anyone read about the man in jacket thingy

Naked communications was acquired by PGA last year. let's just say these guys have an ... interesting way of advertising. lol.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technology/sydney-cinderellas-jacket-man-exposed/2009/01/20/1232213599896.html

She told the world via YouTube that she was a Cinderella trying to find her Prince Charming, a mystery man in a jacket, but Heidi Clarke is a fake.

The woman behind an apparently romantic quest to find a man she met at Jet Cafe Bar in the city was an actress hired for a viral marketing campaign to promote a jacket.

She had asked the Sun-Herald to use her mother's maiden name Clarke because she did not want her real surname used, but claimed her actual last name was Hardy.

A publicist working for the company confirmed that the campaign is the brainchild of Surry Hills-based marketing group Naked Communications, for which Australia's Next Top Model presenter Jonathan Pease is an executive ideas director.

It is for the new menswear line of a large Australian retail company, which has previously sold only womenswear.

When smh.com.au contacted Pease this morning, he claimed not to have any knowledge of the campaign.

"To be honest, I don't know," Pease said. "I am obviously not across every project. To my knowledge, it's not."

He said that other staff were in an "all-day meeting" and could not respond to questions.

When the Sun-Herald asked Ms Hardy outright last week whether it was a hoax, she insisted she was genuine in her search for love.

"I don't really understand why someone would do that if it wasn't real," she said. "There seems to be a lot of cynical people. Some people don't really think that love is out there anymore really."

She has not returned calls this morning.

Comments posted on YouTube included several questioning its veracity.

"Nice act. Of course this is some public relations thingie," said milkarton.

The campaign follows another YouTube hoax posted last week by Tourism Queensland - in which a woman has a tattooed an advertisement for the Great Barrier Reef on her arm to win a dream island job.

A marketing expert criticised the stunt yesterday, saying it was an example of Australian advertising agencies' "crude" use of new technologies to promote brands.