Wired: Uncovering the Napster Kitty Ads

The Return

Garnering mixed reaction, Roxio's Napster is trying its hand at street cred advertising in a new poster campaign that places Napster kitty stickers over the faces shown on faux posters. The sticker includes the statement, "It's coming back," and they have been manually glued over posters depicting fake ad campaigns such as Gour-Mutt, a dog food company and Drop 'n' Go, a child day-care center.

While cool people debate whether this attempt at cool is cool or just a pretense at cool, the stickers are being ripped down because, well, the campaign seems to have caught people's attention. In the article, Nissan's Electric Moyo and MSN's butterfly sticker campaign are put forth as comparative methods used by corporate America to leveraged the cool factor to promote products.

The debate is moot. Cool is never cool once it's deemed cool, but capitalizing on cool is still possible if done appropriately. Whether or not it resonates with the intended audience is mostly a hit or miss proposition.