Ikea have done an amazing job of creating a brand that everybody considers when needing good quality cheap and cheerful furniture. We don't even have Ikea in South Africa, but we're still well aware of the brand even without mainstream advertising.

This guerrilla stunt using balconies in Frankfurt, which were made to look like storage boxes, is a cracker. In Europe, where space is at a premium - your balcony really does turn into valuable storage space. In South Africa it's often regarded as a convenient location for laundry

Ikea thinks 'out of the box' [CherryFlava]

Gizmodo: After decades of popsicle promotions that included prizes printed on the stick, Brazilian ice-cream company Kibon has taken it to a new level by including the actual prize inside the popsicle: they will manufacture 10,000 specially made propsicles, identical in size and color to the actual thing, frozen with iPod shuffles inside.

Bullet Brazil is the company that developed the idea for Unilever's Kibon, which is the Brazilian equivalent of the Good Humor ice cream brand. They started to think about it back in March with the objective of putting the shuffles directly in the hands of the prize-winner. "It works like this: the consumer buys an Fruttare popsicle which comes in 10 different fruit flavors," Neto told us, "and may find an iPod Shuffle inside the package," ready to play.

Ice Cream Company Gives Away 10,000 Frozen iPods Inside Popsicles [Gizmodo]

SheSpeaks: Do you know women control over $5 trillion in spending nationwide and are responsible for 83% of all consumer purchases?

This makes women the world’s largest economy. And you are a part of it. That means your opinion counts and can have a direct—and very—real impact.

We invite you to join SheSpeaks, a national network of smart and insightful women who have a special opportunity to test products and influence them. SheSpeaks gives you a forum to tell companies what you need, what you want, what you like and what you don’t. And, as the SheSpeaks network grows, so does the power of our collective voices.

SheSpeaks knows that smart companies care about what women have to say. We also know that companies are looking for a better way to hear valid, honest feedback by getting more of their products in front of women. That’s why we created SheSpeaks—to give women a more powerful opportunity to be heard…and to not only test, but keep the products they review along the way.

SheSpeaks
ABC news clip featuring SheSpeaks

Business 2.0: It's not enough to have your customers' eyes and ears--now you need to attract their noses too. This month, 100 gas stations in California will be trying technology that wafts coffee aroma at the pump in a bid to tempt its pay-and-go customers into the store for java.

Clear Channel, meanwhile, is experimenting with scented billboards. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal are set to offer "rub and sniff" newspaper ads. And some retailers are also preparing products with added smell. Wal-Mart is rolling out experimental DVDs with "smell-o-vision," electronic scent wafers that release the odor of a burning building, say, or a freshly fired gun, at precisely timed moments during the movie.

Gas pumps that smell like coffee [Business 2.0]

New York Times: College stinks. Just ask Emily Watson, a sophomore at Dartmouth, who sprays her dorm room once a week and her clothes two to three times a week with fresheners, usually in citrus or other fruity flavors.

Ms. Watson did not grow up using air fresheners, but a Febreze commercial two years ago changed all that. “If you’re in a frat basement or something, you kind of stink afterwards, and you want to wear your jeans the next day,” Ms. Watson said.

Younger customers like Ms. Watson are at the forefront of the boom in air fresheners, which have grown up since the first Air Wicks and Glade sprays hit the shelves two generations ago. Glade’s first sprays in evergreen and blossom scents appeared in 1956 and were marketed to suburban families as a way to banish cooking and tobacco smells. Since then, thousands of new products have made their debuts — plug-ins, fragrance fans, diffusers, flashing light shows — becoming pricier and fancier every year.

Sensing Opportunity in Dormitory Air [New York Times]

Entrepreneurial Michigan College student Peter Sauer has devised an intriguing way to earn money to pay his college expenses. Sauer created a promotional Web site named www.OneYearForSale.com, which offers exactly what it says: a year’s worth of web time at the price of $1 per minute. Buyers can display their message on the site’s home page for as many minutes as they want.

The 19-year-old Grand Valley State University sophomore came up with the idea after a dull summer of house painting. “Time is money,” Sauer says, “so why not sell it?” Sauer graduated from Okemos High School. He is majoring in business at Grand Valley.

Buyers can purchase as many or as few minutes as they like. In return the buyers get to create a message, which is then displayed on the site for each minute they purchased. The message can include a link to any Web site the customer desires.

A few possibilities:
1. Promoting a business at an affordable ad rate
2. Wishing a loved one a Happy Birthday the new-fashioned way
3. Promoting oneself to potential employers

While messages can be almost anything, Sauer encourages people to make their messages funny, unusual and/or interesting. The Web site messages, he says, could help other businesses get attention and take off. Who knows? A nicely worded marriage proposal might even lead to a lifetime of happiness. How else could consumers use their dollars? “A Coke? A 20-minute phone call? Something off of McDonald’s dollar menu,” says Sauer. Purchased minutes will start displaying on January 1, 2007 at www.OneYearForSale.com

Caffeine Marketing: A lost wallet is something you almost instantly pick up and examine if encountered on the street. You might pick it up because you’re a good Samaritan or you just want to see if there’s are cash in there for the taking.

The latest ad stunt for the movie “Du och Jag (you & I)” involved spreading wallets in the streets of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmo which have fake ID’s for the movie’s star Niklas Anderssason. I have to say the idea is clever, defenitely unique, and a good way of trick-promotion someone without making them upset.

Lost Wallet Advertising [Caffeine Marketing]

Research Magazine: At the end of a hard day’s graft, hundreds of thousands of people now choose to escape reality to spend time in Second Life – a 3D virtual world. However, one man has figured out a way to take his work with him.

Mario Menti, a solutions architect at MR software and services supplier GMI, is experimenting with ways of surveying the 282,000 active residents of this online world.

Menti – whose Second Life name is ‘Mario Sonic’ – can create objects within the game that detect the presence of another player’s avatar (or character). The avatar is then invited to touch the object to take part in a GMI survey, with questions and answers delivered through the game’s chat interface. Surveys trialled so far are “very simple”, said Menti, consisting mainly of yes/no and multiple-choice questions, however open-ended responses can also be collected. Menti believes more sophisticated implementations are possible though, including virtual product or concept testing.

GMI’s Menti builds surveys for Second Life [Research Magazine]

Marketing Magazine: Shakespeare in the Park plays, gospel concerts, bird watching, tree hugging, historical walking tours, jogging and picnics are not the first things that spring to mind when you think of cemeteries and funerals. But for Mount Royal Commemorative Services, on Montreal's Mount Royal, it's all part of bringing life to an industry long known for its deadly dull marketing.

Armed with research by Pollara, which found the single biggest thing consumers want from the funeral/ cemetery industry is information, "we decided to (use) our marketing efforts to say we're committed to educating Montrealers and consumers about the funeral and cemetery profession," says Tim Thompson, director of marketing for the non-profit cemetery and funeral complex. "We took the approach of trying to demystify the business."

Thompson, who worked in sales in the Montreal radio business for 17 years and had a brief stint in 1996 as vice-president, sales and marketing of the Montreal Alouettes, came to Mount Royal to set up its sales and marketing division.

Friendly Funerals [Marketing Magazine]

Yenra: ANI has appointed DZP Marketing Communications to lead the strategic development and repositioning of Atkins Advantage. DZP has designed a new national print campaign designed to articulate the Atkins Advantage: a unique nutrition advantage versus the competition: high fiber, high protein, vitamins, minerals, low sugar, and no trans fats.

"Our new management has streamlined operations and built a foundation for strong financial performance, enabling us to invest in the new DZP campaign which educates consumers about the nutrition advantage of our great-tasting Atkins Advantage bars and shakes," said Neumann.

"Today's consumers are better educated about nutrition than ever before; we feel Atkins Advantage provides exactly what they are looking for: better taste and better nutrition versus the competition," said Neumann. "DZP's insights and creative solutions have resulted in a comprehensive, integrated campaign that clearly positions Atkins Advantage nutrition bars and shakes."

Atkins Advantage Brand [Yenra]

BizReport.com: The images are painted directly onto building walls in urban areas, graffiti-style. Wide-eyed kids, portrayed in a stylized, comic-book rendering, pose with a mysterious, hand-size gadget. One licks his like a lollipop. Another is playing paddleball with the thing.

What looks like artful vandalism, though, is really part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for Sony's PlayStation Portable, a device that can play games, music and movies.

In major cities such as San Francisco, Miami and New York, Sony has paid building owners to use wall space for the campaign, and the images have become a familiar sight. It's the latest effort by a big corporation to capitalize on the hot world of street art to reach an urban market that has learned to tune out traditional advertising.

Nike Inc., Time magazine and even stodgy International Business Machines Corp. are among the growing list of companies that have dabbled in street art to get their marketing messages out.

The trend makes some artists squeamish even as others start marketing firms or open galleries. In Washington's Adams Morgan neighborhood, cell phone maker Nokia Corp. used sidewalk chalk drawings to promote its N-Gage, a cell phone aimed at gamers, when it launched the product in 2003.

What Looks Like Graffiti Could Really Be an Ad [BizReport.com]

Trendwatching: Take a cue from Vichy Korea (skin care): since end of last year, they've been inviting customers to blog about their experience with the Myokine anti-wrinkle product line. Consumers shared and tracked results day by day, adding updates in real time. Vichy not only 'learned', but also gave back by having skin experts answer individual questions. 9,000 people signed up for the program. Vichy France also asked its customers to pitch in on Journal de ma Peau, a blog about their 'Peel Micro Abrasion' product.

In the Netherlands, retail chain Kijkshop is recruiting webcam-testers to film their week-long use of electrical shavers, hand blenders, mobile phones and other devices. Every month, 15 to 20 webcams will be installed in kitchens, bathrooms, and living rooms across The Netherlands. Kijkshop is now putting the first 3-5 minute long movies (and reviews) online for all to see. More than 5,000 people have already expressed interest in taking part.

Virtual Anthropology [Trendwatching]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: Lynne Robinson's home in Bellevue is like any other -- ringed in flowers and shrubs, full of the sounds of a happy family of four.

But inside, an experiment is unfolding.

They call it reality marketing -- a deliberately provocative term that evokes Big Brother as much as any tawdry reality television show.

But in the Robinson home, as she bustles around her cheerful kitchen, two Ph.D.-holding sociocultural anthropologists watch her quietly, smiling and chatting when it seems appropriate.

Their mission? Observe the family's eating habits, up to a maximum of nine months, jotting down notes, compiling video clips, examining neurolinguistic word maps.

In short, they're "deconstructing everything," according to Michelle Barry, one of the research study leaders who works for a Bellevue-based market research firm, The Hartman Group Inc.

Since 1989, The Hartman Group has advised companies such as Whole Foods Market, PepsiCo and Campbell Soup Co. on issues about health and wellness and how to get close enough to the consumer to figure out what they want.

Tonight's special: Reality marketing [SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER]

Yenra: Ball Corporation is launching a new advertising medium that allows beverage can tabs and ends to carry customized messaging. The laser-incised beverage can tab is a solid, colored tab that provides space for a small billboard for brand identity and advertising.

The use of state-of-the-art computer and laser technology provides messaging flexibility, making it possible to engrave letters, numbers, drawings or symbols on the tabs. The tab's technical performance is equal to that of existing tabs.

"Laser-incised tabs provide our customers with brand identification at the moment of consumption," says Bob Tettero of Ball.

Promotional Can Tabs [Yenra]

NetImperative: EMI Music UK has tied with Yo! Sushi to provide music and video content to the conveyor belt restaurant chain.

Music content from the record label will be delivered to seven iPods and plasma screens located in two of Yo! Sushi’s newest central London restaurants, in Haymarket and Sedley Place.

The music will be updated regularly and will consist of the latest digital releases from EMI Records, Virgin Records, Parlophone and Blue Note, along with mood and genre-themed play lists.

The iPods, available in listening booths, are part of a marketing collaboration between Yo! Sushi and Apple UK.

Yo! Sushi customers get in-store iPods [NetImperative]

Trendwatching: There is no stopping the trend of creative consumers contributing to, or even owning your advertising campaigns, both authorized and behind your back. Why? To feature on a website or billboard, or have one's home-made commercial downloaded by hundreds of thousands of fellow consumers is just too much fun. We previously highlighted CUSTOMER-MADE campaigns orchestrated by Mercedes, Mazda and Coors Light, now add:

While Nike was basking in the glory of Tiger Woods' winning shot at the Masters Golf (GA) tournament, which involved a swoosh-brandishing golf ball getting priceless air time, Joseph Jaffe immediately created and uploaded what no doubt will or should become the next Nike commercial.

CUSTOMER-MADE [Trendwatching]

Wired News: Picture this, you're shopping online for a new minivan, surfing automaker websites and buying guides. You then head to the homepage of your local paper to check out the headlines, and at the top of the page is an ad for a local car dealer, offering rebates and low financing on new minivans.

If you're like many web users, you probably find it creepy that your local paper knows you're looking for new wheels. Even so, advertisers are betting you're far more likely to click on the car dealer's ad than a random banner for a dating site or DVD rentals.

That's the theory behind behavioral marketing -- a growing niche in the online advertising industry focused on targeting promotional messages to an individual's online activities. Some might call such tracking across websites by a less flattering name: adware. Marketers call it a promising revenue stream.

Behavioral marketing was a prominent buzzword at this week's Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco. The conference, held in the midst of a boom period for internet ad sales, devoted considerable resources to identifying ways for online publishers to generate bigger profits from advertising. Many of the most popular strategies involved mining more information about individuals.

Ads That Know What You Want [Wired News]

DMNews: MSN is using MessageCast technology to let Fox Sports fans sign up online to receive scores and news from their favorite teams via alerts and RSS feeds.

Fans visiting the MSN Fox Sports site at msn.foxsports.com can choose to get such information through their PC via MSN Messenger, mobile device or e-mail. They also can opt for a combination based on their message status on MSN Messenger, an instant messenger service.

"Marketers will have the opportunity to tap into a focused, fanatically interested audience," said Royal Farros, CEO of MessageCast, Redwood City, CA. "Sports fans are just crazy about this stuff. We reach out over the MSN network and actually find a fan with information they want. Allowing marketers who cater to a sporting audience to tap into that is incredibly potent."

MSN Gives Fox Sports Fans News via Alerts, RSS Feeds [DMNews]

Trendwatching: Marketing and advertising sure is fun, but true CUSTOMER-MADE involves co-created goods, co-created services, co-created experiences! So, waking up to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of experts, innovators, inventors and so on outside company walls, research labs and innovation units at large corporations are increasingly NOT going it alone. Check out the following initiatives aimed at tapping expert outsiders (often designers and artists) for potentially lucrative new ideas:

Last summer, Core 77, the industrial design site, teamed up with watch maker Timex for a global design competition called Timex2154: THE FUTURE OF TIME (celebrating Timex's 150th anniversary). Designers from more than 72 countries explored and visualized personal and portable timekeeping 150 years into the future, resulting in over 640 entries. Winners can still be viewed online, and in the Timex Museum.

Expert Marketing [Trendwatching]

USATODAY: The force is already out in force as the May 19 debut of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith nears. Consumers are being flooded with Star Wars-themed TV commercials, print ads, soft-drink promotions, video games and "collectible" action figures and toys.

But "buyer beware," warns Jeremy Beckett, author of The Official Price Guide to Star Wars Memorabilia. Most of the collectibles that fans and treasure-hunters will squirrel away will be virtually worthless in the future beyond sentimental value because of the quantities being churned out.

Star Wars is one of the all-time moneymaking franchises, generating nearly $3.4 billion in global box office and $9 billion in retail sales since 1977. As the buzz builds for the finale of George Lucas' space series, consumers won't be able to swing a light saber without seeing, hearing or reading references to Darth Vader, Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi over the next month.

Promotional partners Pepsi, Burger King, Cingular Wireless, America Online, M&M/Mars and Kellogg are launching a multimillion-dollar cross-promotion to push their own brands while basking in the reflected glory of Hollywood. As partners, they get the rights to use Star Wars characters in their advertising.

Star Wars In Action [USATODAY]

Trendwatching.com: Who likes to wait? Help consumers overcome boredom and throw in some empathy as well! Last year, Senseo Coffee Machines installed coffee machines at a number of Dutch bus and tram stops, offering waiting passengers a cup of fresh brewed coffee. Perhaps not the most spectacular TRYVERTISING stunt ever, but ten times more relevant to consumers than a billboard trying to show the aromas.

TRYVERTISING [Trendwatching.com]

NetImperative: Carat Interactive in the US has launched a new practice dedicated to using blogs as an advertising medium.

The practice will focus on three key areas including: planning and buying ads on blogs and blog networks; "blog initiation", which is thought to be a contract blog operation; and blog monitoring, which will track comments on key brands throughout the blog community.

Carat is thought to be the first media buying agency to create such a practice, and has already worked with both Kodak and PalmOne on blog projects. The practice will be offered as part of Carat Interactive's integrated media planning and buying service, and will work in tandem with the creative and content group.

Said Carat Interactive president Toby Gabriner: "Some of the most loved and most trafficked sites on the web are blogs. Leading brands have a unique opportunity to extend their online advertising programme with blogs and, with this new focus within the media group, we can help clients understand how best to integrate blogging into their marketing programmes."

Carat Targets Blogs [NetImperative]

Clickz: Starburst launched an aggressive U.S.-based mobile marketing promo on Friday as part of a new integrated campaign.

Grey Interactive and mobile marketing partner ipsh! are behind the cross-carrier effort, which follows a relaunch of the MasterFoods candy brand. The new identity promises "More Juice. More Burst."

Last week, MasterFoods began distributing the first of 100 million Starburst packs with unique wrapper codes that will eventually reach store shelves. Consumers can enter to win prizes by texting their unique numbers to the short code "JUICY." One pack design shows a teen holding out his phone and offers the copy, "Text. You Could Win Juicy Prizes." Smaller type below it says, "Look under wrapper. Text game code to JUICY (58429) or log on to starburst.com."

"Starburst is the most progressive brand for mobile marketing," said Nihal Mehta, ipsh! founder and president. "This is the largest cross-carrier mobile campaign for a consumer packaged goods [brand] in the U.S. to date."

Sweepstake giveaways include a 42-inch flat-screen TV, portable audio centers, and music downloads. The promotion continues through September.

Grey Interactive has handled Web and interactive advertising for Starburst since the late '90s. Last year, the MasterFoods brand gave its offline business to TBWA\Chiat\Day, but Grey Interactive retained some digital assignments.

Starburst Intros On-Pack Mobile Promo [Clickz]

Trendwatching: Mass advertising is dying. Experienced consumers couldn't care less about commercials, ads, banners and other fancy wording and imagery that is forced upon them, so let's move on to more interesting ways of igniting conversations between corporations and consumers. We recently spoke about CUSTOMER MADE and NOUVEAU NICHE as powerful alternatives to archaic marketing thinking, but those concepts don't necessarily introduce consumers to your brand or your new product. Sure, much has already been said about search-based advertising and initiating word of mouth as new (and certainly more relevant) ways to replace mass advertising, but TRENDWATCHING.COM wants to add a third alternative: TRYVERTISING, which is all about consumers getting familiar with new products by actually trying them out.

Think of TRYVERTISING as a new breed of product placement* in the real world, integrating your goods and services into daily life in a relevant way, so that consumers can make up their minds based on their experience, not your messages.

TRYVERTISING [Trendwatching]

Netimperative: Mobile marketing company Hypertag has launched a wearable version of the infra-red and bluetooth tags previously used in interactive poster advertising.

The wearable Hypertags will be aimed at field marketers, enabling them to send content direct to consumer's mobile phones from a fully portable interactive tag.

Hypertags are short-range wireless devices, which send information to mobile phones via infra-red or Bluetooth. A user can activate the infra-red or Bluetooth on their phone, hold it up to the Hypertag and receives content such as vouchers, business cards, ringtones or games.

Because Hypertags use short-range wireless technologies, rather than SMS, interactions are free to both brand and consumer.

The firm claims the product “open a new communication route between brands and their customers”. For example, brands could send promotional vouchers direct to phones or could distribute the details of a web-based competition.

Field marketers armed with electronic tags [Netimperative]

ECommerce-Guide: By now you've heard of blogs, or Web logs, and you think: blah, blah, blah. Digeratti diaries, mommy memoirs and political punditry abound. Who cares?

You should, because small business owners can use the same inexpensive, low-maintenance technology to market their e-commerce site — with no HTML coding required. By creating a blog, you can boost buzz for your brand in ways advertising can't, and do it for as little as $15 a month.

"Blogs are a new marketing tool we can add to our box of traditional marketing strategies," says Susannah Gardner, author of Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies due out March 21st. "You have the ability to communicate one-on-one with customers in a casual way, and you can respond to timely events and maintain that community interaction on a weekly, or even daily basis. You can't do that with an established ad campaign."

Tell Me About It: How Blogs Can Work for You [ECommerce-Guide]

Clickz: I've covered games and advertising a lot lately. And for good reason. Though much of the ad industry is still trying to figure out how to deal with the online world, a few trailblazers have been working diligently (and somewhat covertly) to develop new forms of online marketing that bear no relationship to the models we're all used to.

Advergaming is one of those formats, but a lot of other stuff is going on, too. Viral and buzz marketing are pushing the envelope and starting to gain more mainstream acceptance. During the past year or so, groups such as the Viral+Buzz Marketing Association and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association have arisen to try to bring some order to the rapidly exploding new industry. It may have taken a Subservient Chicken to focus attention on these new forms of advertising, but there's no doubt they're here.

Alternate Reality Gaming and You [Clickz]

TheStar.com: When it comes to marketing to youth, it's usually worse to aim at the demographic and miss, than it is not to advertise at all.

When McDonald's launched the "I'd Hit It" online advertising campaign in the U.S. — without knowing the slang translated to having sex with a cheeseburger — the gaffe blew up in the company's face.

Sites such as http://www.andrewteman.org/blog ruthlessly picked apart the fast-food giant, as visitors took the opportunity to chronicle other examples of just how lost advertisers are when marketing to youth.

Another offender listed on the site is Wal-Mart, for an ad featuring a young black actor uttering the line "Wal-Mart has everything I need. No diggity."

One of the chain's Canadian commercials features young people in Wal-Mart-purchased clothes — the same labels sold at many of the 4,000 Wal-Mart stores worldwide — claiming they aren't "afraid to be different." And a recent commercial for The Bay has actors in designer duds doing what most young people do after getting dressed up — riding skateboards.

All of these ads expose the companies to ridicule because it's clear to the target market that these retailers know very little about young people — but want their attention and disposable income nonetheless. Essentially, then, these ads expose the companies as the posers they are.

Manufactured Cool [TheStar.com]

Yahoo! Finance: Young adults have a loyal attachment to mobile phones and a distinct passion for video games. Recognizing that, VIRTU MOBILE has used the Campbell's® Soup at Hand® 3D Snowboarding game as an innovative way for Campbell Soup Company to promote Campbell's Soup At Hand sippable soup to this elusive market segment.

Customized mobile games like the Soup at Hand 3D Snowboarding, which is licensed from Bonus.com, are the latest marketing trend used by advertisers to deliver mobile messages to a younger adult audience. This is a demographic group that does not typically make buying decisions based on traditional media like newspapers, TV and radio. The game, which incorporates the use of the product and the brand's logo is downloaded from a Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) server to the mobile phone.

Players are challenged by the Soup At Hand 3D Snowboarding game to go down the slope and score points by doing tricks and while doing so, capture Soup at Hand cans in an effort to win added life to prolong the game's longevity.

According to Joe Barone, president of VIRTU MOBILE, mobile game growth is growing rapidly and Ziff Davis projects there to be more than 100 million users by 2006. "We are pleased that Campbell's had chosen us to help them target this market in an exciting, innovative fashion," he comments. "We have developed a lively, fun way to send a powerful message about the product while reinforcing brand identity."

To download the Soup At Hand 3D Snowboarding game or for more information about the game, visit www.sah-mobile.com.

VIRTU MOBILE Teams up with Campbell's Soup at Hand to Reach Young Adults Through Mobile Games [Yahoo! Finance]

Adverblog: Chocolate brand Ferrero celebrates Valentine's Day in Italy with a dedicated web site. The site presents Ferrero's products Valentine's special edition (Mon Cheri, Rocher, Raffaello), a love trivia, and some editorial content with excerpts from famous love stories in the literature (Lancelot and Ginevra, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra).

The creative is by DGT Media, which also created a series of online ads running on the main Italia portals.

Chocolate and Valentine's Day [Adverblog]

New York Post Online: Saleh is part of a new kind of advertising phenomenon - one that goes beyond more established methods like street-teaming (campaigns orchestrated to look as though they're "up from the street," through graffiti or sidewalk chalk scrawls, for example) or stealth marketing (in which corporations hire young, attractive, charismatic people to go into bars and clubs and be "overheard" raving about a brand of alcohol or cigarettes).

"If the right person is wearing the right thing, people want it," says Kelly Cutrone, founder of the fashion branding firm People's Revolution. Cutrone gives thousands of dollars worth of free clothes to Saleh and other New Yorkers who aren't rich or famous, but who run in desirable circles and wield a lot of social influence.

"We call it 'mainlining,'" she says. "That means we take it out of the industry and put it on people on the street, so that they're seen."

Under Their Influence [New York Post Online]

MarketingVOX: Creative outsourcing firm Aquent launched an online "reality show," pitting five designers against one another to create campaigns in several specific fields. The work will be shown online and judged by the public, winnowing down the numbers to get to the one designer best able to tickle the fancies of the web visitors. The Studio Smackdown will run through February 22, starting off with designers Andy Kendig, Toni Greaves, Brady Kazar, Matt Loftiss and Colleen Madden. The five have been given camcorders so as to upload their "confessions," as the work progresses.

Marketing 'Reality Show' Launches Online [MarketingVOX]

The Cincinnati Enquirer: Coca-Cola North America was looking for an innovative way to market its new Hi-C Sour Blast juice boxes.

These weren't just any old juice boxes, but the lunchbox drink of choice for millions of schoolchildren each day. The Sour Blast has a sour candy-coated straw that gives a burst of pucker-up flavor before that sweet Hi-C finally hits the mouth.

"Now, I'd like to hand everyone one of these juice drinks with the coated straw," explained Dan Walsh, a Houston-based senior brand manager for Coca-Cola. "But that, my budget does not allow."

Instead, he hired POP Marketing Group Inc. of Covington to produce its Tongue Tickling Tattoo candy in Hi-C's sour green-apple flavor.

Then Coca-Cola placed 2 million edible tattoos on a Hi-C advertisement in a double Teen People magazine issue this year.

The candy product insertion was an ad industry breakthrough, according to Walsh.

More than 10,000 Teen People readers subsequently logged on to a Web site to request more free samples, he says.

A tattoo with taste [The Cincinnati Enquirer]

Adverblog.com: Buongiorno Vitaminic has created a pan-european campaign to promote the new Piaggio NRG Power. The initiative will run in Italy, France, Germany and Spain with the aim of driving traffic to the site www.nrg.piaggio.com and then building the NRG Community. Young users who sign up in the site receive the possibility of downloading free music. There is also an in-store promotion which allows people collect a card and join a competition to win an NRG Power scooter and a bunch of Mp3 Sony Vaio.

Piaggio Offers Free Music [Adverblog.com]