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Jaguar Hires Socialite As Living Ad

British automaker Jaguar is taking the concept of celebrity endorser and product placement to a whole new level. The company has cut a deal with trendy New York socialite Nico Bossi in which the playboy tools around Manhattan for free in an $80,000 Jaguar XK, effectively serving as a real-life walking advertisement for Jaguar. It is reality-based product placement--the eerie place where real life blurs seamlessly into advertising. Bossi's day job is running a marketing agency called LuxWell Media Group, of which he is the only full-time employee. Before his XK came along, he mostly took cabs or car services around Manhattan. But he is known to hang around at all the "in" spots and knows all the beautiful people, which is why Jaguar wanted him for this gig. In Manhattan, Bossi and his silver ride show up at all the right places--such as Pastis and Soho House, hangouts in New York's trendy meat-packing district. He is known to pull up at Milk and Honey, a Lower East Side lounge where patrons need reservations and a secret phone number to get in, and Double Seven, a dance club on West 14th Street. Other good places to spot the XK are the uptown shopping area around Bergdorf Goodman and the Hamptons, on eastern Long Island. The campaign is "about people seeing Nico and the car and wanting to be part of that," says Alicia Johnson, creative director for the Jaguar account at the New York office of Havas SA's Euro RSCG Worldwide. The success of the campaign "is how many people touch and see the car.

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