NOW, we're not saying Publius should be up for any creative posts in the behemoth that is the Nike/Apple marketing machine, but when you're in the imagination business, well, a little imagination wouldn't go amiss, would it?

Not averse to the odd trot around the park, we were delighted to hear last May that Nike had teamed up with the trendies at iPod to produce the Nike+iPod, a little gadget that allows your Nike trainers to talk to your iPod nano and tell you how far you've run, how long it took you and how many burgers you'd managed to burn off, all to the tones of whomever may tickle your fancy.

It "nally became available this week. Nice little gadget but, 'Nike+iPod'? C'mon lads, something a little catchier please!

Mind you, it beats Sony's effort at the same thing. Keen to jump on the music/"tness bandwagon, Sony has released its Walkman/pedometer hybrid, a slinky little number that doesn't require a pair of Nikes to work.

Bereft of the bells and whistles of the Nike/Apple rival, the folks at Sony had to come up with a catchy, funky, easy-to-remember moniker to make up for the shortfall. We've considered it deeply and come to the conclusion that the NW-S203F (and its sibling the NW-S205F! ) could do with a little more thought.

EASY IRISH BROADBAND WE LIKE broadband. Especially the wireless type. But for a while there Mrs Publius and I were under the impression that it didn't exist at all . . .

that it was just a "gment of our imaginations and that those who said they had it were just lying. It was all a conspiracy, you see.

Then one day a White Van Man with an Irish Broadband package arrived at our home. Sometime later we sent it back. It didn't work. Their signal didn't reach our area, it seems. Maybe we were right all along.

Still, Irish Broadband is among the cheapest providers around and, who knows, things may have changed. Keen to counter the myth that broadband is but a pipe dream for many, the company embarked this week on the "next phase of its successful marketing programme with a 2m campaign".

The company has teamed up with Leo Burnett once again to unveil a new logo as well as some new print, radio and television ads. The new campaign will "dramatise the theme of 'light at the end of tunnel' for Irish customers who are embroiled in the complexities and hurdles of obtaining broadband connection."

No comment.

Irish Broadband has gone with "If you like easy, you'll like our broadband' as its slogan for this campaign. Let's hope that by 'easy' they mean 'functional' and by 'broadband' they mean, well, 'broadband'.

PARISIAN SQUAWKWAYS Publius hasn't heard Paris Hilton's new album. Hopefully, Publius will never, ever, hear Paris Hilton's new album. Ever. So, a word to the wise.

When your next visit to YouTube offers you a quick snippet of a Paris Hilton video, do not be fooled.

The content sharing phenomenon (we mean YouTube there by the way . . . not Paris Hilton) joined forces with Warner Bros Records last week to put video ads up on the website and Paris's musical offering (if you could call it that) is among the forerunners. Charges will be based on the number of times the home page is visited, with Warner Bros and YouTube splitting the revenue.

The deal emphasises the new era for advertising people and their target markets. In London, for instance, testing is currently underway on posters with GPS devices that automatically change the advertisement on the side of a bus as it wheels its way through different areas. Advertisers in Dublin are hopeful that the geo-targeting test will soon "nd its way over here.

WELL BEAT-EN PATH To those not in the know, Publius isn't exactly unattached to radio stations that advertise their main protagonists as superheroes. Eager to follow on the success of such a campaign (ahem), Ireland's "rst and, to date, only regional station, Waterford-based Beat 102-103, has employed the services of Irish International to "og its breakfast programme. While the ads may not be as slick, widespread or, I suspect, expensive as the Newstalk campaign, they do strike a familiar note.