Howie Horowitz is off to camp tomorrow, but instead of paddling a canoe, the 24-year-old will be swilling beer and munching potato chips while live cameras capture his every burp and bite for the Internet.
The point? It's called "brand camp" -- a sort of reality TV show crossed with a consumer focus group. And it may just be the easiest $200 Mr. Horowitz and 19 other twentysomethings ever make.
"They said there'd be beer there, so that's a bonus," said Mr. Horowitz, a freelance copywriter in Thornhill, Ont., who isn't sure what else to expect from the weekend with a bunch of strangers. "We were kind of left in the dark."
Brand camp is the brainchild of ad agency BBDO Canada Inc. of Toronto. By putting a group of young people in a converted warehouse for 48 hours -- most focus groups last only an hour or two -- it hopes to glean consumer insights and pass the information along to youth-oriented clients.
"We want to understand what young urban professionals want to eat and drink, because these are the people that set the trends for the rest of the Canadian population," said Neale Halliday, head of planning at BBDO.
Participants will be divided into groups and asked to develop proposals for new products in categories including salty snack foods, sweet snack foods, soft drinks and beer.
To help them brainstorm, BBDO has flown in food and beverage products from the United States, Europe and Asia.
"You're probably going to get 100 zany ideas that you could never execute but if you get one gem out of it, it's worth it," said Mike Fyshe, BBDO's president.
"It's a very unusual way of gaining insight."
Camp will culminate with group presentations to air live on the camp Web site ( )at 3:30 p.m. (EST) this Sunday. (The site is expected to be operational today or tomorrow.)
Footage from the rest of the weekend will be edited and shown on the site later.
With brand camp, BBDO is clearly hoping to ride the coattails of reality shows such as Survivor and Big Brother.
It plans to generate interest by posting on the site biographies and photos of the participants, many of whom were chosen after interviews on the street, in cafés and in nightclubs.
The information it gleans will be passed on to such clients as Pepsi-Cola Canada Beverages, Hostess Frito-Lay Co. and Wrigley Canada.
But unlike Survivor, nobody will be kicked out of brand camp or forced to eat a dead rat.
Instead, campers will be treated to catered meals while professional designers assist them using sophisticated computer graphics, video and animation equipment. The biggest hardship: Campers will have to sleep in a trailer parked outside.
Mr. Horowitz is prepared. Just like real camp, he's bringing his own sleeping bag and pillow.
John Heinzl