Marketing where you least expect it. Genius.

I went to a Dunn Brothers coffee shop the other day to take a break and catch up on some email. When I pulled up my available wireless networks, I was greeted by a very effective use of free advertising.

I've got to give them credit. Not only was this mysterious "Asian Takeout" smart enough to realize that their neighbor (the coffee shop) would be full of laptop-carrying java junkies. But they had the forethought to 1) advertise in an extremely unconventional spot, and 2) have the goodwill to offer up free wifi as well. I don't know about you, but I've got the munchies.

Can you say Product Placement?

NBC's The Office is my favorite show on TV. Tonight's episode was excellent, but it also contained possibly the most blatant product placement of all time.

One scene had Kevin Malone (played by Brian Baumgartner) shredding office documents with this shredder shown at the left. He talked about how great it was, and proceeded to shred papers, a CD, and one of his own credit cards.

Then they cut to a commercial. And surprise, surprise, it was a Staples commercial for the exact same shredder. Wow. Go marketing. What's even more, when I went to Staples.com to get a picture of the shredder, I came upon this page titled "Staples MailMate shredder and The Office". I bet they sell a million of these.