We’re a nation that enjoys controversy: public option healthcare or not, Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, Jay or Coco, dogs or cats. We enjoy choosing up sides, whether or not we have anything to gain.

Now a promotion has tapped into one of the great unresolved issues: tissues. The bathroom variety, to be exact. In a phrase, Cottonelle wants to know, America: Should the toilet paper go over the roll or under?

The Thunderdome for this great debate is a Web site, http://www.cottonellerollpoll.com/, that lets visitors cast their vote and then offers a surprisingly full-featured look at how the voting is going both state by state and nationwide. The site also offers video clips assembled by street teams and user comments collected, 140 characters at a time, from an app within the site itself and posted by state.

As for getting the word out, if you haven’t seen the TV spots running in prime time, you can also catch those at the Web site. In fact, it’s got a tricky little feature that acts as a “Roll Poll Throwdown” in video form. You can click on one of four “debaters” on either the Over or Under side, and then click someone from the opposing team. Run the first video clip, and the second launches when it’s done.

But then, if you live in Chicago or (I have to imagine) other major metros, you probably don’t need the TV spots, because the Roll Poll campaign has been taken to the streets. I found this out when leaving work the other evening as I confronted this at a nearby bus shelter.

At first I thought it was an android from some new Pixar movie. But no, it’s a running tab of (I guess) the local vote in the poll. I don’t know if the voting function works; I know I spent a few minutes pushing the lights as hard as I could without affecting the vote count in any way. Still, it grabs your attention.

And while this isn’t my photo, it is the el train I rode into work this morning, I swear.

Cottonelle is grabbing the attention of one specific constituency with this promotion: mommy bloggers. In partnership with the Mom Bloggers Club network of some 7,700 sites, Cottonelle offered a month’s worth of free TP to the first 200 bloggers to launch Roll Poll reader contests on their sites.

Bloggers were asked to put a Cottonelle badge on their site, place a direct link to the Roll Poll in one of their posts and then to tel readers that by leaving a comment on that post, they’d be eligible to win one of 10 Cottonelle gift baskets in a random drawing to take place on January 29.

Oh, yes, in light of recent rulings about testimonials and compensation, they were also instructed to tell their readers that they stood to win a prize for running the contest.

There’s no word yet from Cottonelle or parent Kimberly-Clark on how many people have voted. But the national vote is currently running 73% t 27% in favor of the Over faction. Most of the state races are about equally slanted in favor of the front-loading technique. The exceptions, as far as my research took me, are California (68% underhanded, as of last night) and Connecticut, where 60% of voters favor the back side—so to speak.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. Thank you for noticing.

Hey, it ain’t brain surgery. But it is one little, almost textbook-trivial example of how a brand can create a respectable stir by simply asking itself what people care about and deal with in their daily lives—and what they want to share with others. Except for the 10 gift basket winners (and the 200 mommy bloggers), nobody’s getting anything out of this except the chance to chose their side and learn a little something about how their neighbors act in the most private room in their house.

Maybe they get a little taste of rebellion too. Even though I feel there ought to be a law mandating not only the Over position for everyone everywhere but a further corollary requiring that replacement rolls be properly “started” for easy access, I voted with the Unders. More than once.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for the Under, dog.

We’re a nation that enjoys controversy: public option healthcare or not, Team Edward vs. Team Jacob, Jay or Coco, dogs or cats. We enjoy choosing up sides, whether or not we have anything to gain.

Now a promotion has tapped into one of the great unresolved issues: tissues. The bathroom variety, to be exact. In a phrase, Cottonelle wants to know, America: Should the toilet paper go over the roll or under?

The Thunderdome for this great debate is a Web site, http://www.cottonellerollpoll.com/, that lets visitors cast their vote and then offers a surprisingly full-featured look at how the voting is going both state by state and nationwide. The site also offers video clips assembled by street teams and user comments collected, 140 characters at a time, from an app within the site itself and posted by state.

As for getting the word out, if you haven’t seen the TV spots running in prime time, you can also catch those at the Web site. In fact, it’s got a tricky little feature that acts as a “Roll Poll Throwdown” in video form. You can click on one of four “debaters” on either the Over or Under side, and then click someone from the opposing team. Run the first video clip, and the second launches when it’s done.

But then, if you live in Chicago or (I have to imagine) other major metros, you probably don’t need the TV spots, because the Roll Poll campaign has been taken to the streets. I found this out when leaving work the other evening as I confronted this at a nearby bus shelter.

At first I thought it was an android from some new Pixar movie. But no, it’s a running tab of (I guess) the local vote in the poll. I don’t know if the voting function works; I know I spent a few minutes pushing the lights as hard as I could without affecting the vote count in any way. Still, it grabs your attention.

And while this isn’t my photo, it is the el train I rode into work this morning, I swear.

Cottonelle is grabbing the attention of one specific constituency with this promotion: mommy bloggers. In partnership with the Mom Bloggers Club network of some 7,700 sites, Cottonelle offered a month’s worth of free TP to the first 200 bloggers to launch Roll Poll reader contests on their sites.

Bloggers were asked to put a Cottonelle badge on their site, place a direct link to the Roll Poll in one of their posts and then to tel readers that by leaving a comment on that post, they’d be eligible to win one of 10 Cottonelle gift baskets in a random drawing to take place on January 29.

Oh, yes, in light of recent rulings about testimonials and compensation, they were also instructed to tell their readers that they stood to win a prize for running the contest.

There’s no word yet from Cottonelle or parent Kimberly-Clark on how many people have voted. But the national vote is currently running 73% t 27% in favor of the Over faction. Most of the state races are about equally slanted in favor of the front-loading technique. The exceptions, as far as my research took me, are California (68% underhanded, as of last night) and Connecticut, where 60% of voters favor the back side—so to speak.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. Thank you for noticing.

Hey, it ain’t brain surgery. But it is one little, almost textbook-trivial example of how a brand can create a respectable stir by simply asking itself what people care about and deal with in their daily lives—and what they want to share with others. Except for the 10 gift basket winners (and the 200 mommy bloggers), nobody’s getting anything out of this except the chance to chose their side and learn a little something about how their neighbors act in the most private room in their house.

Maybe they get a little taste of rebellion too. Even though I feel there ought to be a law mandating not only the Over position for everyone everywhere but a further corollary requiring that replacement rolls be properly “started” for easy access, I voted with the Unders. More than once.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for the Under, dog.