Last weekend, I took my granddaughter home to her mom and dad. As we started back toward the Flathead on a balmy fall afternoon, the Mrs and I stopped for a little ice cream at Baskin-Robbins.

Down in the corner of the ice cream case were a blue flavor and a red flavor (thankfully not colored that way). One was McCain-themed, one was Obama-themed, each with a clever description of the recipe.

I didn’t see a scorecard anywhere, and it really didn’t matter. They put the effort into using the news in their marketing, and in fact, in their product.

Time is running out for your effort in this area, at least for this time around. If you don’t have time to do it now, put a reminder several weeks in advance of the next election.

If you do have time now, use these examples to come up with a campaign IN ADVANCE so it’ll be ready next time.

No matter what, there’s always news that you can use. Just crack open a USA Today or cnn.com, or whatever your favorite (or least-favorite) news delivery source is. Use what they give you.

Baskin-Robbins’ payoff on Google so far is 13,300 search results for “Baskin Robbins Flavor Debate”. 13,330 discussions about their business. How many ice cream cones did that sell?

Have a little fun with the news and yes, profit from it.