If It Doesn't Seem Very Bright, That's Because It's Not.

Then again, LA Gear has never been the sharpest tool in the marketer shed.

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Twitter Tweaks, Speeding Kills, Power to the Pot -- Oh, and Phelps Too.

- Speeding could turn you into Haley Joel Osment.

- The Marijuana Policy people are boycotting Kellogg's for firing Phelps for smoking pot, even though he's been nailed in the past with a DUI. They feel this is hypocritical because pot doesn't necessarily kill; it just makes you real, real sleepy.

- So Good is boycotting Kellogg too, as is HuffPo.

- Guerrilla Comm rebrands.

- Twitter to charge brands for use. No word on how.

- Dame Edna for MAC.

- French billboard rage.

- Radiohead licensed House of Cards one of its songs to a homeless shelter for an ad, dubbed "House of Cards," that breaks this month.

'Because Nothing Says Forever Like Up to 6.4 Terabits per Second.'

A valuable lesson from Cisco: it doesn't matter who you are or what you're selling. Like Hallmark and Disney's made-for-TV movie department, you can turn any holiday to your advantage.

In this case, Cisco takes cheesy expressions of Valentine's Day love and wraps them around its ASR 9000, "the first in a new series of edge routers in nearly a decade" -- and more importantly, the fourth way to say I love you.

The video is presently circulating YouTube with FIVE out of FIVE stars! so far. It's the culmination of a months-long campaign in which pseudo-reporter Ira Pumfkin roamed Cisco's halls in pursuit of a big story. See the blog at Tech Edge Weekly (the link also appears at the end of the vid).

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50 Reasons to Watch Coraline ... and Worship W+K.

Coraline Mystery Boxes. Awesome way to personalize the Coraline experience and get bloggers gushing without doing anything super-extravagant.

From what we can tell, the boxes are filled with odds and ends, unique film memorabilia and the occasional skeletal hand -- but presentation makes them completely magical!

Watch with intestine-eating envy while the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive opens #37 out of #50 (lotsa pictures too). And Creativity Online has shots of the 50th.

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What's a Penny Good For? Making Change.

See what 1620 pennies can become -- in the span of 30 seconds! Ain't technology somethin'.

This time-lapse video is for the Million Penny Project, a group that takes up various causes (its current darling is homelessness) and solicits donations from local businesses.

The result of the short film -- an image composed entirely of pennies -- was displayed at a Miami bus stop last month to promote "Pumped for Change," an effort to raise $10,000 worth of pennies.

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Extreme Makes Its Mark in the Snow

And it's neither hot nor yellow. To spread the word about sports channel/athletic lifestyle brand Extreme, London-based CURB conducted what it calls a "branding blitz" all over the city of Big Ben.

You may have heard it snowed in London on Tuesday. That same day, CURB decided to use this fresh white slate to Extreme's advantage. By late afternoon, 350 high-profile locations were slathered in more than 2000 Extreme logos.

We've seen this type of effort before, where a city is "branded" via street stencils or stickers. But we were still impressed with the speed of concept development, approval and deployment: a couple hours, more or less, to act on the rare snow day.

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(More) Mannequins Invade Manhattan

Last Friday, with help from 180LA, Sony deployed an army of "living" mannequins across Manhattan. Chic gamines, harder around the eyeline than usual, were seen sitting at cafes, Grand Central Station and elsewhere, blogging and updating Facebook pages from their VAIO P Series devices.

The campaign also had a Fashion Week component: the dummies were dressed by designers aiming to promote their wares in conjunction with Sony's wee VAIOs.

Hmm. Plastic chicks with hot tech toys, expensive shoes and limited maneuverability. How on earth did anyone distinguish them from the other Sex and the City groupies?

OfficeMax Organizes the Sky ... and You

To promote an office organization product line spearheaded by Peter Walsh, this OfficeMax outdoor campaign wryly de-clutters crows, pigeons and seagulls -- a billboard's many friends.

Heh. Clever. Also, we like the rubber band ball. It's friendly.

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Here's Something You've Never Seen Before.

Escalator advertising! How novel.

For Norwegian airline Avinor by Medialoop/Norway.

Four Guys And A Car Wash

Oh you know you've always wanted to do this. And we're sure some of you have done it. What are we talking about?

Car wash + convertible + top down = Mini Cabrio commercial.

Yes, you read that right. Four guys hopped into a Mini Cabrio and went through a car wash with the top down. And filmed it, of course.

It's all part of a new campaign to promote the launch of the vehicle in February. We like the effort.