America Online is set to unveil a new multi-million dollar ad campaign this week to help drive new punters to its AOL Latino service.

The six month campaign - to be run on TV, radio and the Internet - will be backed up with other promotional activities to help AOL shift its software and sign up new users. For instance, as part of grass roots marketing scheem AOL is also planning to take its technology to the streets of Miami and Chicago to give people a hands-on experience of what's on offer.

Mercy Lugo-Struthers, AOL Latino's director of Hispanic marketing, told Internet ad site clickz.com: "Our research indicates that Hispanics need additional information and support to help bring them online."

The bilingual AOL Latino was launched in October last year capitalising on the fact that US Hispanic Internet users are the country's fastest-growing community online, with around 14m Hispanic Net users in the US and numbers currently experiencing double-digit growth.

According to the giant ISP: "The new AOL Latino appeals to both bilingual and Spanish-dominant speakers, who will have access to all the existing English language content on the AOL service in addition to the exclusive new Spanish features and programming for no extra charge."

Last week AOL unveiled details of a new pay-as-you-go instant messaging service aimed at business users. Using its existing IM service, corporate users will be able to share online presentations and files while chatting to colleagues using a conference call facility. ®

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