U2’s newly released “I Believe in Father Christmas” music video has nothing on Park&Co’s water-saving 12 days of Christmas. Recorded outside the legendary “combustible cafe,” Park&Co staff proudly displayed their musical chops on behalf of Water - Use It Wisely, an international water conservation effort.

Check out what is sure to sweep the MTV Music Video Awards next year…

(This article originally appeared in Southwest Graphics, Winter 2008)

Park&Co (no spaces, no period, which really freaks out editors) has been in business nearly 14 years, and every time the market blows up around them, they just get more combustible.

“Being ‘combustible’ is our internal mantra for producing brilliant work that is the accelerant for client growth,” says Park Howell, president of Park&Co. “It’s like tossing gasoline on a fire.”

The agency’s definition of a combustible idea is one that has the potential to explode, make a lot of noise, give off a lot of energy, and attract a lot of attention.

The combustible approach to their business has produced results for Park&Co clients, including growing sales for Goodwill of Central Arizona by more than 300 percent in six years. Combustible thinking saved Forever Living Products, the agency’s first client, nearly $150,000 by shifting video distribution from DVD to an online strategy that integrates a Wordpress site, YouTube, and iTunes.

Other notable work includes a campaign for Bring Back Blue, which featured a 3-story dust mask hung on the superior court building, the LEED award-winning branding work for Global Water, and a recently launched online business that allows contractors to review good customers and avoid bad ones.

The epicenter and inspiration for Park&Co’s work is its newly renovated office, some of the coolest agency digs in town. Bright red garage doors roll open to connect the shaded courtyard with amenities like the Combustible Café, the creative garage complete with musical instruments and lessons for staffers, and conversation walls painted in bright primary colors.

But the real TNT at Park&Co is found in its people. It’s a company of client evangelists that converge all forms of media — from traditional advertising to the latest online media to word of mouth marketing to stunts and promotions — to accelerate the growth of their clients and the growth of their agency.

Howell points to their unique brand of combustible, convergent communications as the reason the agency continues to grow through yet another down market.

“If our ideas aren’t making our clients sweat a little, then we’re not doing our job,” he says.

Does anyone else remember the days when people only used products in movies and TV shows? Now they’re an integral part of the script, weaving their way into the character dialogue with product attributes and multiple mentions. This evolution of product placement is called product integration, and it’s become so prevalent that the FCC is is studying the effects and considering regulation of this in-show advertising. Some call it embedded advertising. Here’s a look at a scene from last season’s finale of Mad Men, a show that is a natural fit for this kind of thing:

You just watched a three-minute commercial for a Kodak slide projector. Granted, the slide projector is an archaic product with little use in today’s highly technological world, but wasn’t that touching? It’s even more so if you follow the show and feel like you know the characters and their history and relationships. This is precisely why the FCC is investigating the use of actual products in shows. Some believe the impact is far too great and creates a false sense of connection with the product, without you truly knowing you are watching an ad.

There is another angle to the argument, as well. Business is getting in the way of creativity. Being a writer means that you have an element of control over the material you create. With this new and improved advertising method, script writers everywhere are having to bend to the will of big business, who are paying top dollar to studios in order to get product or company names in the script. Control over the script content has been partially usurped from the hands of writers. All of this is an interesting paradox, because television and advertising are so intertwined, that one likely couldn’t survive at its current level without the other. Advertising supports television, but people certainly aren’t watching television simply for the advertising. Where do we draw the line?

Should you have to be told that a commercial is coming your way, or do you think that you can figure it out on your own? Where do we draw the line between programming and advertising?