Brands take wing with flying weasel on Twitter

Adobe and British Airways scored big with this week’s viral meme. But not everyone can pull it off when newsjacking a viral meme. Sorry, @TODAYshow.

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PR, like nature itself, can be a Darwinian struggle, red in tooth and claw, with survival going to the fittest.

This week Twitter offered an object lesson in the need for quick-thinking and lightning speed both in the wild and on social media when a weasel took a ride on a flying woodpecker.

Alert brands and creative types went nuts when a London photographer caught an image of a woodpecker flying off with an apparently hungry weasel on its back. The bird eventually landed and escaped its furry tormenter.

So how did brands do in jumping on the memes? Several experts say there were successes mixed with some not-so-hot efforts.

The fun began when the photo was published and Twitter exploded with #WeaselPecker and #WoodpeckerAndWeasel hashtags. Clever image manipulators added passengers like Ellen DeGeneres and Vladimir Putin, and brands chimed in.

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