To promote its free web-hosting software, Microsoft Office Live, Redmond, WA-based Microsoft dragged a kitchen table to Phoenix, Atlanta and Portland, where entrepreneurs could set up their own websites on the spot and then carve a notch in the table. Participants’ short, funny stories about why they needed a website were taped and uploaded to microsoft.com/notch. One musician wants to sell his music online so he can ‘sleep in a bed full of money.’

‘We wanted something viral that small-business owners would spark to,’ says Ben Carlson, CSO at New York-based agency BaM. ‘A lot of people seem to start their businesses at a kitchen table.’