How do you combat tired Facebook status updates? With the Emergen-C Share the Good app, of course. It lets you send real Emergen-C vitamin drink mix packets to friends in need via Facebook, AND it generates a personalized video that will cheer them up while they wait for their samples. Try it out here.

We’re proud that the “Expense-A-Steak” Campaign for Maloney & Porcelli has been included in this year’s Ad Age Small Agency Awards 2010. 

The Emergen-C feed is now live again, and already sporting three times the amount of posts that were there all last year! Follow along: http://twitter.com/emergenc

Remember an online prank last fall from a Manhattan restaurant, generating real-looking receipts that were offered up as a way to pad expense accounts? Some of the folks behind it are back with a Web site that generates realistic-seeming “hand scans.”

The Web site, ultimatehandscanner.com, is part of a campaign to introduce a moisturizing hand sanitizer from the Gold Bond line of skin care products sold by Chattem. There are conventional ads for the new item, Gold Bond Ultimate Hand Sanitizer Moisturizer, as well as the fiendishly clever Web site.

The site is produced by two New York agencies, Walrus and KCSA Strategic Communications. Walrus was the agency behind the digital gag last fall, on behalf of the Maloney & Porcelli steakhouse owned by Fourth Wall Restaurants. That digital joke, called the Expense Report Generator (expenseasteak.com), received considerable attention and news coverage.

In this instance, computers users who head to ultimatehandscanner.com are asked to submit personal information about the person they are hoping to fool. The idea is to include enough specifics — about work habits, home environment, objects and products used every day — to give the recipient of the e-mail message the belief that if he or she puts his or her hand up to the computer screen, the “scanner” will reveal details about the dirty, germ-laden threats to his or her health.

This reporter received a test message before the Web site went live and it certainly was convincing. The prankster, Frances L. Webster, managing director at Walrus, included all kinds of personal information that made this reporter think for a moment that the scanner was functional rather than make-believe.

The intent of the Web site is to make the recipients wonder, “Does the computer somehow know?” Ms. Webster said, “and how does it know?”

The hope is that computer users will visit the Web site to play a trick “on that germaphobic friend,” she added, “or someone whose hygiene is less than desirable.”

Lucas Mininger, marketing director for Gold Bond at Chattem in Chattanooga, Tenn., described the Web site as part of “our first big online effort.”

“We’re doing traditional public relations outreach,” Mr. Mininger said, “but we’re also trying to reach the guy in his cubicle who wants to prank his buddy.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” he added.

Among those receiving e-mail messages that seem to be offering the fake hand scans are reporters and editors at newspapers, magazines and broadcast outlets, as well as bloggers who write about motherhood and childhood topics.

“It’s to get their attention beyond sending a sample,” Ms. Webster said.

View the article on NYTimes.com

On the Wall Street of today, cold hard cash is an increasingly rare commodity. With the 2009 bonus season ushering in a new era of stock-only bonuses, bankers are struggling to maintain their cash intensive lifestyle. Smith & Wollensky is ahead of the curve in this regard, and will now be accepting NYSE and NASDAQ stock certificates as payments. This full page New York Times ad ran on February 2nd, 2010, and attracted quite a bit of press. Coverage has included CNN, Money Magazine, Dealbreaker.com, Eater.com, New York Times, Ad Age, and Wall Street Journal to name a few. CNBC’s “Power Lunch” did a little math and figured out that 2 Goldman Sachs shares will buy 4 filet mignons, 2 Citi shares: 1/2 order of creamed spinach. Of course, you can do this math yourself on our handy converter at www.steakforstock.com.

Another year, another set of cool new CW-X products. These print executions will be complimented with digital (of course), and continue on our latest product-centric theme, which has been really well received. Turns out, runners get pretty excited by call-outs.

Everybody has a germaphobe in their life. That certain somebody who’s constantly washing their hands, is repulsed by crowds and will only touch doorhandles with their elbow. The Ultimate Hand Scanner is a friendly way to reinforce this paranoia, and possibly make it worse. Log on and in just a few minutes you can have a friend or loved one believing that 1) their computer monitor actually scanned their hand and 2) that they are completely covered in microbes. Luckily for them, there’s Gold Bond Ultimate Hand Sanitizer, Moisturizer - the world’s first hand sanitizer and moisturizer. It won’t dry out your hands, so they can reapply 20 times a day if necessary. See the scanner in action here.

The Three Walrus Moon T-Shirt, the one thing that everyone wants for Christmas (whether they know it or not).

“The Expense-a-Steak Headquarters stunt from Walrus, New York, for midtown restaurant Maloney & Porcelli’s is one of the cleverest ideas we have seen in 24 years of AdReview-ing” Wow. That says it all. Read the whole thing here or after the jump:

One of the biggest casualties of the financial crisis has to be the expense account meal. With the financial industry in turmoil, and unemployment higher than it’s been in decades, it’s easy to understand why those who still have their jobs are hesitant to appear brazen with the corporate card. Upscale steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli sits at 50th and Park, in the heart of expense account country, footsteps away from the likes of Citigroup, Blackrock and Morgan Stanley, and is working hard to help. Their clientele has always considered them a top spot to enjoy a 24 inch steak but with CFOs keeping tabs on every cent, it takes guts to turn in a receipt from a huge meal.

Enter the Maloney & Porcelli expense report generator (expenseasteak.com), a website that makes it easy to turn a decadent meal into a responsible expense. Simply enter the cost of a meal, and the generator will create a printable sheet of expense report-friendly receipts (office supplies, business how-to books and taxis) exactly totaling the amount of the meal. See it here.

And that’s not all we’re doing to help. Maloney & Porcelli is also famous for basketball sized pork shanks that are nearly impossible to finish. This poses its own unique set of problems since coming back to the office with a doggie bag emblazoned with a Maloney & Porcelli logo might raise a few eyebrows. Taking a cue from luxury boutiques who began offering their customers plain white shopping bags earlier this year, M&P’s doggie bags are utilizing a unique form of camouflage - the logos of other, less pricey restaurants. That way, as a small paragraph on the back of the bags reads, a customer will be “free to roam wherever you please, completely invisible to the watchful eyes of the etiquette police.”

Outside the restaurant, if you happen to be passing by - we’ve provided a long list of messages that will help people remember that there’s nothing like a good steak, even if times are tough.

AND, if you want to steal your competitors’ business in your own private room, you can do that over a steak as well. Wall Street Journal and NY Times readers had one of these fall out of their papers on select days this September:

The Park Avenue Bank is a local bank in New York City with branches in Manhattan and Brooklyn. They have an entrepreneurial spirit that pervades everything they do and they’ve made a mission out of helping small businesses get a leg up. While this has always been part of their DNA, they’ve never really said much about it. 2009 has turned into a huge opportunity to win over new customers as the image of big banks has grown more and more tarnished. We were tasked with helping them update their image and messaging to better emphasize their small business expertise. In the end, we updated everything - signs, posters, brochures, their site. Steering away from your typical, generic looking stock photography, we wanted to give them something completely unique - and that something came in the form of illustrations. Take a look:

As part of the redesign we also completely overhauled the Park Avenue Bank site. We wanted to keep it simple, clean, and most of all easy to navigate.

The Park Avenue Bank is there to help small businesses in everything they do. To help reinforce this fact, we wanted to create something that really, truly is helpful. Introducing the Park Avenue Bank Small Business HQ. This online resource for small business owners features constantly updated content with the sole purpose of helping small business owners better deal with the unique complexities of owning a business. The news section features articles of relevance to small business owners (for instance, how an SBA loan works), and a news aggregator collects articles of interest from all over the web. The Entrepreneur’s Corner is for those who are just getting their business off the ground and features tips on everything from writing a business plan to negotiating a lease. The bank’s existing clients aren’t forgotten here either, we’ve put in a section devoted entirely to them with interviews and profiles. Hopefully we can drum up some business for them along the way.