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Last month’s edition of our other newsletter TRENDWATCHING.COM introduced the TRYVERTISING trend: how consumers are increasingly becoming familiar with new products by actually trying them out in a relevant setting, for free or for a small fee. These real world product placements (think everything from strategically placed samples to a Mini Cooper that comes with your hotel room) work particularly well in environments of ‘voluntarily captive audiences’ like waiting areas, business lounges, and work spaces. So if hotels, airports, offices, even cruise ships (easyCruise anyone?) are serving as try-before-you-buy alternatives to advertising, who’s going to intermediate between venues and manufacturers, brokering placements and audiences? One interesting example we spotted in this still pretty uncrowded field is Vacation Connection, peddling an organized approach to in-hut, in-room product placement of samples from Carnival Cruise Lines to Las Vegas and South Beach hotels, all targeted at vacationers. In their own words: “Give your target audience your product sample when they are most likely to try it, and associate unforgettable memories to the experience. Your target consumer is greeted with your product sample on the first day of their vacation. At a time when they are without their ‘stuff’ from home and will have up to 7 days to form a new habit with your brand.” Carnival Cruise is already a client, as are Absolut, Colgate-Palmolive, Kraft Foods and Unilever Group. Planes, trains and rental cars to follow? Springwise sees massive opportunities for those who dare to facilitate and speed up the move from advertising to tryvertising.