great-moments-in-marketing

Actors paid to wait in line for iPhones in Poland

Nicholas Carlson · 08/22/08 11:00AM

The iPhone launched in Poland today and like in the U.S., there were plenty of long lines. Unlike in the U.S., those in line were there because they were actors hired paid to look enthusiastic. "We have these fake queues at front of 20 stores around the country to drum up interest in the iPhone," a spokesman from mobile operator Orange told Reuters, which describes the move as "as part of a marketing campaign." What's odd: Unlike in the U.S., where shoppers could only buy an iPhone from AT&T outlets or Apple Stores, Polish shoppers — all abuzz about the iPhone because Orange's marketing campaign — can just buy their iPhones from line-free T-Mobile outlets. (Photo by AP/Sokolowski)

Find "Teh Market" on Google Maps

Jordan Golson · 03/17/08 05:20PM



A straight shot down Shoreline boulevard from the Googleplex in Mountain View: Teh Market. I can see the engineers gleefully heading there to grab Mountain Dew and Doritos before their next LAN party.

'The Simpsons Movie' Marketers Mercifully Spare Us Homer's Morning Wood

seth · 07/16/07 06:51PM


We suspect generations of USC film marketing majors will be required to study The Simpsons Movie campaign, whose out-of-the-Slurpee-container approach to creating buzz for the feature film debut of the familiar yellow clan scores points for both its originality and ambition. But not even retrofitting select 7-Eleven locations across the nation into living Temples of Apu can match the sheer audacity of drawing a giant, donut wielding Homer beside a centuries-old fertility symbol carved into the landscape of Dorset, England.

'Simpsons' Fans To Step Into Their Wildest Convenience Store Fantasies

seth · 07/02/07 02:08PM


As we first noted back in March, select 7-Eleven's across the country have been magically transformed over the weekend into Kwik-E-Mart's—part of an elaborate promotional tie-in for The Simpsons Movie. There's a Burbank location at the corners of Olive and Verdugo, where a Flickr user has lovingly documented all the WooHoo! Blue Vanilla Squishees and Sprinklicious donuts that will be gobbled up in the days to come by die-hard Simpsons fanatics who have long cursed their lack of yellow skin. LAist, meanwhile, has a photo of their resident Apu-alike, Golam, whose sunshiny smile belies his familiarity with armed-robbery protocol.