Hats off to two retailers for getting creative giving freebies to consumers in February.  Neither had a damn thing to do with the Vancouver Winter Olympics, but Americans have medals on their minds this morning.  (Sorry, lame attempt at SEO boost.)

Beauty school and products operator Aveda set up six-spigot water fountains in front of a half dozen of its Manhattan stores to give away, drumroll please, New York City tap water.  Tying into Mercedes Benz Fashion Week, Aveda partnered with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to use fire hydrant water and branded water fountains to diss bottled drinking water.  Despite the fact that no one used the Fifth Avenue fountain while I stood by last week, I applaud Aveda for being creative.  Next time, they should design the fountains so they don’t look like autopsy tables.  They win silver!

Of course, gold goes to those smart purveyors of bagels at Einstein Bros. and their West Coast sister chain, Noah’s.  Starting with a Facebook fan count of 4,000, the company launched a “Schmear Campaign” application that first rewarded legacy fans and then new fans with coupons redeemable for a free bagel and cream cheese.

Einstein Bros. not only saw its fan base surge past 400,000 last week, the publicly traded company also benefited from earned media coverage. Anyone who doubts the PR value of social media should just shut up and eat a toasted everything bagel with lox spread.