Now you'd have to stay indoors with everything turned off or move to Antarctica. The buzz-words in advertising and marketing are 'experiential'
and 'guerilla', and the latest antics prove the hard sell is ever evolving. Last week saw the rather sad site of students in London's squares sitting on purple sofas holding brollies imploring us to get excited about thelondonpaper - as if?

Rather more generously, New Look hid shoes all around the city inviting you to visit the store and collect the other one. OK - if your taste is rather random and cheapskate. Then there's new beauty brand Soap & Glory which has persuaded Boots make their logo pink, and will be accosting shoppers carrying the branded carriers (15 Sep), showering them with free gifts, including, if you're very lucky, a grand's worth of Boots vouchers, and that buys a lot of Nurofen - should all that hard sell give you a headache.

So far so typical. And then there's Wünderville from the ever innovative store/ gallery/agency, Beyond The Valley, where 15 of their top designers will be doing events and installations around Carnaby St for 15 days. Still marketing, maybe. But this time, it's more interesting/entertaining than your average force feed. And as it's from Beyond the Valley - safe to say there won't be an inflatable sofa, or pink balloon in site.