AdAge and others covered the story of how Land Rover is planning to use Twitter.

Two things make this one unique.

First, Land Rover is including #hashtags ( #LRNY ) in their online and offline twitter marketing promotions. I guess you could say that #skittles was first to really do this as a brand marketing effort, but it sounds like Land Rover will take it further in terms of promoting the tags. While Land Rover is ‘pushing’ users to their tag, Skittles ‘pulled’ users with their Twiter search results page for their tag. My guess is that the Skittles strategy will be more effective but their brand is also better suited for that approach.

The second unique aspect (for a major brand) of Land Rover’s marketing on Twitter is that they are using Twittad as part of the campaign. Twittad is putting a twist on things by ‘partnering’ with existing Twitter users to leverage their followers. It sounds like they take over the users’ Twitter profile pages for a period of time and may send tweets to their followers and then the users are paid. It’s not immediately clear how the users are selected – for example, based on relevance to the topic or to maximize reach / minimize duplication, etc.

Land Rover is not likely to remain the only national marketer doing this for long, said James Eliason, CEO of Twittad, the Des Moines-based “social-media affinity network” Wunderman tapped to boost Land Rover’s launch.

Twittad may sound good at first, but it’ll be interesting to see how users respond. The model will almost certainly need to evolve in order to provide true, quantifiable value to their clients. Just because it’s inexpensive doesn’t mean it’s a good deal.