Have you ever thought about all the things you can rent?  Not just cars (the usual suspects, plus Zipcar and Flexcar) and places but also furniture, handbags, appliances, clothing, dumpsters, chocolate fountains, circus rides, birthday party ponies and more.

Renting is a great “try before you buy” tactic (e.g. cars), or a good plan to follow if you just want something in your life for a short time (e.g. chocolate fountains).  So why did yesterday’s New York Times article on rental pets make me queasy?

Flexpetz is an agency that rents dogs who have been rescued from animal shelters.  The hope is that a renter will fall in love and adopt the pet permanently.  There are usually 5-6 dogs for rent, and they are often on display in the agency’s storefront window in Manhattan.

One young woman says that being with Oliver, a 3-year-old cockapoo, is “a nice way to meet people.”  A married woman with no children notes that renting a dog can “really fill a void.”

I can see that some might argue that any love in a dog’s life is better than none, but pets need security, a bond with the people around them and consistency.  I’m no animal expert, but marketing dogs like tuxedos – to be returned and freshened up a bit for the next customer – seems pretty awful.  I’m not sure how anyone who has decried the pet-as-celebrity-accessory trend could support this alternate version.

Perhaps some things in life are just not meant for the “z” treatment.

“A different kind of company, a different kind of car”  (Saturn)

“… and thank you for your support”  (Bartles & Jaymes)

“It’s morning again in America” (Ronald Reagan)

“It’s Spring in Spring Hill”  (Saturn)

“Your bank for life”  (Security Pacific)

“If PBS won’t do it, who will?” (PBS)

Answer:  Hal Riney, 1932-2008.

Walgreens has announced its first line of clothing, called Casual Gear.  Prices will range from $6.99-$14.99.

Walgreens is pursuing a number of new initiatives that I understand, including the chain’s year-long health screening tour with stakeholders including J&J, P&G and Lilly, and its new partnership with American Medical Alert (the “help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” people).

But clothing?  I’m lost on this one.

I once attended an event where the speaker, Susan Lyne, President and CEO of Martha Stewart Omnimedia, discussed MSLO’s new relationship with 1-800-FLOWERS.   She described the specific deal, but also offered up three smart guidelines the company uses when assessing any licensing opportunity:

(1) Do our consumers expect to see us in this space?

(2) Do we think that we can do a better job/create a better product than what is currently available?

(3) Even if the initiative exceeds all expectations, can the opportunity make a material difference in our profitability?

It seems to me that Walgreens selling yoga tops would not satisfy any of these criteria.

So I’m spending a lot more time in CNN’s Situation Room than I’d like but, as with all train wrecks, there’s just so much Presidential campaign news every night that it’s hard to look away.

At least we now know who would get We TV’s vote.

The back cover of this week’s AdAge sports a full-page ad for the network’s new docu-reality series, High School Confidential.  I’d seen a promo for the show on television, all gritty shots, sad looks, tough situations and major hype: “12 Girls. 4 Years in the Making.  1 unprecedented We TV event.”  This was the first print ad I’d seen.

It’s a photo of the 15ish-year-old girls in question, looking directly at the camera from their classroom desks.  Behind them is a chalkboard full of phrases representing the problems facing these high schoolers:  “Expectant mother.” “Thinks about suicide.” “Suspended for drinking.” “Coping with cousin’s death.”

This is difficult stuff.  And in the midst of all these lost-childhood stories is - the horror! - “Self-proclaimed liberal.”

“Self proclaimed liberal !”  Right up there on the board with “Recently Married” and “Anorexic Cutter.”

Come now… liberals aren’t that bad.  Rrright?

This is pretty wild. Today I told you about Kluster, last week it was subliminal advertising… now hypnosis!

An article in this week’s Brandweek reveals that clients and agencies have been bringing hypnotists into focus groups for years. While one agency rep says that hypnosis helps brands tap deep-seated emotional content, he does acknowledge inevitable cynicism with ”It’s not like we’re asking people to take off their clothes and crumble Ritz crackers on their bosoms.” Yikes – I didn’t know that was an option!

Aside from the ethical questions that might come into play, I don’t see how information revealed by an individual in a hypnotic state could be relied upon to influence purchase decisions in real life. As always, solid branding and tangible benefits will win the day.

Yesterday, I wrote about using online research panels of prospects and customers to help light the way. Today, we’ll touch on another kind of technology focused on bringing in (sorry: buzzword warning) the wisdom of crowds to “swarm” over a problem and solve it, from beginning to end.

Certainly as long as I’ve been working, teams have struggled to get the right people on the right projects – with the right thoughts and ideas – at the right time. A new company named Kluster (www.kluster.com) targets this very challenge… and ups the ante by offering consumers monetary rewards to participate.

A client of mine, Epsilon, just relaunched its agency under a new name: Purple@Epsilon. Now let’s say that the company had decided to seek Kluster’s help in finding a new name and was willing to pay $10,000 for the winner. Participants would “risk” a certain number of points (the site starts you off with a pile) to submit their entries. Epsilon might narrow those to the top 5. Members would then vote on this shortened list, and the person who first submitted the winner would get the cash. The winning entry is then sent back to all the individuals who voted for that name – and each person gets rated based on how many points she risked to voice her support. Points are also taken away from participants who backed losing entries and re-distributed to the winning members. Over time, a frequent “winner” builds up points (called “watts”), plus a reputation as an idea genius in the overall community.

Sort of an “Amazon User Reviews meet Survivor” kind of thing.

In its current incarnation, Kluster isn’t likely to work (too cumbersome, the money element is commercially unappealing, it’s only going to appeal to the hyper techy and, oh, the copyright lawsuits!), but a way to generate ideas from talent beyond company walls on a day-to-day basis is a huge opportunity. So go, Kluster! Even the Dyson dude built 5,000 vacuums before he got it right.

Chrysler has announced its Customer Advisory Board, an online panel of 2,000 consumers with whom the company plans to interact regarding topics such as “products, features, design and fuel efficiency.” Chrysler’s project partner is Passenger, a tech firm that specializes in software focused on customer collaboration. The only requirement is that a panelist must own a Chrysler or be a likely prospect.

When I arrived at DC Comics, one of our first initiatives was to create just such an online panel for the company. For DC, the world was changing dramatically: online casual gaming, MMOGs, manga, anime, mobile, digital-only content, social networking and user-generated content was the tip of the iceberg. Equally as interesting was a significant increase in the number of teen girls and women reading comics and graphic novels, based primarily on the explosion of manga in the US, as well as break-out films based on (non-superhero) graphic novels such as Constantine with the brooding Keanu Reeves and V For Vendetta with the very mainstream Natalie Portman. The company has a rock-solid gut feel for the market, but not enough hard feedback from actual prospects and consumers. And when a company is going through significant change, and looking for even bigger opportunity, the loudest and most compelling voice in the room should be that of the customer: no one can argue with that.

So our panel was a fantastic development and, as with any quantitative research, we were able to be certain we had sizable samples of those still-small but budding customer bases (women, etc.). DC worked with M&RR out of Baltimore, and it was a great experience. I know I’m a total customer geek, but there is a genuine excitement when you discover what prospects and customers actually think about you, your competitors, what you do and what you could create in the future.

A panel is also flexible: you can maintain your “relationship” with members for a one-shot study or for the long-term. You could ask just a few questions monthly, execute a long questionnaire each year or anything in between. Graphics, rich media and television ads are not a problem.

I would suggest that any marketer with online-savvy customers and prospects consider an online panel. It’s a fun, effective and cost-efficient way to hear customers… in a way that speaks to just about anyone.

Look at these iconic brand representations:

What do you FEEL? Nothing? That’s not what the study says.

According to some college researchers, brief exposures to brand logos cause people to take on the qualities most associated with that brand. So students quickly exposed to the Apple logo subsequently were more creative than those who viewed the IBM logo.

Even better, the “creativity” test was to challenge the subject to then think of all the ways he could use a BRICK. This is a little like when all the attendees at a Marketing 50 dinner were asked for an unusual use for an American Express card. Everyone else had impressive, sophisticated ideas. My idea was to fold the card up and use it to even out a wobbly table or bed. Let’s just say that my dinner companion from American Express was not amused. And I haven’t been invited to any more dinners.

But back to brick creativity. I’m hanging on at this point. Then things get really strange when the researchers draw the conclusion that – instead of spending money on crazy stuff like advertising – brands should therefore shift dollars to creating opportunities where subliminal messages can be involuntarily digested by clueless consumers via quick, hidden views of their logos.

(a) This is weird stuff. (b) Does anyone remember Max Headroom? and (c) There’s no conclusions drawn as to whether subliminal messages actually get people to BUY anything.

It does, however, have possible applications in other arenas. You want your mother to call less frequently*? Flash photos of silent monks – or maybe Hello Kitty.

* My mom can call me whenever she likes.

I had the pleasure of finally meeting renaissance man Randy Rothenberg last week, whose latest career is that of Internet advertiser/media wrangler as the President of the IAB.

When I joined Randy in his conference room, I remarked that his white board contained a veritable who’s who of Internet royalty: MSLO, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, AOL, NYT, Disney… along with the names of many of the business’ top executives. There were arrows going everywhere, different configurations of topics and people, squiggles hither and yon… and I asked Randy what it all meant.

He explained that the biggest take-away is probably that the Internet has become one big ecosystem where all parties have become completely co-dependent (in a good way). The boundaries that used to separate advertiser, agency, tech platform and publisher have nearly ceased to exist, and relationships have formed out of necessity that pretty much make everyone everyone else’s partner. Media companies provide agency-like services, and agencies have become distributors (see WPP). “Tech” companies provide campaign-management advice (Microsoft owns Agency A/Razorfish). Advertisers become online publishers to draw customers closer.

This is partly because playing on the Web is expensive and no one wants to go it alone (think Hulu). But it’s also because the bar for marketers needing to provide value rose exponentially when consumers suddenly realized that they could publish, make, buy, sell, talk and influence too: all from their own laptops, at home. Co-existence is no longer enough. It’s collaboration or bust.

Read Randy’s insightful article in this week’s AdAge, if you have a chance. It may spark some new thinking on your own company’s mission in the ecosystem.

As readers may know, the Burger King – uh – King is one of my favorites. Creepy, a little, and that commercial where he wakes up in bed next to you got a lot of weird buzz… but in the King’s case all buzz is good buzz.

In a new move, Burger King has licensed the King for a new line of greeting cards. Genius. Consumer licensed goods will never before the huge generator of global revenue that it is for a DC Comics, but it’s a smart, almost risk-free move that gets a huge representation of their brand into new retail venues.

Facebook has announced plans to introduce real-time chat functionality in the coming weeks.

This could create a lot of valuable advertising inventory because, if they can get the non-invasive behavioral targeting just right, this is messaging that would be seen by only highly qualified, increasingly wealthy, self-selecting people during a personal, “invested” conversation. Could be particularly useful for complex (financial services?) or high-ticket items (cars, luxury).

Anything that ties people more tightly to Facebook is good in general, by the way, as eMarketer notes that the affluent Internet users pouring into social communities belong to at least three social networks and that – unlike Facebook – the fastest growing ones are highly specialized groups clustered around like interests.

Slingo, Inc. released an announcement today that was chock-full of interesting information from a new Magid report about online casual gaming. Perhaps most notable is the target audience for such free games: women aged 35-65. Yes, the same women who buy the family car, make the banking decisions and hold sway over most discretionary income in many households are spending north of 10 hours per month playing games – and potentially seeing video advertisements – online.

This will be fresh ground for most marketers who seek this coveted demographic. And maybe I’ll finally learn how to play Sudoku, but I doubt it.