A Challenge For The Ages

Greetings loyal readers,

I have a challenge to issue. I have thought of three instances where a person or company is in desperate need of advertising, yet using promotional products to help them would be extremely difficult. Your challenge is twofold:

- Think of an actual working promotion, or

- Come up with a funnier disastrous instance than I have suggested here

What do you win if you succeed? Well, as an Internet Overlord, I am permitted to bestow minor titles on those I deem fit. How does, "Vanessa Q. Covington, Omnico distributor partner and Internet Duchess" sound? Pretty good right? Well, you better make with the suggestions then. As always, responses can be posted directly to my blog, or you can e-mail them to me at mcornnell@napco.com. The best answers will make my blog next week.

Situation #1: Timmy Teenager, a good-hearted but unfortunately bland and predictable high school junior, is finally starting the college application process. He wants to to get into State University College, the famously prestigious fictional college that his girlfriend, Tina Teenager (no relation), also happens to be attending in the fall. Being a boring clod however, Timmy's only prayer of getting accepted is if he can somehow get himself noticed by the admissions staff and stand out above the thousands of other middle-of-the-road applicants trying to get into SUC.

Your job is to convince admissions that Timmy should indeed be accepted. Use any promotional strategies you wish, and it should be noted that Timmy's parents, Mr. and Mrs. T. Teenager, are very rich, giving you basically an unlimited budget.

My (un)solution: Pay, bribe or blackmail every possible person who interacts with the admissions staff to wear "Admit Timmy Teenager!" T-shirts and swear them to secrecy as to why they're doing so. Then, covertly start replacing every item in the lives of said admissions personnel, from their pens and coffee mugs to their beds and family dogs, with promotional versions until they either concede and let him in or succumb to madness. Madness, of course, makes it much easier to forge their signatures on the required paperwork.