Generally what a giant company employs illicit methods to build buzz about its product, it does not proceed to brag about them. But under CEO Dan Hesse, who insists on appearing in black and white commercials, nothing about Sprint makes sense these days.

In order to build interest about its new Samsung Instinct phone, the wireless carrier is asking filmmakers to plug the phone in a video they post on YouTube — the first 1,000 get $20 and the winner gets a $10,000 grand prize. Under normal circumstances, Sprint might be able to get away with the stunt by saying it merely aims to reward promising young directors with a little cash stipend while getting first-hand experience in product placement.

But they're not even trying to hide behind an excuse. Instead, they think they're in the joke!

CONTINUED »

The second-best column in the New York Times Magazine, next to The Ethicist, is Consumed. Written by Rob Walker, who claims to have created the term "murketing," and noted by the "$ / ¢" stamp, Consumed explains in just a few hundred words each week why we spend the way we do. (This week he told you why you buy a certain snack, because you believe it to be healthy, when it isn't really.) Walker's out with a new book, Buying In — that we'll file in on our Consumer Trend Books That Are Actually Interesting shelf next to titles like Maxed Out — which is like pages and pages of his excellent magazine column rolled into things called chapters and billed with the buzzworthy promise to take on a tour of the "consumer-persuasion industry." Who knew it'd be such a suspense-thriller?

CONTINUED »

At last(?), the mystery behind the videos of cell phones supposed popping corn, which has been seen nearly 2 million times, is solved: It's an ad. For Cardo Systems.

Surprise!

Oh, murketing, that buzz word describing the stunts pulled by Levi's, Coor's Light, and Nike, which produce stunt videos, post 'em on YouTube, and wait for viewers to eat them up. Unlike TV spots, the clips are cheap to produce, free to distribute, and find audiences in the hundreds of thousands and beyond with a creative that people want to watch.

And: We fully support them.