• by John Capone , June 23, 2008

Even for the OOH marketing world, Adpack USA is a bit niche. The company specializes in "promotional facial tissues, towelettes and wet towels." Last month AdPack held its second annual Tissue Tactics Contest (a challenge to marketers to come up with innovative promotions) in New York, where it awarded the world's largest tissue pack and $6,000 to first place winner Creative Jones. CJ's big idea? A pitch for a wedding planner client with the tag "Cry for all the Right Reasons." (As if there are wrong ones; not to a tissue man, there aren't.) The possibilities are endless: Besides weddings, there are funerals, junior high school girls' bathrooms, family planning clinics, AA meetings and massage parlors, to name a few.

Second place went to Street Dogs Marketing for their plan for the Soldiers' Angels Museum, a traveling exhibition that features memorabilia and images of u.s. troops. Street Dogs donated its $2,500 prize to the charity, which supplies soldiers with necessary items while they are stationed away from home. The winning packs, to be distributed at the exhibit, carried the message "You Will Need These." Should there be any leftovers, they'd also work in peep-show booths.

"This is a personal, fun, fresh and in-your-face medium," says Leith El-Hassan, vice president of media marketing and distribution services for the Ad Council and one of five independent
judges. "And we could really see that the creative juices were flowing for so many of the entries." They're halfway to Times Square with the world's largest tissue packet already.