Clothestime Will Serenade Young Music Fans : Advertising: The women’s wear retailer is trying a 5-week campaign, budgeted at nearly $1 million, on MTV and a sister station.

In a bid to lure more young women to its stores, Clothestime Inc. launched a national advertising campaign last week on MTV-Music Television and its all-music companion aimed at older audiences, VH-1.

The five-week campaign, budgeted at less than $1 million of the company’s $14-million annual ad budget, is aimed at testing whether the all-music video stations can boost Clothestime’s sales.

Clothestime Chairman John Ortega II and officials of the cable stations’ parent company, MTV Networks Inc., said Tuesday that the campaign marks the first time that a women’s off-price retail chain has launched a national schedule of advertising entirely on the two cable TV stations.

MTV and VH-1 have the right demographics to reach Clothestime customers, he said.

“We know they (MTV and VH-1) have strong, young 12- to 34-year-old females” in their audiences, Ortega said. Surveys in Clothestime stores reveal that 70% of its customers say they watch MTV or VH-1.

MTV officials said they, too, think that the campaign holds a lot of potential.

“We’ve very excited about them trying this,” said Harriet Shultz, MTV’s director of advertising sales on the West Coast. “This is an opportunity for us to show (retailers) how exciting the network can be.”

Ortega said the campaign should be effective in reaching into markets, such as Chicago or Philadelphia, where Clothestime has only a few stores, making regional television advertising too expensive. Clothestime already runs extensive local television advertising in regions, such as Southern California, where it has many stores.

Despite the benefits, Ortega acknowledges that half of the media buy will be wasted: many cities served by MTV and VH-1 do not have any Clothestime stores. That is part of the reason why the ad campaign is only a test at present, Ortega said. And the ads will display a toll-free telephone number so consumers can call and find out whether there is a store near them.

The Clothestime ads, designed by the Los Angeles firm of ICG Group, will feature a version of a commercial that has recently aired in Southern California. In the spots, models wearing the 1960s-style clothing take turns popping out of animated flowers.