BrandNew Stores aims to turn fleeting pop-up shops into a chain concept, creating fixed spaces where brands can temporarily present themselves in a regular retail environment. Its first branch opened in the Dutch town of Amstelveen last month, where Alfa Romeo used the shopping mall space to present its new Alfa Mito model. It's all about experience marketing: companies can use a BrandNew Store for a few weeks to present a product or service, or to reach out to new and existing customers without going for immediate sales.

Targeting premium retail areas where unhurried leisure-shoppers are more likely to explore a client's offerings, BrandNew Stores will add locations in Groningen, Den Haag and Rotterdam later this year, with more cities to follow in 2010. The stores will be decked out with video screens, interactive floor projectors and other elements that make it easy for brands to present themselves.

Exclusivity has been a major element of the pop-up phenomenon, and brands have mostly limited their temporary attention-seeking abodes to major cities like London and New York. By creating a nationwide network, much of that exclusivity is lost, and the concept becomes more of a regular marketing tool. Which has its benefits: brands can reach a much wider audience, and being able to design once and then move everything to another city significantly brings down the cost per location. Since rents are still down in most malls and high street shopping areas, now's the time to bring this to other countries. (Related: Brands to take turns running airport store in Glasgow.)

Website: www.brandnewstores.com
Contact: info@brandnewstores.com

Earlier this year we covered YokmoK, the Spanish travel company that invites its clients to help create new trips. Now, taking a page from TasteCasting's play book—by which restaurants give bloggers free food in exchange for social-media exposure—YokmoK is now offering popular bloggers free trips.

Owners of popular blogs—which YokmoK defines as those with 10,000 or more incoming links—relating to travel, adventure or adrenaline sports are invited to apply for free travel on one of YokmoK's upcoming trips. They need only submit their name, the URL of their blog, which trip they're interested in and a few sentences about themselves in order to be considered. Then, when YokmoK finds itself with an unused slot on a trip, it lets qualified bloggers know—in general, at least two to three weeks before the schedule date of departure. If the blogger is available to participate, YokmoK will pay for all services included in the price for the corresponding trip. In exchange, the blogger is expected to share their experience of the trip, including at least four entries before the trip starts, one entry per day during the trip, and another four entries after the trip ends; each entry must include at least one direct link to YokmoK's website.

Free expeditions are certainly a bigger investment for YokmoK than free meals are for TasteCasting's clients. On the other hand, can any advertising dollar achieve the targeted exposure of multiple posts on a highly relevant and popular blog site? We don't think so, either. A model to emulate for your own company's promotional purposes! (Related: Job contest lets bloggers become pilots — Blogger helps connect consumers and brands — Job contest spotlights Great Barrier Reef Islands.)

Website: www.yokmok.com/bloggers-travel-free.html
Contact: info@yokmok.com

Spotted by: Raul Vigas

Ad agencies thrive or fail by the creative ideas they come up with, and promoting themselves is no exception. What makes Montreal firm Carte Blanche's new self-promotion campaign unique is that it's also a recruitment experiment. Carte Blanche is offering one lucky (depending on your viewpoint) intern the chance to spend 30 days living in the heart of the Montreal agency's headquarters, in a fully-equipped apartment adjoining their offices. After the working day, the intern will have access to the office floor. The agency claims that this project—dubbed Dortoir (French for dormitory)—is a world's first for an ad agency.

Carte Blanche is inviting email applications from creative and passionate people, who are asked to up load up to 10MB of images, text and video to show off their talent. Dortoir seems less like a recruitment process and more like a prize competition—echoing buzz-heavy campaigns like The Best Job in the World. Similarly enliven your own recruitment process and you could find yourself with a larger pool of interesting applications to wade through, as well as plenty of free viral exposure. (Related: Job applications in 140 characters or less.)

Website: www.cbcm.ca/dortoir
Contact: dortoir@cbcm.ca

Spotted by: Khady Beye

While consumer pressure is managing to push some businesses towards social responsibility, competition will favour those companies that can leverage good deeds to increase their bottom line. That means reliable, unbiased good news has to reach consumers, and eventually influence their purchase decisions. Denver-based Tuggl aims to facilitate just that, by bringing consumers and nonprofits together to rate and review businesses so that companies who display a commitment to both the community and their customers get the recognition they deserve.

Tuggl lets customers rate companies according to service, price and quality, while nonprofits can score their for-profit supporters on donations, pro bono behaviour and volunteering. Tuggl then calculates an overall score for the business, which affects its placement in the rankings when people use the site to search for a local service. Recognizing consumers' need for personally relevant reviews, users can sign on to the site through Facebook and see how their friends rate local businesses. Tuggl is leading by example: when users join the site, they select their chosen social cause. Then, according to how active the user is on the site (reviewing, inviting friends etc.), Tuggl will reward the user with a badge of honour and donate money to their chosen cause—up to USD 500 per person.

The site further aids nonprofits by enabling them to track how much their positive reviews benefit their benefactors, making it easier for charities to present their side of the bargain to other potential corporate donors. It's this kind of concrete return-on-investment data that Tuggl hopes will prove to companies that "doing good can be good for business". Currently, the site is focusing on the Denver/Boulder area—where 130 local charities have already recognized over 1,300 local businesses—although listing is open to businesses and nonprofits in other places. (Related: Crowd clout meets eco persuasion — The Goodness 500.)

Website: www.tuggl.com
Contact: info@tuggl.com

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

If Facebook users can conjure up real-world flowers, candy and drinks from within the social network, then why not give them a way to capture their favourite Facebook images in a real-world photo album? Better yet, why not make it free with a little advertising support? That, indeed, is just what HotPrints does, thanks to a set of new apps for both Facebook and Bebo.

HotPrints' new HotBook app gives Facebook and Bebo users a way to bring their social network photos to life. Users simply indicate which images they'd like to include in their 16-page, soft-cover HotBook; there are currently nine themes to choose from in designing the compilation, which can be shipped anywhere in the world. Perhaps best of all, UK-based HotPrints has teamed up with select partners to sponsor one free book per month per customer, including even shipping and handling. Advertisements are included, but not on the same pages as the photos; rather, they're removable full-page inserts. In addition, for every 10 friends who install the HotPrints application, HotPrints credits the user for another free book. Those who would rather skip the ads, meanwhile, can pay USD 2.99—GBP 1.99—for an ad-free version.

With more than 300 million active users and 2 billion photos uploaded each month on Facebook alone, it would be difficult to find a better place to give out free photo love. Add to that the examples we've already seen of free photocopies, printing, notepaper, phone calls and notebooks, and the message is clear: there will never be too much free love!

Website: www.hotprints.com
Contact: info@hotprints.com