Contacts: Mitch Goldstone, President and CEO of ScanMyPhotos.com (Irvine, CA)

Ever heard of "National Photo Preservation Month"? Don't worry if you missed it this January, it's still a new concept, but proof of a rare form of retail audacity: make-it-up-as-you-go-along marketing.

National Photo Preservation Month was just the latest brainchild of Mitch Goldstone, president and CEO of a photo specialty store in Irvine, California, that has evolved, in recent years, to become the celebrated brand Scanmyphotos.com.

Goldstone wants Americans especially to send him their shoe boxes of old photographs so he can first convert the pix to digital files and then covert those files into high-margin photo books, posters, calendars, collages and Kodak Picture DVDs. And he's come up with a remarkable variety of marketing ploys to get them to do just that, even in the tumultuous last six months.