Advertising Age’s Bob Garfield makes some great points in his article “Widgets Are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren’t More Advertisers Using Them?” (Reprint) . I love his notion of using widgets to essentially package “Websites-in-a-Can” as the exodus of users to social networks such as Facebook is leading to the “the slow death of the destination website”. Garfield points to some great examples of companies using widgets to promote their brands AND provide utility including Southwest Airlines, Schick Quattro, Johnnie Walker, Backcountry.com, Nike and InStyle Magazine. Here are some of the points Garfield makes:

• Branded widgets are the refrigerator magnets of the Brave New World
• Widgets are inexpensive to distribute, free to use, and distinctly useful
• Widgets carry an ad message wherever they go
• Widget virulence may be hard to achieve

His article is definitely worth a read!