Like many other stars this election season, Virginia Madsen traveled the country, taped a public service announcement and gave extensive media interviews to promote voter registration.

The effort is in the name of the League of Women Voters � and Botox, for which Madsen serves as a spokeswoman.

This marriage of celebrity, campaign and consumer product is quite commonplace this election year.

Companies such as Pizza Hut, Mountain Dew, McDonald�s, MTV, IFC and Lifetime have weighed in � careful to promote voter involvement but not to endorse any candidate.

Corporate America is turning to this election as a marketing opportunity, a way to engage consumers with their brands. The conventional wisdom that the election is generating a new level of interest � particularly among younger voters, women and African-Americans � is driving many of the efforts to catch some of the campaign season�s star dust.

The downside is a glut of election awareness. The extensive news coverage of the past year, along with accelerating product tie-ins, runs the risk of a backlash � that the American public will be so fatigued by the campaign that they will lose interest long before the Nov. 4 election.

There�s little sign of worry among major brands. The upcoming political conventions will offer visitors a parade of corporate logos. Even the venues carry a plug: the Democrats will meet at the Pepsi Center in Denver and the GOP at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

Beyond that, a report from the Campaign Finance Institute shows more than 80 corporate sponsors for the Denver host committee, and 52 for the St. Paul committee � turning the events into kind of a Comic-Con for causes, luring conventioneers with film fests, panels, cocktail parties, concerts and even a fashion show.

A Denver bash for Bono�s nonpartisan ONE campaign, with Kanye West headlining, has drawn 15 corporate sponsors, including Comcast, Time Warner, the Walt Disney Co. and Viacom. And in true Hollywood fashion, corporate sponsors will donate dozens of items to be placed into welcome bags � emblazoned with the Coca Cola and AT&T logos. (The latter raised eyebrows from progressive bloggers upset over the recent passage of telecom immunity.)

Botox�s participation has its origins in Madsen�s meetings with various women�s groups, to which she promoted the safe use of the Allergan product.

�You would get 200 women in a room and it would turn into this huge discussion,� Madsen says. �Many times, the conversation would turn political.�

The result is a campaign called �Freedom of Expression Through Film,� and Allergan sponsorship of the League�s vote411.org Website.

Pizza Hut launched an ad campaign featuring candidates making funny statements, and another that urged college-age auds to vote and, of course, to buy its pizzas. Mountain Dew is in the midst of a �DEWmocracy� poll: Cast your vote for the next flavor of the soft drink.

Cable channels from MTV to IFC to Lifetime are doing everything from conducting their own polling to sending crews to cover the campaign trail and conventions.

All this corporate involvement is signaled in the offers of co-sponsorship coming into the League of Women Voters. Its president, Mary Wilson, says �interest has been very, very huge� among brands offering their support.

Lucas Conley, author of �Obsessive Branding Disorder: OBD: The Illusion of Business and the Business of Illusion,� predicts an �election hangover,� but says that with voter registration off the charts, marketers can�t ignore the wealth of new voters.

�This is a great target for marketers, the sweet spot of 18- to 24-year-olds.�

Declare Yourself, founded by Norman Lear, has more than 30 corporate sponsors for its voter registration effort aimed at 18- to 29-year-olds. �It is a phenomenon this year where a lot of corporations do want to participate in this historic moment, and to do good,� says Marc Morgenstern, the org�s executive director.

The efforts come with some peril. Even before his Hawaiian vacation, Barack Obama signaled that voters need a break from the daily election back-and-forth. There are signs that he�s suffering from his own overexposure. In a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press poll, 48% of respondents said they had �been hearing too much about Obama lately,� compared to 26% said the same about John McCain.

And there is the obvious corporate concern over partisanship. Wal-Mart had to engage in some spin control after the Wall Street Journal reported that some managers were warning that a vote for Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in.

Even what look to be innocent entrees into the election process can get caught up in the election fray. Upstart cable channel TV One drew some flack among TV critics when it announced it would have a presence at the Democratic National Convention � but not the Republican.

�We are not a news organization,� CEO Johnathan Rodgers told critics in July, according to press accounts. �We are a television network designed to celebrate African-American achievement. If Hillary was the nominee, we would not be covering this year�s Democratic convention.�

Yet most marketers view the efforts as bearing little if any risk.

Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, a research consulting firm based in New York, says, �In the same way that companies leap into the Olympics, the same is true of the election.�

The efforts to capture a piece of the electoral process is not entirely new. Going back to the 1940s, stores tied sales to Election Day. As Jimmy Carter faced Gerald Ford in the general election of 1976, Trix cereal staged a contest in which kids flooded General Mills with mail-in votes on whether the mascot rabbit would get a bowl of cereal.

But the branding this cycle is far more elaborate.

Since late last year, Lifetime has been engaged in a campaign called �Every Woman Counts,� hosting forums and speeches, leading voter registration efforts, producing �If I were president � � YouTube videos and sponsoring a bus tour that is traveling the country, including stops at both conventions, among other things.

Compared to their efforts in past election cycles, Lifetime has drawn considerable attention with some of their polling, conducted by Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. A recent survey showed that neither candidate has yet captured a majority of women likely voters, although Obama led McCain 49% to 38%.

Meredith Wagner, exec VP of public affairs for Lifetime, pointed to the network�s research showing that 84% of women surveyed and 91% of women 18-34 held positive feelings toward the brand because of the cabler�s work on issues.

Some 81% of women said that Lifetime�s commitment to causes was �very or somewhat important� to their decision to watch the cabler, up from 71% in 2004.

�We do have empirical evidence that our advocacy in general has affected the brand, in that we do have a high level of trust,� Wagner said. �We select issues and agendas that are important to women. We speak to them in a language that is respectful and thoughtful. We are also very careful to be absolutely over-the-top bipartisan.�

For one thing, the network stayed out of weighing in on whether there was gender bias in Hillary Clinton�s candidacy � other than to query it in its polling. The results showed that the majority of women voters laid the blame for Hillary�s loss on her shoulders and that of her campaign strategists, and largely rejected gender as a cause.

Likewise, MTV has done its best to maintain neutrality, even as Obama�s candidacy resonates among young voters.

Its Choose or Lose campaign has expanded well beyond voter registration into such things as the MTV/MySpace presidential dialogues, a series of forums in which a live audience and online viewers could pose questions to the likes of McCain, Clinton and Obama.

What was telling was the level of interest going into the election, says Ian Rowe, senior vice president of strategic partnerships and public affairs for MTV. When the cabler asked its audience whether it was following the race, 58% in 2007 answered affirmatively, compared with 35% in 2003. The figure, he said, is now up to 81%.

�It became quite clear that registering didn�t need to be our sole goal, because we already had a very much engaged population of young people,� he says.

A considerable focus of its Choose or Lose Website has been on the plight of returning veterans, with polling showing that nearly 70% of their audience knows someone who has fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. Kanye West recently appeared in a YouTube video that spotlighted returning soldiers.

�Even beyond Choose or Lose,� Rowe adds, �if there is something that is important to our audience, then it is important to MTV.�

Companies also are mindful about the shaky economy: When times are good, brands don�t have the same urgency �for something to hang their hat on,� Passikoff notes.

�They are hoping that people are going to be attending to the election rather than something else they might have been investing their money in,� he says.

Pizza Hut�s ads were designed to highlight the affordability of its new Pizza Mia, along with a touch of irreverence about the candidates.

One spot riffed on Dennis Kucinich�s admission during a presidential debate that he saw a UFO. Some of his supporters vowed to boycott the chain, but it became a moot point when he dropped out early in the race.

Nor did it matter to sales.

�We definitely saw sales lift,� says Pizza Hut spokesman Chris Fuller. �It was a successful product launch for us.�

New election-themed Pizza Hut spots are �a definite possibility.�

A warning, then, to both Obama and McCain: The chain could be serving them a more humble pie this fall.