Guerilla marketing

The bright orange polyester plush toys pictured here come to Inman News from China, courtesy of the folks at HomeGain.

"Behind the cute and cuddly nature of this critter is a profound message for real estate agents to 'stop monkeying around' and fight the effects of a challenging market with HomeGain's help,' " each Inman staff member who received one was informed in a letter from company execs.

We could just do what we usually do when promo stuff like this arrives -- ignore it and go about our daily business. But instead of a "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" approach, I thought it would be interesting to hear from readers whether you think HomeGain will get much mileage out of this campaign.

Last year, I was somewhat appalled when a well-known company that provides fraud detection services for mortgage lenders sent us fortune cookies with slogans like "Confucius say: Loans to crooks/Make problems with books."

At least HomeGain is not likely to offend anybody with its new campaign (Isn't the first rule of marketing, "First, do no harm?" Or is that some other profession?). Stuffed animals do seem to be the rage this year. Here's where these guys came from if you want to jump on this trend.

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