Hasta La Creative!

Brace yourself, big marketers are getting hip to text-message lingo. In ads that begin in two weeks for a new line of Degree deodorant for teen girls, Unilever is highlighting “OMG! Moments.” Print ads running in magazines such as Seventeen and CosmoGIRL show “High School Musical” star Ashley Tisdale at a glitzy affair discovering that she has toilet paper stuck to one of her shoes.

“We wanted to show the teens that we understand them and know how they communicate with their friends,” says David Lang, president of WPP Group’s MindShare Entertainment, which created the print, TV and online effort.

The Wall Street Journal also points to “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF” — and its Web site is www.parisbff.com from MTV as another example of text messaging language making its way into pop culture.

Creative executives say not all companies can pull off a text-message campaign. “You never want to come off as the Dad that is making Nelly references to his 12-year-old as a way to look cool,” says Bill Rosen, chief creative officer of Arc, a Publicis agency.