Is the marketing and promotion for 'Glee' stoking the flames of enthusiasm among the fans or do they risk overdoing it by jumping at every opportunity to hype the show? Can't say for sure, but as long as the Gleeks are screaming in joy, they must be doing something right. And the latest idea is not only good for the show, it's good for charity, too.

Fox is arranging a sneak preview of the spring premiere in movie theaters around the country. Fans will be able to see the show a week before the program airs on Fox, Tuesday, April 13 (at the special time of 9:28 PM), and on the big screen as well.

How would you promote a new TV show if you were a network executive whose career might be riding on the success of that show? Okay, maybe not your career, but at least a chance to keep your job? Well, at NBC, the brains marketing Community have turned to Facebook. ABC has a similar, but different, plan in mind for Modern Family. ABC's Inner Circle will get exclusive viewing of Modern Family.

The ABC Inner Circle is comprised of 20,000 consumers who have be recruited or volunteered to the online fan base. ABC marketing is counting on those people then spreading the word via Facebook, Twitter and other social networking programs.

TiVo's latest marketing campaign involves a new "My TiVo Gets Me" website where users can upload photos, add TiVo antennae to their photos, and edit their profiles.

TiVo's also launching a new user generated video contest. Create a video explaining how TiVo helps deliver content related to "your deepest passion," and you could win a Series3 TiVo, a lifetime subscription, and a 42 inch plasma TV.

Of course, with all this deepest passion talk, I expect to see a lot of people uploading videos about recording adult content.

TiVo's also uploaded a few commercials of its own to YouTube. One in particular plays on male insecurities as a TiVo owner wonders why his neighbors antennae are bigger than his own. Another features the age-old dillema: sports or sex. These seem a bit risqué for a company promoting its family-friendly KidZone feature.

Did you see the Heroes spoof on YouTube? It's called Zeroes, and it features a familiar voice talking about regular people with "Pointless Abilities". For example, one guy can ripple his stomach and a girl can put her entire fist in her mouth. You get the idea. It's worth a chuckle or two.

It turns out, the 2-minute spoof was an NBC creation. Marketing guru Vince Manze admitted to Variety that he created the spoof without any fanfare or even a tease to the real series, just as an experiment. He didn't even tell Heroes creator Tim Kring about it. The video short got more than 1.5 million views on YouTube. Minze seems to be one of the few marketing guys who "get it". He knows that people aren't going to YouTube to watch advertisements or promos (unless they're exceptionally creative).

How do you guys feel about this? The network is getting buzz for its show by spoofing it. Is it sneaky or is it creative marketing?

Zeroes is after the jump:

The new Chief of Marketing over at supplemental insurance company Aflac, Jeff Herbert, is planning to silence the duck. Despite the little quacker having garnered the company an 85% brand awareness rating, Herbert feels that people just don't know what Aflac actually does. So, expect to see the duck minimized in future Aflac advertisements.

Poor,duck. It probably doesn't know how to say anything other than "Aflac," which could cut the second phase of his career awfully short. Perhaps, he could go into early "fallen corporate mascot" retirement. There's got to be a pasture out there somewhere where Morris the Cat, Spuds McKenzie and the Anheuser-Busch Clydesdales sit around and bitch about their agents.

UPDATE: The duck lives! The AdAge story which this post referred to was picked up by news outlets all over the country. Apparently, the piece overstated Herbert's intention of expanding beyond television ads to other media where the duck's "quack" would not be heard. Aflac has officially announced that they have, "no intention of abandoning the duck."

The head of Cartoon Network resigned today over the marketing stunt that caused a terrorism freak-out in Boston last week. Jim Samples sent a memo to staffers today about his resignation, saying, "It's my hope that my decision allows us to put this chapter behind us and get back to our mission of delivering unrivaled animated entertainment for consumers of all ages."

Sheesh. It sounds like a robot wrote that. I would've preferred something a little off-beat, you know, in the nature of Cartoon Network and all.

So far, Sample is the only casualty from the fiasco. Well, that and two million of Ted Turner's dollars.

If you're a fan of Looney Tunes and find yourself in the 181 Martell gallery space in Los Angeles this Friday (tomorrow), that's a good thing. A street artist by the name of Dr. Romanelli (a.k.a. DRx) was picked by Warner Brothers to create new designs of characters such as Bugs Bunny, Tweety, Sylvester and Daffy as part of a new urban marketing campaign that will eventually include T-shirts, toys, and a limited-edition Chuck Taylor sneaker. The new designs are said to reveal a darker, more insane side of the characters. You can see a couple small examples of what the new designs look like here and here. I'd really like to get my hands on those Chuck Taylors, those would be pretty sweet.

Oh yeah, a bunch of DRx's designs can be found here, too.

If you live in New York, you may think that the New York Post is officially off its rocker. Today's cover resembles an extreme tabloid, ala The National Enquirer. It's covered with stories about freaks of nature that are on the Pentagon payroll... but it's all fake. Comedy Central bought fake covers to advertise David Cross' new animated series, Freak Show. The previews for the show make it look like it's a band of freaks who try to be superheroes. Comedy Central is also distributing more than one million copies of a Freak Show comic book written by Cross and co-creator H. Jon Benjamin (the comic is also on the website).

Freak Show debuts tomorrow, October 4th on Comedy Central at 10:30 pm, right after the return of South Park.

When I saw the screener of Tina Fey's new show, 30 Rock, I was lukewarm on it. But, I keep finding myself chuckling at all the promos with Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan. I even stop the TiVo when it's fast-forwarding so I can watch a 30 Rock promo! I think what I like about the threesome is that Tina Fey seems to be the only person rooted in reality and she's working with crazy actor-types Baldwin and Morgan.

In addition to the television spots, 30 Rock also has created ridiculous movie posters for Tracy Morgan's character, big time movie star Tracy Jordan. I love the tagline for Black Cop White Cop, "One does the duty, the other gets the booty." The other fake poster is for Who dat Ninga? Both movie posters are after the jump.

Honestly... it all makes me want to watch the show. And I probably will because of the marketing. What marketing is working on you?

If you've never seen the SciFi series Eureka, you're missing one of the best new shows of the season. Actually, I've never seen a single episode, I just thought for a change of pace I would lionize things I've never actually seen or experienced. Have you ever put ranch dressing on a jelly donut? It's absolutely delicious, I'm telling you. Sorry, I'll get to the point: as a way to promote the series a faux shopping channel has been set up where people can "purchase" some of the cool and weird inventions that appear on the show. I'm thinking of getting myself a TemporalVision Monitor so I can get a jump on the next book Oprah wants everyone to read. When you try to buy the non-existent products, you're actually entered into a sweepstakes to win a Sony HDTV and Blu-ray player. All in all, a clever bit of marketing for the show. The site is MadeInEureka.com.

This way cool live-action version of the opening sequence of The Simpsons might be a little less cool now that we know what it's about. It turns out, the video is part of a viral marketing campaign by UK broadcasting network, Sky. The network and its ad agency created the dead-on, live-action video as part of an on-air promotion for The Simpsons. They even had the blessings of Simpsons producers and creator Matt Groening. The ad gurus thought it was so cool that they decided to launch it on the internet and just let word-of-mouth go to work for them. Obviously, they were successful. The video is huge right now. And, unlike NBC, Sky has no plans to pull it from the 'net.