When the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco sold out all 20 000 of its slots for the Oct. 21 event in a matter of hours the shoe maker reached out to its Nike+ consumer base to extend the marathon’s capacity to suburban streets running paths and anywhere else runners want to get their jog on. The Nike+ Virtual Half Marathon also on Oct. 21 invites runners and walkers to become official finishers by logging 13.1 miles on their own and then logging onto nikeplus.com to document the run.

Smoothie King Franchises’ first-ever event tour is focusing on getting consumers to take a taste of the company’s beverages. The events revolve around a fully customized van—named the Orange KaBAM Van after a menu item—where the Smoothie King crew whips up its fruity concoctions.

Hitting fairs festivals and sporting events the tour unfolds into a 40-by-15 foot display where consumers can sample smoothies and receive coupons that drive them to local stores.

ING announced last week that it will add the Denver Marathon to its expanding portfolio of marathon sponsorships. The multiyear deal also makes the company the title sponsor of the ING Marathon Relay a four-person relay “race-within-a-race ” to be held on Oct. 14 the same day as the marathon.

GE Water trades in hundreds of trade shows for a paid proprietary event program. A look at how its first-ever World Water Tour is paying off

Filters that turn salt water into drinking water. Mobile units that purify 600 gallons of water per minute. Miles of tiny membranes that reclaim waste water and save energy. It’s not science fiction (or Al Gore’s latest invention). It’s the stuff of cutting-edge water recycling developed by GE Water & Process Technologies.

Product sampling programs target tastemakers in new and creative ways

Street-corner handouts during rush hour and pop-up stands at fairs and festivals have long been the vehicles of choice for sampling campaigns. But to really catch consumers when they’re most receptive some brands are closely tracking attitudes lifestyle habits and basic need-states like thirst and hunger to approach smaller groups of consumers in out-of-the-ordinary yet highly relevant ways. Here five off-the-beaten-path sampling ideas that are spot-on: