasure hunt route in exchange for links to mydailycartoon.com.

In its first two weeks, the treasure hunt garnered nearly 10,000 players, or about 20 percent of the site’s 50,000 subscribers. Friskies plans two or three hunts per year, with bigger prizes and more partner sites in the future. Last year, Nestlé used the site to raise $25,000 for the Humane Association by making a 10-cent donation each time a subscriber forwarded a cartoon to a friend.

The site and treasure hunt were created by Tannen Consulting International, New York City, which is led by former ad executives Peter Tannen and Norman Freedman. Nestlé helped fund development for the hunt, which Tannen is pitching to other marketers with the company’s blessing. A hunt costs between $25,000 and $100,000 to operate.

The QSR units of Anaheim, CA-based CKE Restaurants are teaming with New York City-based Scholastic Entertainment for a kids’ meal campaign that will run in 4,000 Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. locations and dispense an estimated six million premiums over the course of 2002.

Five toys based on Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus will be offered through mid-year, with a new slate unveiled later to keep the program fresh. Bookmarks, door hangers, and activity booklets will be distributed all year long. P-O-P displays and activities on scholastic.com, carlscoolkids.com, and hardeescoolkids.com will support. Newport Beach, CA-based CDM handles.

“This is an unprecedented initiative for Carl’s Jr. and Hardees [because] it will run all year long in between other license-based promotions,” says Linda Larsen, CKE’s director of brand marketing “We selected The Magic School Bus because it is a meaningful and relevant.”

Volvo Cars of North America and Redmond, WA-based Microsoft’s MSN division last month launched a 12-month campaign that will culminate with the online debut of the Irvine, CA-based car maker’s XC90 sport utility vehicle. The effort features special MSN content areas for Volvo owners, a virtual showroom for potential customers, a downloadable Volvo Internet browser, and as-yet unnamed quarterly promotions. It began with an XP Peak Performance sweepstakes offering a Volvo S60 as grand prize.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola’s Sprite is giving up the contents of National Basketball Association star Kobe Bryant’s gym locker in an under-the-cap sweeps flagged on 180 million bottles. Two winners score autographed gear, a laptop computer and other electronics products, a motor scooter, $5,000, and tickets to a Los Angeles Lakers game. Secondary prizes include NBA apparel and free product. Upshot, Chicago, handles. Separately, Sprite is partnering with the New York City-based NBA on an All-Star Balloting program featuring a drive-the-vote message on 40 million two- and three-liter bottles. Momentum, St. Louis, handles. Both campaigns run through Jan. 31.

General Mills ratcheted up its long-running Box Tops for Education program by introducing a co-branded Visa card that lets consumers earmark one percent of all purchases as a donation to the school of their choice (up to $10,000 per school per year). The Minneapolis-based CPG also added an online Box Tops for Education Marketplace, a portal with 100-plus participating retailers including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Eddie Bauer, and PetsMart that will donate up to 10 percent of purchases to schools.

Irvine, CA-based ConAgra Foods’ Orville Redenbacher’s line has tied with Universal City, CA-based Universal Studios for an on-pack Family Night Instant-Win Game serving home video gift certificates. One in seven boxes carry a certificate that can be redeemed for $10 off one of 35 video titles. Ten boxes deliver a “hometown movie preview” of an upcoming Universal film for the winner and 250 guests.

Dallas-based Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex brand celebrates its role as Official Facial Tissue of the 2002 Winter Olympics this month with commemorative cartons and limited-edition Kleenex Ultrasoft Pocket Packs containing gamepieces awarding trips to the Salt Lake City Games. Additional prizes include trips to past Olympic host cities, digital cameras, and branded Olympic merchandise. Support includes a pair of FSIs dropping Feb. 3 and Feb. 10.

After more than a year of offering targeted coupons on cash register receipts, Dallas-based Blockbuster, Inc. last month upgraded its checkout coupon program with the addition of a point-based component. Consumers who use Freebie Smart Offer coupons will now earn points redeemable for free rentals and other merchandise from Blockbuster and participating partners including Dallas/Fort Worth neighbors Pizza Hut and RadioShack. Accumulated points appear on receipts and can be tracked at freebie.com. Active Freebie members are entered into a sweepstakes offering a grand prize of 100 million points — which would score 40,000 free rentals.

Auburn Hills, MI-based Chrysler Group’s marketing department in November switched gears on an ersatz tie-in to blockbuster film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. After publicly announcing an offer for Harry audiobooks (from New York City-based Random House’s Listening Library) to consumers who test-drive a 2002 Town & Country or Voyager minivan, the company quietly changed the incentive to four movie tickets “that can be used to see Harry Potter” or a $50 gift certificate from Nashua, NH-based retailer Brookstone. A Chrysler spokesperson confirmed that the effort “had changed,” but declined to comment on whether Burbank, CA-based Warner Bros. — which holds all licensing rights to the film — demanded it.

Off-price retailer Marshalls, Framingham, MA, struck a deal with Nashville-based TBA Entertainment Corp. to become exclusive presenting sponsor of An Evening with Jaci Velasquez. Marshalls will run discount-ticket offers and other in-store promotions to support the Latino singer’s 17-market tour, which launched in December with a Christmas concert in Houston.

Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee, is taking Miller Lite on a “Texperience,” a mobile tour traveling across Texas to raise money for college scholarships and awareness for the brand’s support of local sports and music. The tour features two trucks that form a 7,225-square-foot “pavilion” boasting interactive games, a music stage, a boxing ring, and a mini-brewery tour. It will visit such events as the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo Fiesta and the Texas State Fair. Miller Lite will donate $1 for every visitor (up to $100,000) to state college scholarship programs. GMR Marketing, New Berlin, WI, handles.

Call him a chili dog. New York City-based Scholastic Entertainment signed a deal with Hormel Foods, Austin, MN, that will put Clifford the Big Red Dog on millions of Kid’s Kitchen microwave meals through June. Packaging includes four collectable stickers and an SLO for a free book with three proofs of purchase (plus shipping and handling). An FSI hits 42 million homes Jan. 6