As a company, once you find a marketing strategy that works, you usually stick with it. Nike had the swoosh, milk has the mustaches, and PETA? Well, they have naked women.

Over the years, PETA has used women celebs like Alicia Silverstone, Eva Mendes, and Cindy Crawford to encourage the masses not to wear fur or eat meat. And while they've gotten a lot of flak, they continue to pay women to drop trou for the good of the animals.

Today in Philadelphia, PETA's "lettuce ladies" (women wearing little more than lettuce-shaped undergarments) will be handing out soy turkey sandwiches to promote the company's "Turn over a new leaf: go vegetarian" campaign.

A few points that should be noted, here: PETA rarely uses men to advertise its messages. It did use MTV Jackass' Steve-O, who was nude, but the ad a) only showed his backside and b) was quite obviously in jest, poking fun at the typical oversexed PETA model and keeping in vein with the show's brand of humor. Casey Affleck and Joaquin Phoenix have also done commercial spots for the organization - fully clothed. Somehow, I wonder if the effectiveness of the message is lost when we're too busy ogling Pam Anderson's generous chest to worry about what she's promoting.

Now, I'm all for soy products, either as meat replacements or as an addition to a healthy diet. Isn't it fascinating how, in campaigning to stop exploiting one living thing, another is exploited in its place? Maybe PETA should stop pointing its fingers at others for a second and turn the magnifying glass on itself.

Food for thought.

Have you been to Starbucks lately? If so, you have probably noticed that their signature holiday red cups are in use, but if you are lucky, you might have noticed something else was happening in the stores, too. Starbucks just launched their cheer-pass movement. The company's goal is to start a chain of cheer this season by passing on good things to some of their customers, in the hopes that they, in turn, will pass that good cheer on to someone else by doing something thoughtful for another person. To kick off the program, last week some Manhattan commuters were given free subway MetroCards and free movie tickets were given away in Chicago. Other bits of cheer from the company might include free samples of the chain's holiday beverages, bags of coffee and $5 Starbucks Cards.

The only "catch", such as it is, is that the cheer spread by the company is accompanied by cheer passes, which are numbered cards that you are supposed to pass on if and when you "pay it forward" and do something good for another person this season. They have the Starbucks logo, but the real purpose of the passes is to track the chain of good deeds. By entering the number of the card on the cheer pass website, you can enter your good deed and see what other ones were associated with that particular card before you received it.

The company hopes to distribute 10,000 pieces of cheer daily for the next eight weeks to see, in the holiday spirit, just how far one good deed can go.

Up until a few minutes ago, I had no idea what it meant to slay a burger. Now that I've visited the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's websites, I'm wiser in that respect. I think. The sister chains have challenged customers to take photos of themselves slaying their burgers. What does a burger slayer do, exactly? According to Carl's Jr.: "They attack and destroy it. They conquer it and leave no remains." Entries are voted on by site visitors and the entry voted the best burger slayer wins a month of free burgers. As you might expect of anything with the word "slayer," the sites definitely have a certain head-banger feel to them. The campaign is the work of a Los Angeles-based agency called Spacedog, according to Restaurant News Resource. Somehow, the idea of going into a Carl's Jr. or Hardee's and rubbing elbows with anyone hell-bent on killing their lunch makes the drive-through look mighty appealing. I honestly can't do the sites justice. You'll have to see for yourselves.

Coca-Cola is hoping that the UK release of Coke Zero, nicknamed "Bloke Coke" because it targets a young, male audience, will help reverse a decline in the sales of carbonated beverages in the country. When Coke Zero was launched in Australia with a similar marketing strategy, total sales skyrocketed 19% in only two months. Its marketing campaign, which included a fake blog and other tricks that were decried by media watchdogs, worked well and didn't seem to put consumers off, meaning that Coke actually has its strategy down well for selling Coke Zero.

Coke Zero is, if you haven't had it, a calorie-free soda that is meant to taste more like regular Coke and fill a gap in the marketplace left by Diet Coke, which some perceive as a girly product.

Speaking of girly vs non-girly, Coke Zero was released with black cans and labels in Australia, but white in the US. Which is it in the UK?

 

Folgers Coffee is trying to increase its visibility with a younger generation of consumers, the generation that grew up with Starbucks and other coffee shops on every corner. The company's slogan has long been "the best part of waking up, is Folgers in your cup," but they perceive that their new target audience views the best part of waking up as going back to sleep. As such, their strategy is not only to develop ads - launched all over the internet in a viral campaign - that are hip, but that appeal to those who believe that caffeine exists to get the to work in the morning after staying out until 3am. The updated slogan is "tolerate mornings."

"Tolerate mornings" is far less catchy than the lyrical older slogan, but is the new ad format more effective than the old one? You be the judge, but somehow the implication that you should drink the product because it's there, and not necessarily because you like, it is a less-than-convincing sales pitch. The new ad features creepy yellow people who are meant to embody the morning while singing an irritating jingle: 

(video after the jump)

For the first time in roughly two years, Denny's will start a new frenzy of television, radio, print and online ads that, according to Restaurant News Resource, are a bit of a departure from their previous style of advertising. The new ads will feature actors playing diners talking about what makes Denny's relevant or useful. In one ad, a man admits his preference to Denny's over his own wife, saying he may never go home again because Denny's gives him bacon and sausage. Another apparently features a young man talking about how he likes to hit up America's largest full-service restaurant chain after a night of clubbing. If anything, at least Denny's has come to terms with the fact that they're a late-night last resort. Anybody else miss Lenny's?

After emerging from bankruptcy earlier this year, Gardenburger is looking to rebuild its brand. They turned to college students for help. A spokeswoman from Gardenburger stated that college students were a good market for the brand because "college students tend to be more aware ... about the environment [and] about health" - meaning that they are slightly more likely than the average person to reach for the vegetarian option at the table.

The company has set up a program with advertising classes at five US universities, where the students at each campus are to design a campaign for the company and at least one will be used nationally in the fall. The students are not being paid for this work - and are more than likely being graded on their ideas - but the opportunity to work on a national campaign for a nationally known brand is a chance that any college student looking to go into advertising or marketing is likely to jump at.

A New Zealand company is using some unusual tactics to grab customers' attention. The Brazil cafe commissioned a company to create specialty branded trash cans to promote their coffees. The trash cans are shaped like coffee cups, complete with protective sleeve and stir stick, and shout "Coffee taste like crap?" insinuating that coffee drinkers should ditch their sub-par beverages and head for a Brazil location, to which the cans helpfully point the way. Located in a popular Auckland neighborhood with many independent cafes as well as corporate chains, the cans that were placed outside a Starbucks had their slogans removed by Starbucks employees who were unhappy about them. There is little doubt that the company wasn't a big fan, either.

[Image via Adrant]

 

Personally, I have nothing against tomatoes. Sure, I'm not fond of the flavorless ones that are picked too early and then gassed to make them look ripe, but that's not their fault. The folks over at TomatoesAreEvil.com feel a little differently, however. Yep, just what it sounds like, this is a site devoted to telling the world of the evil that lurks deep within the heart of the modest "love apple." Of course, you won't hear it referred to as such on there. More likely, you'll hear things like "wolf peach" or "spawn of Satan." There are anti-tomato games, posters (as seen here), clothing and recipes for things like tomato-free lasagna (with an alfredo sauce). Yep, these people hate them some tomatoes. The site is related in some way to Fishster.com, which features an equally entertaining and far less malicious site dedicated to a certain Cartoon Lobster.