What does it take to get consumers to order flowers for their loved ones early? Clay Atchison III, president of McAdams Floral in Victoria, Texas, has tried incentives like free candy and free delivery, "but never with much success," he says. So he's taken the mere gesture of ordering flowers early and spun it into a marketing gimmick.

With the headline, "A Romantic Man Has a Valentine Week Plan," Atchison's ad campaign is designed to make heroes out of the early orderers. He tried the approach for 2007 and says it was much more successful than offering early-order incentives.

"But the salespeople really have to be 'into it'," he says. Two of his part-timers would tell male customers how their sweethearts' co-workers would be making a fuss in the office a full two days before Valentine's Day, before anyone else had even received flowers. He says they'd also emphasize that it shows he really thought ahead about her gift and it wasn't "just a last-ditch effort to cover his butt." McAdams includes a "Just Could Not Wait 'til the 14th" heart pic in the arrangement.

Atchison posted a blog about the campaign and is sending an ad along with the press release to his local paper, the Victoria Advocate.