Here's are a few stories grabbing our attention this week:
Financial Forecast Calls for Subdued Davos: The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is taking an unsurprisingly somber tone this year. C.E.O.s of corporations like Citigroup and Sony have opted not to attend; the celebrity contingent is all but nonexistent; and the opulent parties of the past seem to be long gone. Goldman Sachs is among the biggest names ditching their perennially hot ticket parties, and although Brit bank Barclays is said to be going ahead with theirs, company president Bob Diamond just canceled his trip yesterday. [FT]
HuffPo and Meetup Help Obama Fans Network: By using street teams to hand out branded name tags in Washington, the Huffington Post and community organizing Web site Meetup attempted to introduce half a million strangers to each other at last week's inauguration. Creative agency Interference Inc. enlisted about 180 people to pass out the tags, and trucks had to deliver the 500,000 stickers two days in advance because of closed street traffic. [BrandFreak]
Condé Nast Stays Close to Home: The annual publishers meeting at Condé Nast went ahead as planned this week, but not on a beach in Florida. The traditionally off-site conference, including Tuesday night’s awards ceremony, kept the editors in New York this year. [MediaWeek]
Exhibitionists Stay Free: For a free five-night stay in Manhattan's Roger Smith Hotel, one British couple agreed to take part in a marketing stunt that opened their room to the public. The hotel put them up in a replica room in a nearby storefront, on the condition that the two kept their blinds open from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. each day. This isn’t the hotel’s first foray into stunt marketing—just this past December boxer Tor Hamer took to the hotel's window for a sparring session with his trainer. [Daily Mail]
