It shouldn’t come as a shock that people are turning to good old-fashion coupons to help keep a little more change in their pockets during the recession.  The kinds of coupons people are turning to, however, may be a bit more surprising. Like most things in the world, today’s coupons have gone the way of the Web and are now available online and even via cell phone. Coupon usage has surged about 10% in the past four months and online coupons comprise the fastest growing segment with a 140% increase in redemptions last year alone.

Increasingly, big name retailers and manufacturers are committing themselves to delivering coupons online.  Kmart will soon offer printable manufacturers’ coupons on its website, joining the likes of Kroger, CVS and Walgreens, all which launched printable coupons last year.  Kroger even recently expanded a pilot program allowing Kroger customers to use their cell phones to load coupons (barcode and all) from Kimberly-Clark, General Mills, Clorox and other brands and redeem them at the checkout.

So why this surge in online printable coupons? For one thing, digital coupons have a 13% redemption rate — far surpassing the 1% redemption rate for coupons found mostly in newspaper inserts, on the back of sales receipts and on product packaging. Secondly, printing costs are transferred to the consumer. And third, the online and mobile coupon craze not only reflects the current economic outlook, but also reflects the changing way in which consumers shop and get their news (just look at Amazon.com and the state of our nation’s newspapers). So it makes sense that retailers and manufacturers are hopping online and giving customers an option that is convenient and reflective of the times.

While online coupons still have a ways to go before they are universally embraced, two things are clear:  1) people and companies will continue to explore any and all innovative cost-saving measures and 2) while we may be in a recession, the online world continues to surge full speed ahead.

Yes, you read that correctly. In the ever-cluttered battle of the brands, some companies are taking the quest for “mindshare” to a new level.

In fact, 30 people in California agreed to participate in “cranial billboards” for Air New Zealand back in November. Participants shaved their heads and applied temporary tattoos that read: “Need a Change? Head Down to New Zealand. www.airnewzealand.com.” For a head rental and a really bad haircut, participants received either a round-trip ticket to New Zealand or $777 in cash (for all of you wondering about the significance of $777, it’s an allusion to the Boeing 777, a model in the airline’s fleet).

Air New Zealand isn’t the only company asking people to serve as human billboards. In January, British-based online beauty products store FeelUnique.com paid ten men and women to apply temporary tattoos with the company’s website to their eyelids. They were then encouraged to walk around winking at strangers so they could see the message. Participants were paid $149 to wink at people 1,000 times.While this is somewhat clever and definitely amusing, I can’t help but ask — have we gone loco to raise awareness about our logos? Sure, shaving your head or wearing a temporary tattoo seems harmless enough. But that’s just the beginning; some companies are actually offering cash for permanent tatts. For the past four years, Dunlop Tires has hired tattoo artists to work its booth at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Vegas. Volunteers who agree to be permanently tattooed with tire tread or the company logo receive a tire set worth $500-$1,000 — and a pretty bad reminder of how low they’d go for a free ride.

Every company strives to build a loyal and passionate consumer base, but this is getting out of hand. Getting a permanent tattoo of a logo definitely takes it to the next level and makes me wonder, whatever happened to a good-old fashioned t-shirt?

If the medium is, in fact, the message, then these cool cats are telling the world that they are among the world’s most forward-thinking marketers. There’s a brand new list out of Chief Executives and other C-Level executives who are actively using the micro-blogging site Twitter. The biggest name on the list: Virgin’s Richard Branson, who certainly qualifies as a forward-thinking marketer.

It seems shocking (to me, anyway) that someone who has the responsibility for dozens or hundreds or thousands of employees and customers could spend time trying to figure out the right hashtags for his or her latest tweet. Taking it to the extreme, can you imagine if well-known Blackberry devotee and communication-aholic President Obama got on the Twitter bandwagon and started tweeting away from the Oval Office (“Sec. Clinton just checked in from M.E. Things looking good! Time for lunch with Geithner. Ugg.”)?

When it comes to our Chief Executives, it seems that there could be such a thing as being too connected.  CEOs should be executing, not commenting. And certainly not dithering. I suspect that a CEO who is on Twitter all day would soon be explaining a big drop in the company stock. (That is, if they weren’t all plummeting already.)

But just as obviously, Twitter holds great communications promise for those who can figure out how to utilize that potential. The best example so far – The Israeli Consulate in New York holding a global news conference via Twitter to discuss its December battle with Hamas.

So, as with any tool, the possibilities for using Twitter and other social networking sites for business seem magical. The key for any organization is to not get carried away by the technology, and figure out how to apply it (probably sparingly) to better communicate to your audience.

You get the request in public relations all the time: “I want to be a thought leader.” The problem is that saying it – even wanting it really badly – doesn’t make it happen. You have to earn it. You have to prove it. And that’s exactly what one client we work with did last week.

The client: a software services firm named Alliance Global Services. The situation: a competitor, Indian outsourcing giant Satyam, essentially became the Enron of India several weeks ago when its chairman confessed to inflating profits to the tune of more than a billion dollars over the course of several years. In the ensuing fallout, competitors all clambered to win over Satyam’s outraged clients.

Alliance could have simply piled on and joined the masses professing expertise, trustworthiness, and financial viability to anyone who would listen. But they wanted to do more than that. We helped them demonstrate leadership through the development of an IT Bill of Rights, intended to serve as a conversation starter for the creation of a new set of industry standards for IT vendor/client relationships.

The bill outlines ten new rules of engagement designed to ensure greater accountability and integrity among IT service providers and ultimately to restore confidence in the industry. A web site, www.ITBillofRights.org, was created to give others in the industry an opportunity to react, contribute to or simply join the effort in a show of support. Now Alliance is taking a leadership role and prompting and facilitating a conversation that will hopefully lead to real industry change.

Their leadership position has been recognized by clients and competitors and through coverage by top media, including BusinessWeek and Information Week among others.  And that leadership position should be an asset in sales conversations going forward.

The lesson here is that real leadership is demonstrated through actions, not rhetoric. Companies can only become thought leaders if they earn it.