While these freebies find their way to 5, 000 trendsetting pairs of hands, Conde Nast will be running ads in Teen Vogue and on the sides of ice-cream trucks making the rounds this summer. Though the gift is to have a certain “mystery package” allure, the concurrent advertising is to help ensure that the Mimobot gift resonates with the identity of Flip.com when it arrives, thereby luring the girls to check out the site.

So, will it work? A posting on media blog Gawker last week expresses doubt. This marketing plan smacks of a certain depressing brilliance: using the old “faux-exclusivity” marketing stance on a demographic notorious for cliquishness and social one-upmanship. But who are these “key influencing” teenage girls likely to be that would swing a trend towards a site that promotes individual self-expression? The girls at the top of the popularity pyramid? The most individualistic? The most genuinely well-liked? And will a free hi-tech toy make them fans of Flip, or could it turn them off by smacking too much of prefabricated “individuality?”

What do you think?

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