• The New York Times , Thursday, October 9, 2008 11:15 AM

One woman's scoop is a frustrating dead end for the rest of us. Stephanie Clifford writes a compelling story this morning about a new campaign for Vaseline's Clinical Therapy lotion. Vaseline's agency and production company headed up to Kodiak, Alaska, and found the ideal influencer to entrust with the viral marketing of its industrial-strength moisturizer. Then, over the course of nine days of documentary-style shooting, they interviewed residents who had tried the potion on her recommendation.

The central question was "how can you use skin as a way into people's lives?" says Justin Wilkes, vp for media and entertainment at production company @radical.media. Hmmmm.

Seriously, sounds good, right? And did I tell you that the main character is a 40-year-old voice coach and mother of four whose name is Petal Ruch? And that another character is a blacksmith and knife maker named Wes Whipple? Doesn't that make you want to head immediately to http://prescribethenation.com/ to at least sample the "minutes" of vignettes that are purportedly online? This morning, however, there were just a few atmospheric stills with a teaser that ends abruptly with "soon you'll see [Petal Ruch]. Then we land on a product page that asks us to "check back soon" for a $1-off coupon on Oct. 8. Wasn't that Wednesday? How could a savvy marketer like Unilever give an advance story like this to a big-time influencer like The New York Times and then not be ready to strut its stuff when it's published ?

Read the whole story at The New York Times »