By the time the Olympics' opening ceremonies begin Friday night, NBC officials will have tried virtually every trick in the book — short of free tacos — to get young adults to tune in.

To name a few: flashy e-mail, glitzy Web sites, shows on wheels, heaps of celebrities, hip music and MTV tie-ins.

Desperate to get the free-spending 18- to 34-year-olds to watch the Salt Lake Games, NBC is pulling out all the stops. The push comes at a time when youth interest in the Olympics is waning and viewership has been falling.

"The Olympics is at hope's edge, in terms of loss of relevancy (with youth)," says Marian Salzman, young trends guru at Euro RSCS.

But NBC officials are certain they can bring back young adults. "They're a segment our advertisers want," says Gary Zenkel, executive vice president of NBC Olympics. "We think we can get them in front of their sets."

Here's how:



• E-mails. Earlier this week, NBC started bombarding millions of young adults with promotional e-mail. The flashy e-mails open to a page with video promoting the events.

An estimated 7 million young adults will get at least one e-mail. An e-mail promoting the opening ceremonies went earlier this week to 5 million. The group was to get another e-mail Thursday night that hypes Olympic concerts.

NBC executives also can glean lots of information from these e-mails — including who opened them, who used the e-mail to link to the NBC Web site and even how many of the e-mails were forwarded to friends. So far, an impressive 4% of the e-mails have been forwarded, says Susan White, CEO of Whitespeed, which created the e-mail campaign for NBC.

• Web site. NBC hired Circle.com to create a zippy, youth-oriented Web site, HotSnow.com. The site features rock music and many of the most popular young athletes. It also has a link from NBC's Web site.

• Channel One. NBC struck a deal with Channel One to feature Olympic segments in its in-school broadcasts.

• Roadshow. Two RVs, one based on the East Coast and one on the West, have gone to concerts, colleges and ski areas promoting the Games. Each vehicle comes with a big sound system and lots of giveaways, such as T-shirts and hats.

• Let's party. To reach the college crowd, NBC teamed with Coke and the Burly Bear Network, a cable channel that reaches 75 campuses. It will host opening ceremony parties at student unions and bars near colleges.

• NBC on MTV. NBC is airing Olympic commercials on MTV. It also is giving MTV special access to Olympic events of keen interest to young adults for several features that MTV will air.