TVSquad

For those of you who can't wait for the two-hour season premiere of House on Monday, September 21st, FOX is making it easy for you - especially if you can't count. SnakesOnACane.com provides a handy little countdown clock and also features a nifty little picture of our favorite curmudgeon doing his best Superman impression. Plus, you gotta love the play on words and the twist (no pun intended) on the Rod of Asclepius.

However, what's most intriguing about the whole thing is the little blue Post-It note.

Last night, I was in New York's East Village attending a panel discussion that was being given at the Cooper Union. As I was walking around killing time before the seminar, I came across the sign on the right, taped to a light pole alongside various bumper stickers and other posted offers. It made me do a double-take, because it yells "HAVE YOU DATED THIS WOMAN?" in all caps. The picture is of a pretty woman who looks like someone just about anyone in New York could have dated at one time or another.

Was she in trouble? Was someone waging a campaign to trash this poor young woman? All those questions filled my head until I saw the phone number below, typed repeatedly in those all-to-convenient tear-away strips: 1-877-7-BELLA1.

Bella. That name sounded familiar. That's when it hit me: It was Elizabeth Reaser's character from CBS' new sitcom The Ex List.

If you're a fan of Twitter, the site where you microblog using only 140 characters max for each post, then you might have heard that several Mad Men characters have been on the site too. At first many people thought that this was cool marketing by AMC or the producers of the show, but actually they were accounts created by fans and AMC didn't like that. Now they've forced Twitter to take down the accounts.

The accounts affected include Don Draper, Peggy Olson, and Joan Holloway, though several other Twitters from other characters on the show seem to be safe (for now). The official word on it is that it was a copyright infringement problem.

This is really too bad. Some of the most creative, fun posts on Twitter are being done by fictional people (not just Mad Men but others as well). I would hope that AMC would hire some people to take over the accounts for each character, to be the official Twitter bloggers for the show. It's a great way to market it.

Update: AMC and Twitter have restored the accounts!

Icetruck.tv looks like a normal Youtube knockoff at first glance. It has friendly soft blue icons with rounded edges that just scream, "let's watch dramatic chipmunks all day long." But beneath the unsuspecting veneer lies one of the greatest viral marketing campaigns to hit the internet since Al Gore invented it so long ago.

The Icetruck site is actually a webvertisment for Showtime's Dexter, about a serial killer who works as a forensic analyst to help catch murderers. If that doesn't sound cool enough, it stars Michael C. Hall from Six Feet Under. What more do you need?

HBO has launched yet another quirky, viral marketing campaign - this time to promote the return of Rome on January 14th. From January 10th through the 13th, 100 Italian eateries in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be offering complimentary bottles of Rome wine, a cabernet sauvingnon bottled in California and labelled for maximum ad appeal. Rather than have servers push the wine on customers, a card will be placed on each table offering diners "a taste of Rome."

The brainchild behind the promo is Lime Public Relations & Promotions who feel that the campaign is "innovative but tasteful." Lime president Claudia Strauss reported to AdAge that, "The show is all about indulgence, and we just felt this was a great way to bring to life one of the key aspects of the story line." In keeping with the show's over-the-top sex and gore, participating restaurants will also allow diners to drink the blood of Christian martyrs, sodomize select servers and retire to a vomitorium following their meal.