People have been getting really creative with self-promotion lately!
The title's a bit pretentious tho... In the history of photography? I'm not sure.
I'm in business development and they give us a number of fancy "door openers" to try and gain access to long-time "hold-outs." On a matter of principle, I tend to not use any of them. The cheesiest thing are the helicopters they give us. They're remote controlled, and actually pretty cool. They have our companies logo on the side. The idea is to send them the helicopter and let them know that you'd be glad to bring the controller with you to the meeting. It's extortion. I refuse to do it, but many of my friends with children love the model helicopters I give them :) We are also given starbucks gift cards. Those I do use. I tend to give them to receptionists etc. -people that normally don't get their due. But, I have to say that the idea of a "newgreen" action figure is intriguing.