Fast food giant McDonald’s recently dipped its golden arches into the honey-mustard-flavored waters of mobile with a “Mobile Whoa” campaign based in Tulsa, Okla. The campaign was aimed at promoting improvements at area McDonald’s outlets that had installed high-tech amenities like plasma TVs and wireless Internet. Consumers were invited to enter a mobile scavenger hunt by using SMS to text message a shortcode number, or to register at the campaign’s Web site. In exchange, they received special mobile coupons usable between 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. The hunt sent clues via text messages, with the …

It’s 3 a.m., and you just thought of a winning slogan. You leap out of bed and reach for a pen. But as the words stare back from a piece of notebook paper, the slogan seems to lose its impact. Instead of crawling back to bed in disgust, many people log onto www.customprintauthority.com to see their words sparkle. Custom Print Authority LLC’s proprietary software allows consumers to create custom prints and posters with a simple Web browser. A professional-looking poster can be delivered by mail in five to seven days. Custom Print’s patent-pending software is …

The University of Dayton has run the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop every other year since 2000. The first year, director Tim Bete used a regional direct mail campaign, and the conference sold out in six months. This year, Bete switched to e-mail marketing, targeting the subscribers to the conference’s monthly online newsletter, HumorWriters.org. The conference sold out in 12 days, with 250 people on a waiting list. The secret is to build and maintain the right list. First, define your target audience, says Jeanniey Mullen, senior director and partner of e-mail marketing, OgilvyOne Worldwide. Then …

powerpuff17 (7:51:47 PM): Hi Emma, psych0bunny (7:52:02 PM): hi powerpuff17 (7:52:03 PM): It's me, Tobi powerpuff17 (7:52:18 PM): So how old are you? psych0bunny (7:52:25 PM): I'm 12 powerpuff17 (7:52:36 PM): When do you officially become a teenager? psych0bunny (7:52:47 PM): 13 I think   powerpuff17 (7:52:55 PM): I mean, your exact birthday. psych0bunny (7:53:03 PM): April 7 psych0bunny (7:53:42 PM): yup, one more year of kids menus powerpuff17 (7:55:35 PM): what grade are you? psych0bunny (7:55:40 PM): …

Bloggers looking to make money from advertising can turn to Motion-Mall, a Boston-based company that creates free Amazon.com advertisements for Web sites. According to founder Ryan Gorer, the service is unique because it creates ads that are both customizable and interactive. Bloggers can visit MotionMall.com and build an ad in minutes with choice of color scheme, sizing, and specific Amazon product category best suited to their readership. For example, a former city slicker writing a blog about his new home on the range can display an interactive banner ad for DVDs of spaghetti Westerns that …

Prior to the advent of Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and MSN adCenter, it would have been hard to believe that someone could cost your business thousands of dollars merely by clicking a link over and over. Now click fraud is a problem of great concern for companies advertising with keyword buys, and analytics firms are scrambling to release products to help track and combat bogus clicks. ClickTracks is one of the first full-service analytics packages on the market that includes an anti-click fraud tool. ClickTracks included a fraud detection feature in the recent release of its …

Boston Market stirred up some online heat recently by inviting the public to enter a moviemaking contest. The 60-second video submissions showed what customers would do with the free time they gained by picking up dinner at the chicken chain instead of cooking at home. The short films had to include a Boston Market movie contest cup and be family-friendly. Prizes included a trip to Hollywood and gift certificates to Circuit City (and, natch, to Boston Market). Consumers were led to MyExtraHour.com via in-store materials, videos on cable net Current TV, and banner ads on CNET, Yahoo, …

It's amazing what subjects marketers will bring up on prime-time television: They think nothing of laying bare the liveliest infections and the sensitive orifices in which they thrive; celebrating the second coming of Granddad's sexual prowess, or rattling off a particular pill's potential side effects, from "leakage" to "oily discharge." Mercifully, however, the Web is emerging as an alternative medium to promote such stomach-churning products and services.

Consumers may be flocking online to check out the latest car models, but that doesn't mean they're using the Web as often to look at new summer lipstick colors.

Rebranding one of the best-known brands in the world takes, well, these days it takes new media. "Life Takes Visa," the credit card company's first rebranding effort in 20 years, launched with an interactive microsite at its core, complemented by forays into gaming, mobile television, mobile phone ads, and more.