Promoting the installation of a swimming pool might not be the sexiest PR assignment, even if it is at Little Dix Bay, the luxury Caribbean resort envisioned by Laurance Rockefeller in 1964.

To build buzz for this new amenity, Nike Communications conceived an effort diverting attention from the actual pool itself.

"Since people read by swimming pools, we asked top publishing houses to give advance copies of books to the resort so that guests can read the books before they are available ...