E! Promotes Simple Life 5

If you happened to be at the beach over the holiday weekend and thought you saw celebutantes Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie parading around sedan-style in a canoe, you weren’t hallucinating.

To promote the next installment of E! reality series The Simple Life, which premieres May 28, the cable network deployed doppelgangers of Hilton and Richie around outdoor areas in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

As in the print, online and outdoor ads for the show’this time set at a summer camp’the ersatz Paris and Nicole were hoisted aloft in their canoe by a couple of buff beefcakes in swimsuits. Given Hilton’s imminent engagement at the Century Regional Detention Center in Lynwood, Calif., for violating her probation over a DUI incident, you’d think E! would shy away from any promotion that may conjure the phrase “going up the river.”

Apparently not. According to Suzanne Kolb, executive VP of marketing and communications at E! Networks, on-air spots might even poke fun at the star’s predicament, urging viewers to watch The Simple Life “no matter where you’re spending your summer.

AP