Top 10 Valentine's Day tech/celeb love-ins
Alicia Keys, Stephen Fry and, er, Big Bird make friends with mega-corporations
Companies love celebrities to help give them credibility and provide a familiar face to market their brands, and celebrities love companies for freebies, boosting their presence and, of course, cash.
It was no surprise then that when BlackBerry unveiled its BB10 operating system out came Alicia Keys, spouting some nonsense about having a fling with an iPhone before moving back to BlackBerry.
Not only this, but Keys became the "creative innovator director strategist" or "future imaginer" or something like that, for BlackBerry, as the love-in between firms and celebrity fans continues apace.
This got us thinking about some of the other bizarre tech-celeb love-ins we've seen in recent years as we head towards that most corporate and contrived of all marketing invented days - Valentine's Day.
10. Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld hit it off, sort of
One of the most beloved US comics of all time, Jerry Seinfeld's eponymous show Seinfeld was a huge hit, with the star reportedly earning $5m per episode during its heyday. It's scary to imagine what Microsoft must have paid to use him in its adverts then.
The bizarre spots featured Seinfeld and that other renowned comic actor Bill Gates riffing on shoes and other hilarious comedic ideas, all in the guise of selling Redmond's dog-awful software update Vista.
The public didn't get it and they were soon canned, but the legendary adverts live on in our hearts, and more usefully YouTube, so we can relive them in all their awkward, stilted, glory.
Top 10 Valentine's Day tech/celeb love-ins
Alicia Keys, Stephen Fry and, er, Big Bird make friends with mega-corporations
9. Microsoft woos Stephen Fry from Apple
As one of the most devoted Apple lovers out there the chances of Stephen Fry appearing at a Microsoft event to sing the firm's praises were as likely as Steve Jobs declaring he loved Flash.
Yet, at the grand Windows Phone unveiling, that's just what happened as the QI host and Blackadder actor strode onto stage and professed an appreciation for the folks at Redmond for their latest innovation.
"Now, they get it: that all human beings are human beings first. You don't judge the machines you use, or the houses you live in by listing their functions. The first thing you do is say how you feel about your office; when you buy a house, you do it essentially on the feeling." Quite.
It was a good coup for Microsoft, certainly better than Seinfeld. One for the Brits, we think.
8. Jessica Alba talks up Windows Phone 8
The love for Stephen Fry clearly didn't last long, though, as the folks at Redmond brought out the more alluring visage of Jessica Alba to show off some of the new child-friendly features on the Windows Phone 8 system.
Alba and Windows Phone chief Joe Belfiore traded some polite chit-chat before she delivered some top quality marketing by explaining how the Kid's Corner features lets her know her children are using her phone safely and without the risk of buying expensive apps.
In return she got some good free air time for her own baby company, Honest Co. Well, as they saying goes, you scratch my back...
Top 10 Valentine's Day tech/celeb love-ins
Alicia Keys, Stephen Fry and, er, Big Bird make friends with mega-corporations
7. Polaroid snaps up Lady Gaga
As the holder of one of the world's most popular Twitter accounts, Lady Gaga must have seem a good choice for ailing camera company Polaroid when it snapped it her up as creative director.
To date, though, no products designed with Lady Gaga's involvement have been seen on the shelves, with the GL20 that was shown off at CES in 2011, nowhere to be seen. Perhaps because it looked ridiculous.
Clearly, the folks at Polaroid must have had to keep a poker face when she unveiled it.
6. ZTE plumps for brains over beauty with Professor Green
Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE has lofty European expansion plans, with the company saying it wants to be a top three player in the market in the next few years.
For that reason we weren't too surprised when it announced it would be mounting a massive celebrity endorsed advertising and marketing campaign.
Obviously aware hippity-hop is all the rage in tech at the moment, ZTE felt inspired to copy HTC and use a rapper as its poster boy.
However, where HTC buddied up with Dr Dre in a deal to use the superstar's Beats audio tech on their phones, ZTE chose to go for Professor Green as its poster child.
We're not sure if Green's impressive professor title will be of any benefit - what's he actually a professor of? - but he does at least make ZTE slightly cooler... we think.
5. Megan Fox saves dolphins with Acer
Megan Fox is hot. Acer not so much. So it makes sense that the company would pair up with the Transformers starlet to try and make their functional line of PCs sexy.
However, rather than doing something lame and obvious like getting Megan to wear a bikini and pose with a laptop, Acer had far more bold, and surreal, ideas.
They had her head off to some labs to use her laptop to decode the language of dolphins, with impressive results. You can watch this bizarre piece of advertising below.
Top 10 Valentine's Day tech/celeb love-ins
Alicia Keys, Stephen Fry and, er, Big Bird make friends with mega-corporations
4. BlackBerry backed by Alicia Keys
For those believing a BlackBerry is for corporate use, and iPhones and Android devices are for fun and games, think again. BlackBerry is now "cool" again - well as much as it ever was.
Certainly, the addition of Alicia Keys to its management team as creative director is a nice coup for the firm. She admitted she once traded in the platform for a sexier, younger model, but no longer will she be a two-timer. Now Keys is back with Blackberry, and BlackBerry alone.
While it's common for companies to give celebrities responsibilities in their companies, or to invite them to talk at their events, Keys' position as creative director may require a bit of work.
There's one of two possible outcomes, as far as we can see. She'll either lose her cool image, or she may just possibly be the next Steve Jobs. Certainly, Keys is a good fit for the brand, not least because BlackBerry is the only firm persisting with the use of keys on its smartphones.
3. Bask in the glory of Symantec and Snoop Dogg
You may recall Snoop Dogg. He was a rapper and actor with a habit of disappearing in a puff of smoke.
He's called Snoop Lion now, and we can't help but wonder whether this incident had something to do with the name change and Jamaican hiatus.
Anyway, back in October 2012 Snoop Dogg was rapping about IT security and Symantec. It was horrific, we watched it through tightly laced fingers. Why would Snoop do this? we wondered.. For the mon-izzle?
Anyway, the affair asked people to make raps that included words and references to the IT security industry. These included "Identity theft, malware, spam, and credit card fraud".
If the idea of people rapping about the sort of thing isn't bad enough, Symantec had some vulnerability issues with the associated website that were pointed out by a third party.
Top 10 Valentine's Day tech/celeb love-ins
Alicia Keys, Stephen Fry and, er, Big Bird make friends with mega-corporations
2. Will.i.am shows how it's done with Intel
The celebrity tie-up that's really lasted, though, is that of Intel and Will.i.am. The two have been together for as long as anyone can remember, well about 2011 and the Black Eyed Peas frontman is rarely off-stage when Intel makes a splash.
With his futuristic-fashion styles and mad beats and rhymes, Intel chief executive Paul Otellini no doubt saw himself in the maverick that is Will.i.am and appointed him director of creative innovation.
Since then it's not clear where exactly Intel have benefitted from his expertise in these fields, but it must be somewhere. The only worry for Will.i.am is that Otellini is stepping down at Intel from May. Will his replacement look as favourable on the chosen one?
1. Qualcomm delivers epic CES keynote with Big Bird
For its first keynote at CES after years of Microsoft domination Qualcomm knew it had to pull out all the stops to make an impression and boy, it didn't let us done.
Among a raft of weird and wonderful on stage guests - including Steve Ballmer (not him again!) and archbishop Desmond Tutu - the folks from a company that makes processors for mobile phones also managed to rustle up Sesame Street legend Big Bird.
Let's just repeat that. Big Bird, from Sesame Street, appeared on stage at CES for a mobile chip manufacturer. The bizarreness of event captured headlines across the world and has certainly set the bar high for future celebrity endorsements.