We’ve all seen TV-to-text cross-platform campaigns, but seldom with such show-biz glitz. When the eco-conscious documentary “The Cove” won an Academy award in last Sunday’s ceremonies and the team responsible went on stage to deliver their short and sweet acceptance speech, one of the producers, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign asking viewers to “text DOLPHIN to 44144”.

The instructions bring users a mobile message that directs them to ThePetitionSite.com , an online site for communal action run by Care2, where Participant Media, the production company behind “The Cove”, has set up a letter to president Obama and the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. asking to halt the slaughter of dolphins that the movie documented off the coast of Japan.

The Oscar night producers cut away from the acceptance speech and O’Connor’s sign as quickly as if he’d BabaBooied like a witless Howard Stern fan.



But nothing gets shut down completely in this age of omnipresent mobile and social media. The message got out anyway, thanks to audience members like Ellen DeGeneres. The popular talk-show host and “American Idol” judge tweeted her congratulations to the producers on March 9, two days after the Oscars, adding that “I thought it was so rude they wouldn’t show your sign” and posting the same text and short code to her 4.4 million Twitter followers.

And even before that kind of star power was brought to bear, Waterfall Mobile, the platform behind the mobile campaign for Participant, reported that the split-second reveal of the SMS code on Sunday night resulted in a doubling of signatures on the petition site, from about 38,000 before O’Barry’s guerilla move to about 71,000 right afterward.

Now, thanks to the trailing tail of buzz from folks like Ellen D., the Care2 site has received 112,000 signatures—three times as many as it had prior to Oscar night. When the petition reaches 250,000, the sponsors Takepart.com/The Cove and SavJapandolphins.org say they will present the letter to both executives.

In the mean time, the producers of the Academy Awards show have come in for a fair share of criticism for being so quick to cut away from O’Barry’s heart-felt gesture of passion and activism. As one blog commenter put it, “Three hours of stale jokes but no more than 30 seconds to stop animal abuse?”

We’ve all seen TV-to-text cross-platform campaigns, but seldom with such show-biz glitz. When the eco-conscious documentary “The Cove” won an Academy award in last Sunday’s ceremonies and the team responsible went on stage to deliver their short and sweet acceptance speech, one of the producers, Ric O’Barry, held up a sign asking viewers to “text DOLPHIN to 44144”.

The instructions bring users a mobile message that directs them to ThePetitionSite.com , an online site for communal action run by Care2, where Participant Media, the production company behind “The Cove”, has set up a letter to president Obama and the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. asking to halt the slaughter of dolphins that the movie documented off the coast of Japan.

The Oscar night producers cut away from the acceptance speech and O’Connor’s sign as quickly as if he’d BabaBooied like a witless Howard Stern fan.



But nothing gets shut down completely in this age of omnipresent mobile and social media. The message got out anyway, thanks to audience members like Ellen DeGeneres. The popular talk-show host and “American Idol” judge tweeted her congratulations to the producers on March 9, two days after the Oscars, adding that “I thought it was so rude they wouldn’t show your sign” and posting the same text and short code to her 4.4 million Twitter followers.

And even before that kind of star power was brought to bear, Waterfall Mobile, the platform behind the mobile campaign for Participant, reported that the split-second reveal of the SMS code on Sunday night resulted in a doubling of signatures on the petition site, from about 38,000 before O’Barry’s guerilla move to about 71,000 right afterward.

Now, thanks to the trailing tail of buzz from folks like Ellen D., the Care2 site has received 112,000 signatures—three times as many as it had prior to Oscar night. When the petition reaches 250,000, the sponsors Takepart.com/The Cove and SavJapandolphins.org say they will present the letter to both executives.

In the mean time, the producers of the Academy Awards show have come in for a fair share of criticism for being so quick to cut away from O’Barry’s heart-felt gesture of passion and activism. As one blog commenter put it, “Three hours of stale jokes but no more than 30 seconds to stop animal abuse?”