Iran's hottest brand? Shoe thrown at Bush, of course.

According to Mark Bentley's Bloomberg story, the biggest brand in Iran these days is the "Model 271" shoe, the brown, thick-soled projectile hurled at President Bush by an Iraqi journalist at a December 14 news conference.

The Turkish manufacturer of that shoe has received orders for 300,000 pairs since the attack - that's up four-fold. They plan to add another 100 staff to meet demand, and - this is my favorite part of the story - have hired an agency to look into television advertising. So after hearing that the next big brand was born I fired off an e-mail to Mark  - I’m going to tell all my clients this is a fool-proof strategy to propel their brands to new heights. It requires only that the product be small enough to be hurled at a Head of State!