Does it seem like the holidays arrived early this year? Maybe you noticed Costco (COST) stocking up on wrapping paper in September, or holiday television ads blaring during the weeks leading up to Halloween. Well, it's not your imagination, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Retailers this year started their national television holiday ad campaigns as much as four weeks before the traditional start of the holiday season, the media researcher says.

"Typically, retailer advertising is concentrated in the eight weeks before Christmas," said Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research at TNS. "What we saw was a backing up of the calendar by a full four weeks."

When advertisers slash spending, ad-dependent newspaper companies cut costs by reducing the number of pages they print. Billboard owners aren't as lucky. They're stuck with the unsold ad space. During past recessions, that space would stand empty, aside from bleak black type declaring "Available." But, in this recession, billboard companies are getting much more creative.

New Zealand-based billboard company, Media5, is getting plenty of press for this billboard in Auckland, which features a photo of Paris Hilton with the word "Vacant" emblazoned below her mug. Funny -- unless you're either Hilton or one of the country's hurting billboard companies. In fact, Hilton thinks its so unfunny that she is now threatening legal action.

When children write their letters to Santa this year, many will be skipping last year's hot item: Webkinz. The stuffed animals were so popular last holiday season it was hard for retailers to keep the toys on their shelves. The plush dolls appealed to children and parents by linking the physical toy with a virtual world, where kids play with online versions of their personal stuffed animals and spend virtual cash to clothe and feed them.

Since then, demand has fallen off a cliff. According to The NPD Group, sales for Web-connected play toys have plunged 41% this year through August, marking the biggest decline among the 13 categories tracked by the market research firm, which provided its data to DailyFinance. The drop-off was so stark that at least two retailers disclosed the dwindling sales of Webkinz as drags on their performance in recent earnings calls.

The howling-wolf T-shirt phenomenon it is not. Walmart Stores (WMT) has closed the lid on customer reviews of its caskets. As DailyFinance reported this week, the retailer is selling 15 caskets, and more than 130 urns and cremains containers, through its website.

As debatable as that business proposition might be, it proved a sure thing with at least one type of consumer: not the bereaved, but the wags who lurk behind high-speed Internet connections, waiting for an opportunity to heckle retailers with tongue-in-cheek reviews.

Here's an idea for Seth MacFarlane, creator of the raunchy cartoon Family Guy on News Corp. (NWS)'s Fox Network: Take the script for the Nov. 8 episode that Microsoft just backed out of as sole sponsor. Find any mention of "Windows 7," cross it out with a pencil, and replace the term with the phrase "Snow Leopard."

If Microsoft (MSFT) is too scared to attach its image behind your off-color show, then there may be no better substitute than its archnemisis, Apple (AAPL).

Skywriting has fascinated us ever since the Wicked Witch of the West took to the skies with her smoke-sputtering broom to send a message to Dorothy. For most of the last century, promoters and self-promoters have used cloud-puffing planes to broadcast everything from cheesy ads to marriage proposals.

For Walt Disney (DIS)'s ABC, skywriting must have looked like a natural fit to promote its alien-invasion series V, a remake of the 1980s miniseries. The network's plan was to use skywriting to puff giant red V's over landmarks in 15 U.S. cities before the show's debut on Nov. 3. Imagine -- all those mysterious airplanes, etching cryptic messages in the airspace over the Statue of Liberty -- what could go wrong?

With local TV stations scrambling as advertising dwindles, it's prompting some to examine a money stream traditionally relegated to newspapers: obituaries. WNEM-TV, a Saginaw, Michigan, CBS affiliate owned by Meredith Corp. (MDP), may be the first TV station in the U.S. to air obituaries -- an idea it came up with this year when several local papers including The Flint Journal cut their frequency to three days a week. That cut-back worried funeral directors trying to relay information about services to residents, says Jeff Guilbert, general sales manager of WNEM.

A large newspaper's obituary fees can reach $1,000 for a notice, according to Advertising Age. But for just $100, families can buy into a two-minute segment about their loved ones on WNEM, which includes an obituary on ObitMichigan.com and televised information about the funeral home, Guilbert says.

It might seem risky for a marketer to integrate its TV spots with a show known for its advertising parodies. But that's not stopping Anheuser-Busch from buying up all the commercial time on this weekend's Saturday Night Live to shill Budweiser. The October 17 show will air eight to nine minutes of commercial time, integrated with the programming -- all of it devoted to introducing the Bud Light Golden Wheat brand extension from Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD), according to Advertising Age.

The ad buy marks the first time in 35 seasons of the show that a single marketer has bought all its national commercial time, according to NBC. It's a clever ploy designed to grab attention for Golden Wheat, which the brewing giant introduced on October 5.

Have you ever wondered who, aside from your mom, buys those $1 birthday-cake icons on Facebook? Turns out millions are willing to spend their hard-earned cash on, well, nothing. Sales on virtual items on Facebook, MySpace, and smaller social networks like Flirtomatic is expected to hit $1 billion in sales this year, a new report says.

Sales of Facebook "gifts" and virtual "goods" in games such as FarmVille are set to double from $500 million last year, according to a study by Justin Smith of Inside Network and Charles Hudson of Serious Business, and sales next year may hit $1.6 billion. Smith, who runs the blog InsideFacebook.com, says he and Hudson based the estimates on information they collected from game developers and other sources.

Chalk it up as a Pepsi challenge for the digital age: how to overcome a viral-marketing campaign gone bad. PepsiCo (PEP), the world's second-largest soda maker, is coming under fire for an edgy iPhone application meant to promote its AMP energy drink. Instead of inspiring 20 somethings to buy the orange-flavored AMP, the brand is getting flack from some consumers who call the application sexist and degrading.

A promotional video demos the free iPhone app, AMP UP Before You Score. Aimed at young male consumers, AMP UP coaches users on how to score with 24 categories of women. Once the user decides whether to hit on a cougar, a sorority girl, or 22 other stereotypes, the app suggests restaurants and pick-up lines -- and, like most viral-marketing campaigns, it includes a social-media feature that lets users "brag" about their conquests: "You got it? Flaunt it. Keep your buddies in the loop on email, Facebook or Twitter."