With access to endless amounts of audience research niche marketing is more prevalent and calculated than ever before. Companies target moms, kids, and even grandparents, but are they forgetting someone?  Based on an article in BrandWeek the answer would appear to be yes.

According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, singles, as in the unmarried, spent $2.2 trillion in 2008. With a growing market of over 110 million single Americans out there, why not target singles as a unique and important demographic? After looking at the numbers some companies are beginning to do just that.

Recently, Norwegian Cruise Lines announced that their new ship set to debut this July will feature single occupancy cabins. Hasn’t this been done before? The surprising answer is no. While some cruise lines have “singles cruises” where guests can troll for dates on the ship’s deck, none offer single occupancy cabins for their traditional cruises. If you were to travel solo on these trips you would have to take a double occupancy room and of course pay double the price.

Coldwell Banker debuted an ad campaign aimed at single home buyers, with good reason. According to National Association of Realtors, single women accounted for 21 percent of home purchases in 2009. Coldwell Banker has even called singles the “new wave” of home buyers.

With staggering statistics that continue to grow, perhaps it’s time to use market segmentation at its best and include singles.

Just Ask a Woman states: “Letting singles go unnoticed is just leaving money on the table.” So why aren’t more companies following the campaigns of Coldwell Bankers and Norwegian Cruise Lines?

Singles are clearly on the rise, but there is still speculation about whether or not it is cost-effective or effective at all to segment by one’s relationship status. Do people self-identify as singles or do they even want to be associated with that lonely phrase? There’s only one way to find out. Put it to the test. With the likes of Norwegian and Coldwell Banker taking the first step, we’ll probably have some good insights soon.

Who knows niche marketing and the singles set could be the perfect marketing match and live happily ever after.

At an on-campus eatery yesterday at the University of Pennsylvania, I was surprised to find options for lunch that are rarely offered at a dining hall. A pizza, stacked with vegetables and a pesto sauce on whole wheat crust being one. I asked the dining hall employee why the pizza had no cheese, a necessary evil in any slice I would order, and he replied, “It’s Earth Day.” I nodded, puzzled. “I’m sorry…what?” I probed. “It’s pasteurized.”

Forty years since the advent of Earth Day, it seems that everyone is cashing in on the holiday. Yesterday, Earth Day consumers could buy Greenzys, a stuffed animal collection introduced by FAO Schwarz made from soy fibers, or take a Gray Line Sightseeing tour to “green” destinations in New York City. Earth Day, simply put, has become a marketing and revenue gold mine. Activist Denis Hayes organized the first Earth Day, and in a recent interview with The New York Times said, “This ridiculous perverted marketing has cheapened the concept of what is really green.” So what is an eco-activist to do? Accept the nature – no pun intended – of this newly commoditized holiday, steeped in consumerism, because for the first time, people are actually paying attention? Or return to the Earth Day of 40 years ago, when no one seemed to care, but at least factories weren’t pumping more carbon into the atmosphere to make Greenzys?

It is a difficult choice, but it seems green enthusiasts have begrudgingly chosen to accept commoditization in return for social visibility. And as a result, companies with “green” marketing initiatives seem to be raking in the green. All except for dairy producers, I guess, because it’s pasteurized – which I’m still not sure I really get.

How much thought do you put into your tweets? On April 14, the  Library of Congress announced (through its Facebook and Twitter pages) that it will archive all publicly available tweets that have been posted to Twitter since the medium’s inception in 2006. Twitter agreed to donate its archive of public tweets to the library.

This new partnership between Twitter and the Library of Congress is not designed to invade our privacy, but instead to document the way we communicate.

According to the New York Times, “the Library of Congress wants to store tweets to give researchers a better way to revisit discussions of significant events, including the tweets that occurred after President Obama’s election in 2008, during the protests in Iran last year and the earthquakes in Haiti and elsewhere this year.”

The Library’s interest in Tweets highlights the importance of Twitter as a communication tool. The medium is a great way to gauge what is happening in the world, from pop culture to sports to current events. Electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) travels through twitter much in the same way that word spreads through a crowd or a high school. Simply glancing at the “trending topics” on Twitter can give you a good sense of the buzz of the day.

Businesses and politicians alike have already jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, realizing the potential it has to reach as mass audience in a short period of time and to capture public opinion. It makes sense that that government would want to keep a public record of reactions to events and issues that help shape our lives.

The Library will have access to tweets beginning six months after they are posted, and will update its database continuously.

So think twice before you tweet—not only because other people will be able to read your status update for years to come, but also because it is making history.

Looking for a quiet weekend getaway in Honesdale, Pennsylvania? Try staying at Schrute Farms “the number one beet-related agroturism destination in Northeastern Pennsylvania.”

The destination’s TripAdvisor Page contains a map, list of nearby restaurants and attractions, travel fair deals, 220 photos, and more than six hundred user reviews that describe personal “experiences” at Schrute Farms—both positive and negative, giving the bed and breakfast an 81% approval rating overall.

But look a little closer and you will see that Schrute Farms is not real. It is a fictional beet farm, and is the property of Dwight K. Schrute—a character on NBC’s The Office. TripAdvisor posted a warning on its site: “Message from TripAdvisor: As seen on NBC’s The Office. Have fun reading these reviews – go on, add your own! Just don’t try to book a visit here, because this fictional place doesn’t really exist.”

It seems strange that TripAdvisor would create an entire web page devoted to an imaginary destination. However, according to a March 29 article in the New York Times, TripAdvisor’s strategy has proven more smart than silly: In a 2007 episode of The Office, Dwight used TripAdvisor when he turned Schrute Farms into a bed and breakfast. Multiple characters wrote reviews of Dwight’s B&B on the show. Since then, reruns and DVD’s featuring this episode have drawn large numbers of visitors to TripAdvisor—which means more attention and more business for the travel site.

TripAdvisor first made the Schrute Farms page as a joke. Creative Office fans playing along contributed many of the detailed reviews of Schrute Farms on the site. But the effects of this product placement have gone far beyond fun for TripAdvisor.

Simply mentioning and showing the TripAdvisor brand in a hit show turned into tangible business for the company, reminding us that even fictional beet farms can have real consequences and sometimes what appear to be the silliest marketing strategies are actually the smartest.

With only three bedrooms, Schrute Farms is sure to fill up quickly. So book your reservations—or write your review—today.