• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 9, 2009

Viral marketing and hard-body men have become the fuel pushing a heated marketing campaign aimed at spreading the word about Parfums de Coeur's latest cologne fragrance Body Heat Sexy x2.

Apparently, the campaign is too provocative for MySpace, which declined to run the ad for the new men's fragrance, but there are ads running across Google's ad network, according to Ashley Heather, cofounder of New York ad and digital marketing agency dotbox. "The campaign touches the primeval drive of guys to be up on the pedestal and in lights in front of adoring women," he says. "The campaign integrated with Facebook to drive more participation."

The ad featuring a shirtless man sandwiched between two women is one piece of the campaign that requires men to upload their photo to hottestbodintheworld.com. Parfums de Coeur will feature the winner's picture on a Hollywood billboard and hand him $10,000 in cash. He'll also get bragging rights.

Parfums de Coeur, which has a product in the market bringing in about $100 million in sales, according to Heather, targets males age 16 to 23. The contest went live this week and will move into the second phase on Monday. While men upload their photo to the site, the women vote on the contestants.

Anyone can look at the photos and rate them -- one guy per day. Men sign up with Facebook Connect to compete, to fan a "Hot Guy" or to help decide the outcome of the "Who's Hotter?" duel, which begins Oct. 12.

The Parfums de Coeur site pulls in the contestant's Facebook profile and photos. It allows the contestant to contact their Facebook friends automatically and promote themselves by sending emails, up to 5,000 for each push. The fans who vote can email the contestants, too.

Fans can upload profiles with pictures, too. The two-way communication through Facebook and Twitter keeps the promotion social.

The paid-search campaign of about 600 keywords includes sexy body, tattoo and workout.

Parfums de Coeur expects to spend millions in marketing to support the 360-degree campaign. It will include print in Seventeen and US Weekly, television on Fox, ESPN, MTV; and about 10,000 movie screens across the country.

There are three rounds to the contest. The campaign runs through the end of the year. The billboard goes up on the W Hotel in Hollywood January 2010.