Veteran food publicist and Restaurant Intelligence Agency founder Ellen Malloy thinks restaurants need to develop better PR plans by “owning” the stories behind their businesses, but many still use shameless stunts to stand out in a crowded field. For example, an otherwise respected new Brooklyn spot called Aska turned quite a few critics’ heads (and stomachs) by including a “pig’s blood cracker with seabuckthorn jam” on its menu.

Today AdAge reports on another high-class food brand powered by an even more ridiculous PR stunt: the “calorie-neutral” meal.

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Do you love caffeine but don’t want to get hooked on the Colombian bean or risk your health by chugging Monster and 5-Hour Energy? Well then Wrigley’s has the product for you: Alert Energy Gum! We always thought that the indisputable way to make anything more fun was to “add alcohol”, but that rule apparently now applies to caffeine as well.

This chewable jolt is hardly your grandma’s Doublemint or Juicy Fruit–it seems that brands like those just weren’t exciting enough for the demanding, limited-attention-span Millennial set, so Wrigley’s just had to give them more of what they love most: drugs! The company claims that Alert is designed for “consumers 25 and older who want a portable energy product that will let them control their caffeine consumption”, but we know better. (Also: this product is sadly not related to Stay Alert chewing gum, which is marketed specifically to members of the U.S. military.)

While those big drink brands face lawsuits and the city of Chicago considers banning drinks with more than 180 mg of caffeine per serving, energy addicts can just get their chew on as long as they don’t mind the “bitter, medicinal taste”. Our favorite part of the campaign rollout has to be this quote (from a company representative, no less):

“The taste expectations are different for someone who wants to chew gum for energy than for someone who chews gum for flavor. If you come at this as a piece of gum that you chew for enjoyment it’s not going to deliver on that.”

OK, so maybe it’s really not for the kids! But now we finally have a new twist on that classic “walking and chewing gum” question: can one chew Alert and drink Four Loko at the same time?

Note to anyone pushing a yogurt that defines itself as “Powerful” and promises to help you “find your inner abs“: we hope, for your own sake, that you’re in on the joke.

Thankfully, Powerful Yogurt CEO Carlos Ramirez seems to get it. He has no problem with people who call his product sexist, explaining that “We made a product with a guy in mind” because Muscle Milk is kinda gross. He admits that the whole idea is “a marketing stunt” specifically designed to polarize audiences–the fact that certain kinds of people, ahem, hate the campaign will only make their boyfriends love it that much more!

The best part about this revolutionary product? It’s freaking yogurt. There is absolutely nothing that distinguishes it from any other brand in your dairy aisle except packaging and marketing. And oh, the marketing.

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Some quick background info: When it comes to pharmacies (at least in the northeast), people seem to be either Walgreens people or CVS people. My mother and I are loyal members of the latter group, and share a CVS card (the membership card that allows customers to receive discounts and build rewards as they shop). Because my tech-challenged mom doesn’t have an e-mail address, I get all of the promotional emails and coupons (addressed to her) in my own inbox.

Yesterday, I woke up to an email offering me (well, my mom) 20% off everything at CVS’s online store. The subject line of the email read: “20% Off Everything. Even the hush-hush stuff.” At first, I assumed that meant things like tampons or adult diapers–things no one waves in the air with pride and might be more comfortable receiving via snail mail. But then I opened the email and saw the accompanying picture of a young woman who looked much more like she was getting away with something a little naughty than dealing with a leaky bladder.

The caption read, “If it makes you blush, we’ll ship it to you hush-hush.”

And then, through my still-groggy morning fog, it hit me – are they trying to entice me into their online sale by promising the discreet delivery of a…um… personal pleasure device? And then, finally, the traumatic realization that this email was not addressed to me washed over me. “OMG, they’re trying to sell a vibrator to my mom.”

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Today in This Sounds Kind of Gross news: words on paper are somehow still around! This week sugary drinkmaker Fanta wants to turn its latest product launch campaign into something of a PR stunt with a new twist on that classic branding tool. The company and its agency, Dubai’s OgilvyOne, claim to have created the world’s first “tastable print ad” to promote its new “orange” flavor.

Intrigued? It’s a page that looks like this:

As you can see, the spot encourages dupes in the audience to “tear off a piece of this page, pop in your mouth & enjoy a Fanta”. What does it taste like? The team got a little creative with their copywriting, describing it as:

“…a burst of sunshine through a cool wisp of wind, it’s sweet and tangy, surprising and juicy. It tickles like a delicious secret that you cannot bear to share. And how lush it feels at every sip, like an instant whiff of a fresh bouquet of flowers in spring! With a quick sharp jolt of tart and a sudden burst of sugary-citrusy-sweetness, it leaves your tongue tingling pleasantly. Then, it curls deliciously around your taste buds, tantalizing your imagination & ripples happily down your spine.”

OK then! Here’s the video:

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Say you’re promoting a “premium” product with minimal production costs and you want to heighten its appeal to a certain target audience. What do you do? First you label it “premium” or “exclusive”. Then you slap a barely-related celebrity’s name on it and jack up its price well beyond reason. Score!

The latest industry overcome by celebrity endorsement deals is audio equipment. Headphones appear to be the new sneakers–when the $300 Beats by Dre model debuted a couple of years ago, they were the earwear equivalent of Nike Air Jordans. The first question to ask someone wearing Beats by Dre was either “When’s your album coming out?” or “How can I get tickets to the release party?”

Once marketers realized how profitable this racket can be, everyone and his brother (and his brother’s nephew, who appeared on one episode of some reality show) jumped aboard the C-list headphone train. Are they better than iPod earbuds? Do they offer deeper bass and crisper high-end sounds for compressed, low-quality mp3s? Sure–but this is more than a little ridiculous.

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Facebook fans of PBS‘s “Masterpiece Theater” mega-hit Downton Abbey may have noticed a strange request today following the show’s third season premier: producers looking for new ways to monetize the Abbey brand asked followers to make suggestions for a planned homeware range.

Carnival Films, the UK production company responsible for the well-suited soap opera, wants to “bring the beauty and elegance of Downton Abbey to homes” of plebians like us via “Homeware, crockery, pots and pans, kitchen items” and the like. The Facebook post also mentions furniture and lighting, calling upon manufacturers to volunteer their own product lines for branding.

We’re all about the newest trends in crowdsourcing and we understand the value of giving the people what they want, so we came up with a few ideas and figured we could work them into the show itself:

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We usually love the idea of two complementary brands coming together and doing great things, but when we first heard about the ongoing collaboration between Doritos and Taco Bell, we were a little skeptical.

We understand that these leaders in the “corn-based foods with ridiculously high levels of saturated fat” market appeal to the same audiences (namely drunk college kids and adults in a rush), but we wondered if a taco served inside a big Dorito dusted with nuclear red “cheese” would be a little too much.

We were very, very wrong: The Doritos Locos Tacos quickly became the best-selling item in the history of the Tex-Mex chain, which got mouths watering again this week with a Facebook post sort of announcing the pending release of the Cool Ranch version. We still can’t quite get over the fact that this simple post got 120,000 likes, 11,500 shares, and more than 8,000 comments.

The Huffington Post recently attempted to discern exactly why this co-branding exercise worked so well, and we have to agree with most of their points:

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Today we bring you what is, without a doubt, one of our favorite marketing projects of the year.

First: You may have heard that Random House employees recently received hefty $5000 holiday bonuses thanks, in large part, to a certain obscure author/handcuff enthusiast named E.L. James.

In case you thought the publishing house couldn’t wring a single cent more from its whips-and-chains smash 50 Shades of Grey, you thought wrong: the company recently released a lighthearted companion piece in the form of a cookbook titled Fifty Shades of Chicken. It’s ostensibly a collection of recipes, but it’s really just an excuse to milk that juicy property ’til it’s bone dry.

Why do we love this project? We’re suckers for satire and clever, pun-filled copy, so we’ll just let the official Twitter feed speak for itself:

I become unbearably moist and soft as wave after wave of convection heat embrace my flesh.

— 50 Shades of Chicken (@50ShadesChicken) December 18, 2012

…and it keeps going, people. There is apparently no shortage of sexual innuendos in the culinary world.

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You know, we’d love to come up with a different phrase for the newest product from Rhode Island lingerie maker Dear Kate (which calls its line of full-coverage underwear “functional cool-girl underthings”), but we just can’t get past thinking of these hip bottoms as sexy adult diapers.

Of course we understand that certain products require a bit more finesse when it comes to messaging, and we have to agree with the company’s decision to move away from the phrase “Sexy Period”, though we’re a little surprised by the explanation: according to New York Magazine’s The Cut, founder Julie Sygiel dropped the “in-your-face” copy and performed a little re-branding magic after discovering that her company had “a cult following among the…mildly incontinent.”

PR pros: How would we market this product? What do we think of Dear Kate’s campaign?

(P.S.: Make sure to click on the post and read the part about Sygiel’s first elevator pitch. It’s very amusing.)