Geese Get Snubbed, Enact Internet Retribution

Fame is fickle. Snubbed at a casting call for a recent Air Canada ad, some disgruntled geese launch a weird online campaign that covers all the requisite Web 2.0 bases:

Myspace
Flickr
Youtube
Friendster
LinkedIn
AllRecipes (This was probably going the extra mile.)

Oh, and in case you wondered what the point was, it's for a contest to win free tickets. Woo-hoo. The campaign, entitled The Great Migration, was orchestrated by Marketel.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Illuminate Brazil, Stage Rescue

Beamvertising is back and bringing the Ninja Turtles to life outside the big screen.

For the Brazilian film Tartarugas Ninja, the beamvertised Turtles enacted a mini-rescue against a building, utilizing its actual dimensions, which made the show that much more realistic. We admit it came as a comfort to us to watch them in live action. We have always wanted them to be real.

Proper Dress Increases, CBS Goes Online, Holiday Squeaks

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Dressing properly pays off. USAToday.com's recent face lift has increased registrations by 380 percent.

- CBS has created an online distribution network for its programming. Outlets include AOL, Joost, Bebo, MSN Video, TV.com, Comcast, Brightcove, SlingMedia, Netvibes, Veoh. Programming will include with a 90/10 revenue split to CBS.

- BudTV ain't cookin'. Traffic has dropped 40 percent since its launch in February.

- Elana Centor sat down with Fallon copywriter Paula Maki Biondich to discuss her work on the latest Holiday Inn commercial in which bloggers and WiFi are celebrated. That squeak at the end? No idea.

- Verizon has jumped on the Adwalker train and is using the "human TVs" to promote its FiOS service.

NBC 18-49 Rating Plummet, Rovion Sucks, Creative Wanted, Adidas Tags

- Yikes. Reminiscent of that "where the hell did all the 18-34 men Go" trauma of a year of two ago, MediaWeek's Marc Berman reports NBC's adult 18-49 demo plummeted 24 percent to a 2.2/9 compared to last year representing the lowest since September 1991. Hmm. Ratings glitch?

- The Web Marketing Association has begun the 2007 Call for Entries for the 11th annual international WebAward competition. Check it out if you can stand the insanely annoying Rovion video that incessantly appears in the lower right hand corner of the site every time you visit. This is a technology that should get shot in the head. Along with in text advertising and PayPerPost.

- CreateAthon 2007 wants 24 hours of time from agencies to dedicate their time and talent to non profits.More info here.

- Kleenex has debuted a new oval-shaped package and a program that lets people design their own tissue box for $4.99.

- While it feels like the whole graffiti as advertising trend is so yesterday, apparently, it's still a thing and Adidas has launched a project whereby graf artists are tagging a New York subway car.

Baltica Sets Beers Astride Metro Poles

Genevieve at VLAN points us to this effort to win Baltica beer drinkers on the metro. Maybe we're delusional but there seems to be something totally sexual about the way the beers are perched. Like ... do they move?

New Social Networking Site Victim of Boston-Style Marketing Stunt

Not that we need another but if you feel you simply don't have enough online personas, there's another place for you to place one, B4class. Created by 18-year old North Quicy, MA resident Sofia Loginova, the site's unfortunate claim to fame, to the chagrin of Loginova, will now be yet another Boston-based marketing stunt gone wrong even though Loginova had nothing to do with it. This morning, unattended backpacks were found in Newton North High School which prompted a Aqua Teen Hunger Force-style lock down until it was determined the backpacks contained only promotional references to Loginova's B4class.

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Scion Wants Us All 2 B Square Really, Really Badly

For their ongoing Want 2 B Square campaign (whose Boy Meets Girl video we're still fawning over), Scion throws out the last of its six worlds, The Beat. It's music-themed and contains a Dance Dance Revolution-type game, which we like but are ashamed of liking.

We've grown fond of Want 2 B Square and are even starting to think the xB's aren't bad on the eyes. But sentimentality aside, Scion has done a good job of using alternative forms of marketing and subculture inclusions to push the weird customizable vehicle. Which is more than what we can say for some.

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Floating Balloons With Puma Goodies Mezmerize

We apologize for not highlighting earlier when it occurred in mid-March. We meant to. really, we did. Somehow it got lost in the pile of "publish me!" requests filling up our inbox. Usually, we just let these missed pieces dies a happy death but this work from ADK and 60 Layers of Cake for Puma's Travel Golf collection is too mesmerizingly beautiful to just toss in the trash can.

On March 17 in Antwerp, 2,000 golf ball shaped helium balloons attached to Puma golf items were sent aloft to float down Meir, a busy shopping street as well as near taxi stands, train and bus stations. People were free to take the items. Labels were attached to the balloons that described the collection and directed people who grabbed them to the Puma website. The effort aimed to convey the "packable, portable and playable" qualities of the line.

Several images of the work can be viewed here, here and here. You can also drink in the beauty of this "Travel Light" campaign in a video here.

Coin Operated Man Does Research for MS

Think your cube sucks? The mad scientists at Cummins & Partners create a coin-operated scientist to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis Australia.

A man in a white lab coat sits slumped and virtually paralytic inside a booth until curious onlookers pop some coins inside. The scientist then gets to work on little experiments until he feels like the money has run out. In theory, this generates a sense of immediate gratification over having donated X amount to grander scales of research.

The man in the cube is a volunteer who sits and performs science experiments meant for 10-year-olds and up, on-call, for three hour increments. Talk about playing lab rat. And we thought this guy had it bad.

We often wish we could shrink down various scientists, philosophers, slam poets and ex-lovers to keep in little shoebox habitats for use as-needed. This kind of reminds us of that. Really - wouldn't it be awesome to have a coin-operated man just hanging out in the living room? How completely jealous would your friends be?!

IFAW Lets Letters Linger for Endangered Life

The International Fund for Animal Welfare launches a campaign under the banner "Will only words remain?" The idea is that if we don't start taking care of our furry little friends, we'll lose all but the memory. To correspond with this they're spreading actual words spelling out endangered animals. Here's a video of them creating a zebra-shaped zebra crossing in Amsterdam.

Unless they're also leaving educational brochures or at least a sad but eloquent zebra mascot nearby, we're not sure it quite gets the message across. And we feel a little guilty about thinking it would be kind of fun to walk across the word "zebra" - you know, it would be like playing hopscotch or walking down a warped crosswalk. There's something so Through the Looking Glass about that.