BOGOTA, Colombia — For a few giddy weeks, a rich American bachelor named Bob Harris was the fantasy of legions of Colombian women — and even a few men.

Six thousand sent e-mails and checked him out on the Internet.

Five times that many dialed a toll-free number, pining to meet the blond, tanned executive who raced cars, abstained from vice, and sought a Colombian bride to share his lonely mansion in Virginia.

Alas, none of it was true, the heartbroken masses found out this week.

The adventurous gringo whose Web site, television spots, and magazine and newspaper classifieds exalting Colombian women's "Latin flavor" was the invention of a deceptive advertising campaign to sell cars.

The campaign drawing attention to the launch of a new Renault sedan has some crying foul. How, critics say, could anyone so callously prey on women's dreams of love, riches and an escape from their war-torn country?

But the young Colombian advertising executives who came up with the idea are patting themselves on the back.

"We've sold more cars in the first three days than we expected to in a month," said Jose Miguel Sokoloff of the Lowe Partners agency in Bogota.

Renault's marketing director in Colombia also defended the campaign, even if it did bruise some feelings. "We never meant to make fun of them, far from that," Miguel Rojo y Pinto said in an interview.

The fictional Bob burst onto the scene March 11. Colombia was bombarded with TV spots and print ads laying bare his desire for a Colombian woman between 30 and 35 to form a "loving and affectionate" family.

"Hi, I'm Bob Harris. I'm 39 years old," read one of the ads, complete with a photo of Bob in a blue blazer and yellow tie. "I'm solvent, faithful, sincere and romantic. I don't drink or smoke, and I love to dance merengue and salsa."

At a Web site giving his zodiac sign as Pisces, Bob claims to be a telecommunications consultant who learned Spanish in Venezuela and Costa Rica. But never in his travels had Bob encountered anything like Colombian women, with their special "beauty, latin flavor and values."

A picture gallery on the site shows Bob in many poses: in his roadster at the track, holding up a cocktail outside a white mansion and posing alongside "my brother Alex, a Mormon missionary."

A week after the campaign began, an editorial in Bogota's El Tiempo newspaper warned there could be a white slavery ring at work. It asked darkly: "Who is this Bob Harris and what does he really want?"

Still, many women went for the bait.

"I am from a very well appointed family in Medellin, raised with values of love and tolerance," read one hopeful e-mail sent to an address listed on the Web page set up secretly by Sokoloff.

"I've got a good body because I go to the gym everyday...my hair is long and intensely black," another of the e-mails said.

On Monday, the truth came out — just as the advertisers planned.

Bob, played by a British oil worker in Colombia who is dabbling in acting, appeared in a new set of ads announcing the Renault car release and revealing that he already has a Colombian wife and family. The campaign was based on a simple idea, said Sokoloff, the advertising executive: building suspense and then tying that to a product.

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Some women were aghast.

"This is bad taste, to take advantage of people's hopes of forming a family and finding a better life," said Anita Cendales, a bakery worker who had seen the TV ads while watching her favorite soap opera.

As a consolation prize, one of the thousands of women who wrote to Bob will be awarded a new Renault.


On the Net: Advertisers' set: www.soybobharris.com/espectativa

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