B-to-C Events

Ford this month hosted a casting call on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C. to find five stylish consumers to appear in national ads for its 2011 Fiesta automobile. The effort, called Inspired by Color, targeted young, urban, fashion-conscious African-Americans to represent the car, which comes in colors like Lime Squeeze, Bright Magenta, Red Candy and Yellow Blaze.

3D is making a comeback. The technology that had kids in ’50s cinemas wearing silly paper glasses as they watched “Man in the Dark” and “It Came from Outer Space” is back—and it’s better than ever. But let’s not give James Cameron and his hit movie “Avatar” all the credit. Brand marketers at Coca-Cola, Motorola, Visa and others are incorporating 3D into blockbuster events, too.

In order to build buzz around its Give a Day, Get a Disney Day program, in which volunteers who spent eight hours working in their communities receive a free day at a Disney park, the iconic family brand took to the country’s highways to “drum up” some support.

The senior prom next month at Cupertino High School in Cupertino, CA, won’t be the usual coming-of-age bash where 18-year-olds get decked out in fancy dresses and tuxes and go a little crazy on the dance floor. This year, seniors will attend a SuperProm, a $100,000 affair the students earned by receiving the most online votes in a nationwide contest produced by Dell.

Text messaging contests are popping up faster than you can text error-free “Zippity Dooo Dahh Zippity Ayy,” which is what 15-year-old Katie Moore typed in a contest last June to win the third annual LG U.S. National Texting Championship. (Well, actually, that was just part of the phrase she keyed in to take home the title and a cool $50,000.)