Companies using Valentines day as a marketing opp.

A: As promised, but not exactly in the same terms, here is a list of marketing promotions this Valentine's day that we found somewhat creative...Well, as creative as you can get amongst heart shaped food items, sexual innuendo and regular, everyday items turned pink and red for one day out of the entire year. I personally couldn't find many well executed viral marketing campaigns, so you're left with these mediocre promotions/campaigns. So, grab a handful of green M&Ms and delve into the abyss of 2008's Valetine promos.


As mentioned before, here is M&Ms viral mini-site. This is one of my top 2 pics for best Valentine's day marketing. A nice departure from all the pink and red this season!

Almost everyone of these promotions involve food of some kind...including these heart shaped salmon steaks. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and apparently it's a little easier to get there with a heart shaped filet-o-fish.


K: I'd rather cook these steaks than eat a box of chocolates myself. I really appreciate the effort this company put in making the steaks special.


A: Forget the golden ticket from Willy Wonka, meet the Godiva gift box with a winner spending the night in Bryant Park hotel, NYC. Not that exciting you think? How about if that hotel room was made almost entirely of, none other than...Godiva Chocolate? A pretty creative idea, but my only question is, do you get charged if the chocolate clogs the bathtub jets?

K: Chocolate overload!

A: So guys, want to take your significant other on a nice dinner date, but don't want to drop a small fortune in the process? Take her (or him--we don't judge) to White Castle. I wonder if you'll have to order pomme frites instead of french fries.

K: Also check on the website that reservations have to be made!

A: As I was continuing on my path down writers' block this afternoon (due to a lack of truly innovative Valentines campaigns), I checked my mail. The first thing I see on my weekly pile-o-junk-coupon-overload-mail insert was a heart shaped pizza. Papa John's is offering heart shaped pies for the big day. Frat boys everywhere will be jamming Papa John's phone lines, stocking up on Boone's farm, and raiding Blockbuster for any any romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore tomorrow.

K: I absolutely love this idea. What's even better is the website has videos of the creator of Papa Johns showing how the pizza is made. You even pre-order your pizza days in advance. Papa Johns is really taking their pizza sales to new online frontiers.

A: As if pizza wasn't enough, you can actually start tomorrow off with a big giant, you-guessed-it, heart shaped donut tomorrow. Krispy Kreme didn't want to be outdone in the heart shaped food arena, so it came up with this ingenious idea. Nothing like fat, starch and sugar to get you in the mood for love.

The final, and my favorite of all the heart shaped, Valentine's themed campaigns was a site where you can put your own spin on candy hearts and send them to the one you love, or hate. Depending on your mood, or what you'd like your hearts to say. There's no filter for dirty words, so knock yourself out.

That being said, please come up with some interesting Valentine's marketing for next year, so I can have more fun blogging about your company and how you've got mad marketing skillz, yo.