Egghausted

AP reports:

CBS Corp. is enlisting eggs in its scramble to attract viewers.

The CBS logo and slogans promoting the TV network and its series will appear along with coded expiration dates on eggs sold by grocers — another promotional measure in the competitive world of television.

More than 35 million eggs will be marked with phrases such as “CSI: Crack the Case on CBS” and “The Class, New Grade-A CBS Comedy” as part of a deal between the CBS Marketing Group and EggFusion, an egg-coding company. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The campaign will begin in September, when the fall TV season begins, CBS said Saturday at a meeting of the Television Critics Association. EggFusion, based in Deerfield, Ill., will use laser technology to create the expiration dates and “On-Egg Messaging,” the company said in a statement.

However, CBS isn’t putting all its eggs in one marketing basket. The campaign is part of what the network is calling its “Outernet strategy,” an effort to reach viewers “outside their homes as they go about their daily lives,” the network said in a statement.

Other networks have tried offbeat ways to attract viewers, such as putting messages about shows in public restrooms and Walt Disney Co.’s use of dry-cleaning bags to promote the ABC hit “Desperate Housewives.”

Nothing like hitting the right people at the right time with the right idea. Congratulations guys! (Free bonus: lots of people wrote about how stupid you are, so you get all that earned media too!)