Mobile Bus/Home Brings Washington Mutual Mortgages to the People

Wexley School for Girls, in partnership with design firm General Public created The Washington Mutual E-bus, a full size commercial bus, retrofitted as a self-contained, mobile technology center with computer workstations and Internet connectivity through satellite. The E-bus brings the bank to the people and offers access to credit reports and homeowner education

Wexley photographed a house, wrapped the bus on all sides and set a world-record for "Largest Door Mat" which measures 10 feet tall by 36 feet long. The E-bus started rolling two weeks ago, and will operate in Southern California where it will tour over the course of six months.

Lost Sock Street Posting Promotes SciFi's 'Triangle'

The sidewalks of New York are always filled with interesting postings, odd imagery and, yes, ads. Bucky Turco spotted one of those "I've lost my cat" type postings on a street pole which turned out to be a promotion for Sci Fi's new show, Triangle. The posting shows a picture of a sock with the headline "Lost" and provides tear off tags with a link to nothingstayslostforever.com, a promotional site where visitors can enter a sweepstakes to win a home theater system, a television and an Xbox 360. Actual "lost socks" with the logo were placed in various laundromats too. Cunning created and executed the promotion.

Turco didn't like the Xbox tie in but we think the over all promotion is intriguing enough to warrant notice and create awareness of the show. Only time and Nielsen will answer that question.

Nip/Tuck Gets On MySpace Train

Apparently an avid viewer of FX's Nip/Tuck, Bucky Turco points out FOX has tapped into its own network of 25 million MySpace users and has created a profile for "The Carver."

Starbucks Does Coffee On the Roof Thing

Milking, but brilliantly maximizing the "Hey dude, you left your coffee on the roof of your car" scenario, Starbucks has done just that - left its coffee on the roofs of cars in San Francisco so people will go nuts trying to tell the driver - a paid Starbucks stunt marketer - he's, yes, left his coffee on the roof of his car. Flickr member Thomas Hawk snapped a shot of one of the vehicles and recounts his being had by the stunt.

Sony's Street PSP Campaign Getting Tagged, Ragged

While initially it seemed Sony's PSP street chalk drawing campaign in several cities around the U.S. was being well received by some (us), others have dished out a bit of backlash by defacing the drawings and calling for an end to corporations' attempts to co-op the graffiti art form. AdFreak sums up the issue pointing to a rant over at Gothamist, an online petition to stop the practice and street art blog Wooster Collective's collection of PSP street art.

Unemployed Copywriter Suggests Jobs For Unemployed Copywriters

Jordan Buntain sent us a site he created that's aimed at unemployed copywriters and offers tips on the kind of jobs they might try as they wrestle through the difficulty of being unemployed during the holidays. Several suggestions include becoming a Christmas Movie Screen Writer, a Street Musician, a Sandwich board Advertiser or a Scammer Spammer. By the way, Jordan is unemployed as well. Give him a look and give him a job.

DISH Network Finalizes Its Copy Cat Town Renaming Stunt

Back in August, it was noted satellite provider DISH, copying Half.com's renaming of Halfway, Oregon and fifties radio show Truth or Consequences' renaming of Hot Springs, New Mexico, was on the prowl for a town that would rename itself DISH. Yesterday, it was announced Dish had finally found a town desperate enough for the money to take the company up on its offer. The 373 residents of Clark, Texas have agreed to rename their town DISH, Texas in exchange for $440,477 and ten years worth of free basic satellite service. As Sploid notes, "In a few years, when DISH Network has been consumed by some other satellite/entertainment monster, the children of DISH may wonder why their town has such a stupid name."

Currently, these efforts are limited to stealth efforts with small towns simply for their press value. With the continued proliferation of advertising into every conceivable corner of life, it's not out of the realm of possibility that Microsoft, five years down the road facing defeat by Google, might approach a city the size of, say Boston, and offer up a few million or billion for naming rights.

Great Pointed Archer A Stealth Marketing Effort For PR Agency

In late September we began receiving links to a site called Great Pointed Archer which positioned itself as a save/rename the rat cause site. They even sent us T-shirts. Of course we immediately figured it was a front for something else but the folks behind the site held fast and insisted it was simply an effort to be nice to rats. Sure. Well, as expected, it was a ploy. Today, an Adrants reader went to a Great Pointed Archer rally in Manhattan and reports it is, in fact, just a stealth marketing effort by a PR firm who, he figured, wishes they were an advertising firm. At least that's what we've been told We're tracking down the details.

UPDATE: According to Alex from Museum of Hoaxes, this same claim that a rally occurred in Manhattan was received by him. Our sense is it really is just a stealth stunt by some entity who is playing all of us to some final purpose which, at some point, will be revealed making us all look foolish.

MSN 'The Wall' Gets Projection Promotion

To help promote MSN's The Wall, a project that allows people to create virtual grafitti, The Wexley School for Girls created a contest whereby entrants could submit their grafitti. Wexley then projected the winners' work tagged Atlanta using high-powered light projectors, throwing artwork on various buildings. There are plans in place to roll the promotion out to other cities. See the work here.

The N's 'South of Nowhere' Promoted With Metrocards

Hopefully targeting more than just homeless teens who don't own a television, Marketing services agency Mr. Youth LLC and nighttime teen network The N have teamed up to reach teenagers on the streets of Manhattan to promote The N's South of Nowhere. Today, Street teams, accompanied by a fleet of branded Vespas, will offer $4 Metrocards, which, as a side benefit, is a very good thing for a homeless teen, along with South of Nowhere-branded Metrocard holders to teens heading south on the subways. The street teams, outfitted with chest-mounted TVs, will be positioned outside of downtown subway stations along the N subway line, along with visiting nearby high schools and commuter train stations from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. today and Friday, November 4th. The N's South of Nowhere series premiere will air on Friday, November 4th at 8:30 p.m. (ET).