Most ads boil down to “Buy this so that you can be cool like us.”
Cigarette commercials overflow with handsome men and beautiful women.
Alcohol ads boast sexy models on pristine beaches. Truth in
advertising? Hah.

So when a company takes a personal interest in _you_ and ditches the
“Here's why you should buy our product” spiel for a more intimate
“We're interested in what you're interested in” thing, that's cool.
Companies like Stormhoek are starting to
recognize the word-of-mouth power of blogs and making it a part of
their marketing strategy.

Stormhoek gave away free bottles of wine to people who would then blog about it.
Great way to get astrophysicists to talk about your product.

You can't buy that kind of publicity for $10. Oh, wait, you can.